''Personk'' is a 1978 video game, and the debut work of Tom Snyder, who would later release many educational series under

Tom Snyder Productions Soup2Nuts (sometimes referred to as Soup2Nuts Studios, and formerly part of Tom Snyder Productions) was an American animation studio founded by Tom Snyder. The studio is known for its animated comedy series, its use of Squigglevision, a techniq ...

Development

Snyder is an educator and video game developer. Snyder, who had a master's degree in teaching, attained a teaching job in the 1970s and eventually began thinking about teaching aids. In 1978, Snyder had a meeting arranged with the head of game acquisitions at

Parker Bros Parker may refer to: People * Parker (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Parker (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname Arts and entertainment * ''Parke ...

. He hoped to present a wood-wire-string contraption named ''Personk'', that was a simplified model of a computer. Despite having planned the meeting for months, constantly redesigning the game and putting considerable time and money into the project, he went to the meeting on the wrong date and lost the opportunity. This event gave Snyder a creative burst of energy; within the week he had purchased a microcomputer, taught himself to program, and transformed the three-dimensional ''Personk'' into a piece of software for children with the assistance of a Radio Shack Model 1.

Legacy

His first innovation, the game turned into an experiment that foreshadowed the rest of his career. Snyder would immediately follow the game with a series of educational titles collectively referred to as

The Search Series ''The Search Series'' is a five-game series of educational video games by Tom Snyder Productions and published by McGraw-Hill Education in 1980. It runs on either Apple II or TRS-80 Models I and III. Development In the late 1970s, Snyder had bo ...

References

{{Reflist 1978 video games Educational video games TRS-80 games Video games developed in the United States Single-player video games