Steve Bristow, who worked at Atari during its golden age, died Sunday.
Bristow helped develop some of Atari's early arcade games, such as Indy 800, and developed Tank for Kee Games. He also worked with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell to conceptualize Breakout, a game that would be built by a young Atari employee named Steve Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak.
He also helped form Kee Games, which was comprised of defectors from Atari. It was later revealed that Kee was actually a wholly-owned subsidiary of Atari. After the two companies merged, Bristow oversaw Atari's Coin Engineering and Electronic Board Game Division. He eventually the plant manager for the pinball division before being moved to VP of Engineering.
Bristow was with Atari during the development of the Atari VCS, later known as the Atari 2600. "The original rule on the chip design was ‘Can it play Tank, Pong, and a driving game?" Bristow told Retro Gamer.
Marty Goldberg, author of Atari Inc.: Business is Fun , broke the news on the Atari Museum Facebook page.
"His time and accomplishments (and all the fun he brought us) at Atari that are the reason we're all here," Goldberg wrote, adding, "he will be sorely missed."
An important player and innovator in the hobby we all love, the hobby that brings us here today, his impact cannot be overstated. Bristow was 65.
