# TOPCast 39: Eugene Jarvis

**Source:** TOPCast - This Old Pinball  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2007-06-03  
**Duration:** 98m 0s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** http://www.pinrepair.com/topcast/showget.php?id=39

---

## Analysis

Eugene Jarvis, legendary pinball and video game programmer, discusses his early pinball experiences in 1960s California, his entry into the computer industry via the Homebrew Computer Club and Atari, and his pioneering work programming early Atari pinball machines (Time 2000, Airborne, Airborne Adventure, Superman) and video games (Defender, Robotron). He details the technical constraints of early pinball programming, the development tools available at Atari, and his collaboration with game designer Steve Richie.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Eugene Jarvis programmed pinball machines for Firepower, High Speed, F-14, and other games primarily for Steve Richie at Williams — _Intro segment by host Clay describing Jarvis's work_
- [HIGH] Jarvis played pinball in the mid-1960s at Johnny's Smoke Shop in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he learned to manipulate match lights to cheat the game — _Jarvis directly describing his childhood pinball experiences_
- [HIGH] Jarvis graduated from UC Berkeley with a double electrical engineering and computer science degree — _Jarvis statement: 'graduated with with a double E computer science degree'_
- [HIGH] Atari pinball machines (Time 2000 onwards) used 6800 microprocessor assembly language for programming — _Jarvis explaining development platform: 'It was all done on uh you know assembly language that was a motor oil 6800'_
- [HIGH] Atari pinball development required programmers to write code on paper, submit it to typists who would enter it into a PDP computer for compilation — _Jarvis detailing workflow: 'you'd write your software on like a piece of paper and then you'd submit it to the typist'_
- [HIGH] Atari used core memory cards (8 kilobytes) that could retain data when unplugged and be swapped between development system and pinball machines — _Jarvis describing core memory development approach in detail_
- [HIGH] Jarvis was promoted to head programmer of all Atari pinball after his bosses quit within two weeks of his hire date in early 1977 — _Jarvis: 'a week after it was hired by boss quit and then you know a week after that his boss quit you know and all of a sudden I'm like the head programmer of all pinball'_
- [HIGH] Earlier Atari programmers claimed it was impossible to blink lights on pinball machines; Jarvis demonstrated this was possible in his second week — _Jarvis: 'there was a guy who had been programming before... had convinced everybody in the company that you could not blink a light on a pinball game... like when the like the second week I was there I like sort of blinking lights'_
- [HIGH] Atari pinball games had design concerns that removing score displays would cause permanent score loss or corruption — _Jarvis discussing fireball multiball countdown innovation and score display fears_
- [HIGH] Steve Richie was initially a prototype lab technician at Atari before becoming a game designer — _Jarvis: 'Steve was actually when I started he was just a guy in the prototype lab'_

### Notable Quotes

> "the whole idea was you'd play your four balls and on the fifth ball you try to get the lights set up and then you tilt the game when it was a zero match and then the ball would train and then you boom you match a zero and you play again"
> — **Eugene Jarvis**, early in interview
> _Describes sophisticated match-light cheating technique from his childhood, showing early understanding of pinball game logic_

> "I'm like the head programmer of all pinball you know and you know and I've been there like two weeks"
> — **Eugene Jarvis**, mid-interview
> _Illustrates the chaotic early Atari organization and rapid advancement_

> "the programmer had convinced everybody in the company that you could not blink a light on a pinball game there was impossible"
> — **Eugene Jarvis**, mid-interview
> _Reveals misconception about pinball programming limitations that Jarvis debunked_

> "you know the score was up in the display you know and so there was some really big concern that if you remove the score from the score display that your score would disappear and be lost forever"
> — **Eugene Jarvis**, late interview section
> _Shows early technical misconceptions about score memory in pinball systems_

> "there's just like this tension between you know the programmer you know wants to he wants to go home at you know 430 he doesn't want to friggin work and and then the game design aspect for you want the game to do all this cool shit"
> — **Eugene Jarvis**, mid-interview
> _Describes classic programmer vs. designer tensions that still resonate in game development_

