Atari V.I.P. 'g...m'

GROTH, DENNIS DALE

Atari's vice-president under Ray Kassar; both were invested for insider trading in 1982.

(actual picture, 2004)

JOBS, STEVEN

Steve Jobs (employee #40) was hired by Nolan Bushnell to create 'Breakout'. Jobs calls his friend Steve Wozniak and together they design the game in five days. Bushnell pays Jobs $5,000. Jobs pays $350 to Wozniak and takes sole credit for 'Breakout'. Years later they are founding 'Apple Computers'. Rumours say that their first Apple prototype mostly consisted of Atari parts.

Steve Wozniak and Steven Jobs

KAPLAN, LARRY

Programmer of games like 'KABOOM!', 'Air Sea Battle', 'Brain Games' and 'Bowling'.

KITCHEN, GARY

Programmer of games like 'Keystone Kapers', 'Pressure Cooker', 'Space Jockey' and 'Donkey Kong'.

KITCHEN, STEVE

Programmer of the game 'Space Shuttle' for 'Activision'.

KEENAN, JOE

Because there is no competition available at that time, Nolan and his friend Joe Keenan are founding 'Kee Games' to artificially provide competition for Atari.
In 1974 Atari and Kee Games 'merge' and Joe Keenan becomes President of Atari.

(Joe Keenan)

KASSAR, RAYMOND

Raymond Kassar became Atari's president in 1978 after Nolan Bushnell sold the company for $28,000,000 to Warner Communications, Inc. in 1976!
Ray Kassar wanted Atari to compete against Apple in the home computer market (Apple IIe).
The new game console chip set (later used in Atari's '5200' for what it was intended from the beginning) was turned over to Atari's brand new home computer division and became Atari's 8-bit chip set!
Kassar wasn't very beloved at Atari's, because he took much of the early-days spirit off the company. He turned Atari into a 'real' professional company.
Raymond Kassar is invested for insider trading together with Dennis Groth in 1982...

KAY, DR. ALAN CURTIS

After leaving 'Xerox PARC' ('Palo Alto Research Center'), Dr. Alan Curtis Kay became chief scientist of Atari and head of the Atari 'Advanced Research Labs'. He later left Atari to work for 'Apple Computers' and later on for 'Disney'.
From 1967 to 1968 Kay also has been involved in designing the 'ARPANET', forerunner of the internet.
Dr. Alan Curtis Kay now, as of 13th May 2005, is president of 'Viewpoints Research Institute, Inc.'

KOBLE, DENNIS

Dennis Koble has been programmer at 'Imagic'. He designed games like 'Atlantis', 'Trick Shot' and 'Shootin' Gallery'.

LOGG, ED

Ed Logg was one of the early programmers at Atari. He programmed coin-op smash hits like 'Super Breakout', 'Video Pinball', 'Asteroids' and 'Centipede'. The only game he designed for the 2600 was 'Othello'. After the break-up of Atari, he took his talents to 'Atari Games Corporation'.

LUBAR, DAVID R.

David was programmer of games like 'Bumper Bash', 'Fantastic Voyage', 'My Golf' and 'River Raid II'.

MATHIESON, JOHN

Back in 1986, John Mathieson, together with Martin Brennan, founded a company called 'Flare'. They started development for a new-generation video-game console: the 'Jaguar'. Later Atari, together with Brennan and Mathieson, founded 'Flare II' to finish the project.
Later on, John started working at a company called 'VM Labs', a company with many former Atari employees (Martin Brennan, Jeff Minter, Bill Rehbock) that helped develop and distribute the Jaguar. 'VM Labs' created the 'Nuon', a specialised chipset for DVD players.
John now works at 'NVidia', as well as Bill Rehbock.

MAURER, RICHARD ('RICK')

Richard Maurer programmed 'Maze Craze' and the smash hit 'Space Invaders' for the Atari 2600.

MILLER, ALAN

Co-founder of Activision (together with Bob Whitehead) and programmer of games like 'Ice Hockey', 'Tennis', 'Checkers' (all for Activision) and 'Surround', 'Basketball', 'Hangman' (all for Atari). Together with Bob Whitehead and Alan Miller he later on founded 'Accolade'.

MILLER, LARRY

Programmer of games like 'Enduro' and 'Spider Fighter'.

MILLER, RICHARD

In 1992, Richard Miller was Vice-President with Atari's R&D. At this time he was working in England, developing the Atari Transputer Workstation.
After Atari had bought 'Flare II', he helped developing the Atari Jaguar together with Martin Brennan and John Mathieson.

MINER, JAY GLENN

Supervisor of Atari's project 'Stella', the prototype version of the Atari (VCS) 2600.
Miner died on June 20th 1994.

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