Dona Bailey

Dona Bailey co-created the arcade video game Centipede in 1981.

Dona Bailey is an American game programmer and educator who, along with Ed Logg in 1981, created the arcade video game Centipede.[1][2]

As a young programmer Bailey was hired by General Motors and trained in assembly language programming. She worked there for two years on displays,[3] and microprocessor-based cruise control systems.[4] She became interested in Space Invaders and the world of arcade games, another application of the work she was doing at GM.[3] She found out that Atari was using the same microprocessor in its games.[2]

In 1980, Bailey joined Atari's coin-op division, where she was the only woman.[4] In an interview Bailey recalled that Atari had a notebook of possible game ideas at the time. Of the 30 or so entries the only one without "lasering or frying things" was a short description of a bug winding down the screen. "It didn't seem bad to shoot a bug".[5]

Bailey left Atari in 1982 and went to work at Videa (later renamed Sente Technologies), founded by three former Atari employees.[1] In 2007, she was the keynote speaker at the Women in Games International Conference.[3] Bailey holds M.Ed. and M.A. degrees and taught as a faculty member in the department of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock[6] until her retirement.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Krueger, Anne (March 1983). "Welcome to the Club". Video Games. 1 (6): 51–54, 81. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
  2. 1 2 Ortutay, Barbara (30 June 2012). "Woman behind 'Centipede' recalls game icon's birth". Yahoo! Finance. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 10 March 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 Alexander, Leigh (27 August 2007). "The Original Gaming Bug: 'Centipede' Creator Dona Bailey". Gamasutra. Retrieved 3 April 2015.
  4. 1 2 Kent, Steven L. (2001). The Ultimate History of Video Games: from Pong to Pokemon and beyond...the story behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the world. Prima. pp. 160–162. ISBN 978-0-7615-3643-7.
  5. ↑ Ortutay, Barbara (29 June 2012). "Iconic Atari turns 40, tries to stay relevant". Yahoo! News. Associated Press.
  6. ↑ "Faculty - Department of Rhetoric and Writing". University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Archived from the original on 10 March 2014. Retrieved 15 November 2012.

Further reading

  • Brathwaite, Brenda (3 August 2007). "Q&A: How Centipede Co-Creator Bailey Got The Bug". Gamasutra. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
  • Hester, Larry (3 July 2012). "Interview: Dona Bailey Speaks On Creating 'Centipede' And It's Evolution". Complex. Archived from the original on 5 April 2015. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
  • Perry, Tekla; Carol Truxal; Paul Wallich (1982). "Video games: the electronic big bang" (PDF). IEEE Spectrum. 19 (12): 20–33. doi:10.1109/MSPEC.1982.6366911. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-11-07. Part 2: doi:10.1109/MSPEC.1982.6366912; Part 3: doi:10.1109/MSPEC.1982.6366913.
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