> "I interviewed at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in uh Pasadena and it's like to uh computer programs for you know lunar probes and spaceships and stuff you know maybe I should have stuck with that job"
> — **Eugene Jarvis**, early-mid interview
> _Shows the alternative career path Jarvis considered before entering game programming_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Eugene Jarvis | person | Legendary pinball and video game programmer; early Atari employee; worked on Time 2000, Airborne, Airborne Adventure, Superman pinball games and Defender, Robotron, Stargate video games |
| Steve Richie | person | Game designer who started as prototype lab technician at Atari; collaborated with Jarvis on multiple games; later became renowned designer for Williams pinball |
| Clay | person | Host of TOPCast podcast interviewing Eugene Jarvis |
| Eddie Boasberg | person | Head of design area at Atari pinball department; old-time pinball industry figure; reportedly family ran New Orleans double-tea company |
| George Oppenheimer | person | Atari artist known for amazing artwork in Atari pinball and consumer packaging; died of lung cancer approximately 20-25 years prior to interview |
| Marty Ross | person | Game designer for Time 2000 at Atari; laid out the playfield before departing |
| Atari | company | Early pinball and video game manufacturer where Jarvis worked in 1977-1979; employed rapid prototyping and had chaotic organizational structure during growth period |
| Williams | company | Pinball manufacturer where Jarvis later worked; known for solid state pinball innovation; employed Steve Richie |
| UC Berkeley | organization | University where Jarvis studied electrical engineering and computer science; had strong arcade presence in mid-1970s |
| Homebrew Computer Club | organization | Bay Area computer enthusiast group in 1975-1976 where Jarvis encountered early microcomputer hobbyists including Steve Jobs and the Apple I computer |
| Time 2000 | game | First Atari pinball game; featured unusual dual playfield with two complete sets of flippers and two out holes; Jarvis took over mid-project |
| Airborne | game | Atari pinball game programmed by Jarvis |
| Airborne Adventure | game | Atari pinball game programmed by Jarvis; collaboration with Steve Richie |
| Superman | game | Atari pinball game by Steve Richie; programmed by Jarvis |
| Firepower | game | Williams pinball game for which Jarvis did programming |
| High Speed | game | Williams pinball game for which Jarvis did programming |
| F-14 | game | Williams pinball game for which Jarvis did programming |
| Defender | game | Arcade video game programmed by Jarvis at Atari |
| Robotron | game | Arcade video game programmed by Jarvis at Atari |
| Stargate | game | Arcade video game programmed by Jarvis at Atari |
| Computer Space | game | Early arcade video game that Jarvis played and later owned a red metallic fiberglass cabinet of; considered ahead of its time with sophisticated controls |
| Motorola 6800 | product | Microprocessor used for Atari pinball machine CPU programming in assembly language |
| Johnny's Smoke Shop | venue | Location in San Francisco Bay Area where young Jarvis played pinball in the mid-1960s and learned to exploit match light patterns |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Early pinball playing and cheating techniques, Atari pinball machine development and programming, Early microcomputer and video game industry (1975-1977), Technical constraints and solutions in early pinball programming
- **Secondary:** Collaboration between programmers and game designers, Early computer development tools and practices (core memory, typists, assembly language), Steve Richie's early career and design philosophy
- **Mentioned:** Transition from Atari to Williams

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.85) — Jarvis speaks fondly of his childhood pinball experiences, his early career breakthroughs, his collaboration with talented colleagues like Steve Richie and George Oppenheimer. Some mild frustration expressed about cobalt programming and early organizational chaos at Atari, but overall nostalgic and celebratory tone about pioneering work in pinball and video game programming.

