Doug Neubauer is an American

integrated circuit design Integrated circuit design, or IC design, is a sub-field of electronics engineering, encompassing the particular logic and circuit design techniques required to design integrated circuits, or ICs. ICs consist of miniaturized electronic compon ...

er,

video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...

, and

programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

best known for the logic design on Atari's

POKEY POKEY, an acronym for Pot Keyboard Integrated Circuit, is a digital I/O chip designed by Doug Neubauer at Atari, Inc. for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers. It was first released with the Atari 400 and Atari 800 in 1979 and is included i ...

chip and designing and programming the 1979 video game ''

Star Raiders ''Star Raiders'' is a first-person space combat simulator for the Atari 8-bit family of computers. It was written by Doug Neubauer, an Atari employee, and released as a cartridge by Atari in March 1980. The game is considered the platform's kil ...

'' which became the

killer app In marketing terminology, a killer application (commonly shortened to killer app) is any computer program or software that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, a video game ...

for the

Atari 8-bit family The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, ...

. The POKEY chip is one of three custom coprocessors created for the Atari 8-bit computers. POKEY handles potentiometer (paddle) controllers and the keyboard—the name is a combination of "POtentiometer" and "KEYboard"—as well as generating four channels of 8-bit audio. It also serves as the audio chip in many arcade games, such as ''

Missile Command ''Missile Command'' is a 1980 shoot 'em up arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. and licensed to Sega for Japanese and European releases. It was designed by Dave Theurer, who also designed Atari's vector graphics game '' Temp ...

'' and ''

Centipede Centipedes (from New Latin , "hundred", and Latin , " foot") are predatory arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda (Ancient Greek , ''kheilos'', lip, and New Latin suffix , "foot", describing the forcipules) of the subphylum Myriapoda, ...

''.

Games

Wanting to create an action-oriented game inspired by ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has been expanded into various film ...

'' and ''Star Trek'', Neubauer designed ''Star Raiders'' in eight to ten months while working for Atari, Inc. He reported that it took him six months to reach the highest player level during development. In the early 1980s Neubauer moved from Atari computer line to the Atari 2600 because that's where the money was being made. He developed three cartridges for Fox Video Games under the pseudonym Dallas North: ''Megaforce'', ''

Alien Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, intelligent extrater ...

'' (based on the movie), and ''

M*A*S*H ''M*A*S*H'' (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) is an American media franchise consisting of a series of novels, a film, several television series, plays, and other properties, and based on the semi-autobiographical fiction of Richard Hooker. T ...

'' (based on the TV series). He was working on a game for Atari in 1984 to be based on ''

The Last Starfighter ''The Last Starfighter'' is a 1984 American space opera film directed by Nick Castle. The film tells the story of Alex Rogan ( Lance Guest), a teenager recruited by an alien defense force to fight in an interstellar war. It also features Robe ...

'' film, but it was cancelled when Atari was bought by

Jack Tramiel Jack Tramiel ( ; born Idek Trzmiel; December 13, 1928 – April 8, 2012) was an American businessman and Holocaust survivor, best known for founding Commodore International. The Commodore PET, VIC-20 and Commodore 64 are some home comput ...

. In 1986,

Atari Corporation Atari Corporation was an American manufacturer of computers and video game consoles. It was founded by Jack Tramiel on May 17, 1984, as Tramel Technology, Ltd., but then took on the Atari name less than two months later when Warner Communica ...

showed new interest in the game, and it was published as '' Solaris'' for the Atari 2600. Despite being released for simpler hardware, the game is a spiritual sequel to ''Star Raiders'' that is more advanced than the computer original. Neubauer's final two games for the 2600 were ''Super Football'' (1988) and ''Radar Lock'' (1989), both published by Atari Corporation. He later was developing a game for the

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...

with the working title of ''Solarian Patrol''. The graphics were scanned images of spaceships kitbashed from commercial model kits. The project was never completed.

References

External links

*
Giant Bomb
{{DEFAULTSORT:Neubauer, Doug American video game designers American computer programmers Video game writers Atari people Living people Year of birth missing (living people)