Carol Shaw facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Carol Shaw
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Shaw in 1983
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| Born | 1955 (age 70–71) |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley (MA) |
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Carol Shaw is a famous American video game designer. She is known for creating many early video games. Her most famous game is River Raid (1982) for the Atari 2600. She was one of the first women to design video games. She worked at Atari, Inc. and Activision.
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Early Life and Learning About Computers
Carol Shaw was born in 1955. She grew up in Palo Alto, California. Her father was a mechanical engineer. He worked at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. As a child, Carol enjoyed playing with her brother's model train set. She continued this hobby even in college. She was also very good at mathematics.
Carol first used a computer in high school. She found out she could play text-based games on it. This sparked her interest in computers. She went to the University of California, Berkeley. There, she earned degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Building Games at Atari
After finishing her master's degree in 1978, Carol joined Atari, Inc.. She became a Microprocessor Software Engineer. Her job was to create games for the Atari VCS. This console was later renamed the Atari 2600.
Her first published game was 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe in 1978. She also made Video Checkers (1980). Carol helped with other games too. These included Super Breakout and Othello. Her co-workers thought she was an amazing programmer. They said she was great at making the tricky parts of games work.
Carol also worked on projects for the Atari 8-bit computers. She helped write the Atari BASIC Reference Manual. She also developed a programmable Calculator application.
Creating Hits at Activision
Carol left Atari in 1980. She worked at Tandem Computers for a short time. Then, she joined Activision in 1982. Her first game there was River Raid (1982). This game was for the Atari 2600. It was inspired by an arcade game called Scramble.
River Raid became a huge success for Activision. It also brought Carol a lot of recognition. She also created Happy Trails (1983) for the Intellivision. She also helped bring River Raid to other Atari computers. Carol left Activision in 1984.
Life After Game Development
In 1984, Carol returned to Tandem Computers. She decided to retire early in 1990. The success of River Raid helped her achieve this. After retiring, she did some volunteer work.
In 2017, Carol received a special honor. She got the Industry Icon Award at The Game Awards 2017. In the same year, she gave her gaming items to a museum. These included her games, boxes, and designs. They are now at the Strong National Museum of Play.
Personal Life
Carol Shaw lives in California. She married Ralph Merkle in 1983. Ralph is a researcher in cryptography and nanotechnology. They are interested in cryopreservation.
Games Designed by Carol Shaw
Here are some of the games Carol Shaw designed:
- Atari 2600
- 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe (Atari, 1978)
- Othello (Atari, 1978) (with Ed Logg)
- Video Checkers (Atari, 1980)
- Super Breakout (Atari, 1981) (with Nick Turner)
- River Raid (Activision, 1982)
- Intellivision
- Happy Trails (Activision, 1983)
- Atari 8-bit computers
- Atari BASIC (Atari, 1979-1981) (technical writing)
- Atari Calculator (Atari, 1979-1981)
- River Raid (Activision, 1983) (port from 2600)
- Unreleased Games
- Polo, Atari 2600 (Atari, 1978)
See also
In Spanish: Carol Shaw para niños