### Signals

- **[historical_signal]** Detailed account of match-light manipulation cheating in mid-1960s California pinball venues, showing sophisticated understanding of game logic by young players (confidence: high) — Jarvis describes learning through 'kids grapevine' that certain light patterns correlated with zero match, allowing players to tilt and replay on favorable odds
- **[design_innovation]** Eugene Jarvis demonstrated blinking light capability on pinball machines in second week at Atari, contradicting earlier programmer claims it was impossible (confidence: high) — Jarvis: 'the programmer had convinced everybody in the company that you could not blink a light on a pinball game there was impossible... like when the like the second week I was there I like sort of blinking lights you know and this people were like amazingly impressed'
- **[technology_signal]** Atari pinball development used magnetic core memory cards (8KB) that retained data when unplugged, enabling efficient code iteration between development system and pinball machines (confidence: high) — Detailed technical explanation of core memory procurement, programming by mini-computer, and physical swap between development and testing systems
- **[personnel_signal]** Eugene Jarvis promoted to head programmer of Atari pinball department within two weeks of hire after two successive management departures (confidence: high) — Jarvis: 'a week after it was hired by boss quit and then you know a week after that his boss quit you know and all of a sudden I'm like the head programmer of all pinball'
- **[design_philosophy]** Describes classic tension between programmers seeking to minimize scope/leave early and game designers demanding ambitious feature implementation (confidence: high) — Jarvis articulates the conflict where designers want 'all this cool shit' but programmers resist implementation
- **[historical_signal]** Jarvis attended Homebrew Computer Club in Bay Area mid-1970s where Steve Jobs was demonstrating Apple I; illustrates cultural moment of microcomputer emergence (confidence: high) — Jarvis describing encounter with hobbyists bragging about 16K RAM and 1 MHz systems with no actual applications
- **[manufacturing_signal]** Atari pinball development required human typists to manually enter programmer code from written notes into PDP computers before compilation, creating bottlenecks (confidence: high) — Jarvis: 'you'd write your software on like a piece of paper and then you'd submit it to the typist who would then type in your code on a they had like a pdp something many computer'
- **[product_concern]** Early Atari pinball machines were notorious for reliability issues and frequent breakdowns compared to Chicago manufacturers (confidence: medium) — Jarvis: 'the Atari game was very notorious for unreliability and you know the ship would just fall apart'
- **[industry_signal]** In 1970s computer industry, men rarely typed their own code; female typists and secretaries handled all data entry and documentation (confidence: high) — Jarvis explaining that 'men did not type' and that female typists handled all code entry and dictation, describing this as standard practice pre-1980
- **[personnel_signal]** Steve Richie began at Atari as a prototype lab technician screwing posts and adjusting flippers before becoming renowned game designer (confidence: high) — Jarvis: 'Steve was actually when I started he was just a guy in the prototype lab... screwing post on games and screwing you know putting rubber on and adjusting flippers'
- **[historical_signal]** Account of transition from wood-rail to metal-rail pinball games (~1960), automatic ball feed introduction, and impact of electronic scoring on game design (confidence: high) — Jarvis and host discussing dating pinball machines by mechanical features; estimated metal rails replaced wood rails by 1960; automatic ball feed in Williams machines circa 1962-1963

---

## Transcript

You're listening to Topcast, this old pinballs online radio. For more information visit them anytime, www.marvin3m.com. Flash Topcast. Music Tonight on Topcast we're going to be talking to somebody who's a famous pinball in video game programmer. It did pinball programming for games like Firepower, High Speed, F14 Topcast, along with some other games, mostly Steve Ritchie games, and also he programmed some pretty famous video games too like Defender, Stargate, Robotron, Targeter, Smash TV, and the Fast and Furious Driving Games. Special guest. So I'd like to welcome Eugene Jarvis, the Topcast tonight. We're going to give him a call right now and talk to him about pinball programming and video game programming. Welcome to Ross Rills, if you know your party's extension you may dial it at any time. Your call is being transferred. Hello. Eugene? Yes. Hey it's Joshua Clay, can you hear me okay? You're loud and clear. Everett, a lot of your interviews and they always seem to focus really around the video game stuff. It's not that I don't want to talk about the video game stuff but I want to talk more about the pinball stuff and you know you started out at Atari and then you obviously went to Williams. But let's back up and what is your first memories of pinball when you were a kid? You know it's funny I used to play this is crazy but this was back when I was about eight. And we used to meet in the kids, you know the big deal in those days you didn't want to get out of the house and you would ride your bike up to like 7-11 or you know the corner candy store or whatever. And it's how I lived in there was there was a place called Johnny's Smoke Shop. And this is a place where your mom told you you never were supposed to go. You know? Yeah I had one of those when I grew up on Long Island. My grandparents lived on the tip in this little fishing town and there was a similar it was called the cigar store and I got the same speech. Yeah so it's like whatever you do don't go into Johnny's Smoke Shop but Johnny and they filled you know obviously all the tobacco stuff they had like the best candy counter in town also. Yeah same with me too. And just you know a wall of candy and then it was like what was going on in the back room at Johnny's Smoke Shop you know it's kind of like it's kind of like that you know the back room at the sopranos you know there was you know guys in there playing pool and doing weird shit you know it was all kind of mysterious. In what era was this like in the late 60s or something? This was in like mid 60s. Yeah. And but in the back they always had a pinball machine. You know back I mean there was almost back where the guys would hang out you know and smoke cigars and stuff. And I guess because it was like this forbidden place I don't know what it was but we we we went back there and we loved to play pinball. And so the and the challenge is you know in those days nobody had a lot of money and so you need to try to get a replay somewhere or another you know and I think it was like dime play in those days two four quarter or three quarter I guess three four quarter 10 cents a block and five balls it's always five by grout out in California everybody always played five ball out there. And you know we just figure out you need to figure out some way to cheat the game you know and there was finally some of the kids you know the kind of the me today we have the internet you know those days it was like kind of the kids grapevine and some way it came down the grapevine that there was a certain pattern you know in the like what light was on and what light wasn't on on the play field that was correlated with the match. And we we've learned that you know the certain pattern of lights meant the match would be like zero or something. And so you the whole idea was you'd play your four balls and on the fifth ball you try to get the lights set up and then you tilt the game when it was a zero match and then the ball would train and then you boom you match a zero and you play again. You know you guys are like you know early card counters and lost Vegas. But you know it was just obviously we loved playing pinball and it was just it was a you know just it was the battle of you versus the machine and you know any way you could cheat that game you would you know. Now were these wood rails or metal rails? You know I tell you I'm a little vague on that it was the I believe it was a metal rail game you know I think the wood rails they went out in the late 50s or something. Yeah about 1960 and their whirlie wasn't matched didn't really come in until the metal to the to the metal rail so much so but you know I figured it could be either. Yeah I think it did have the automatic ball feed which I don't know what era that came into but different era for different different manufacturers Williams was one of the first to have the automatic ball feed you weren't using the manual ball lift so you were probably you know 62 63 I think on Williams. Okay and I mean there may have been a couple of old manual games I think ever we used to just load them all up you know the old manual game you just you know you you kick out five balls and just have some fun you know and play five ball multiball. I still do that today. I think you know there was uh in the early years I think they had some of those games in there. Cool. But uh yes that was my you know that's kind of what got me into pinball and uh you know my mom uh I don't know she ever really found out we were in there you know maybe you know don't tell her you know what she'll download this and then she'll ridicule you she'll take away your privileges yeah yeah yeah okay so now when you uh in this all happened this was in California yeah okay what what part of California what what part been low part it was it's near San Francisco okay and that's where you obviously you grew up and went from went to high school yeah okay and then what you went to Berkeley after after school right that's right that's right and what graduated with with a double E computer science degree and actually that was the next place you know I played a hell of a lot of of pinball was uh I know I just hit a year kid in college and uh I don't know what it is like your first year in college you know you I mean you hit the books a little bit but you probably spent a hell of a lot more time playing pool and pinball I don't know why I don't know what it is and they had they had some great arcades around campus um and that kind of fell in love with the I mean that was in the in the mid 70s and I mean that was kind of the great age of Gottlieb Electromagneticals and uh that was just you know there were some like there was the Gottlieb games were just uh you know really really big and uh so I would you know play a lot of the Gottlieb classical uh Electromagnetical games uh but I wasn't school yeah I can remember in my dorm um I went to Purdue and they had a um they put a gorf a gorf in a wizard of war in the in the basement of the dorm and we were kind of in a small dorm and we figured out a way to to tape a uh a piece of thread to the quarter and we could fish it through the on the midway games you could fish it through the coin slots and get it right at the trip switch and just pull the quarter and crack the thing up to like 99 credits that's how we were cheating then yeah those the old the stringers man yeah there's okay I mean remember the another way they would do it uh on the tangent you'd remove a lake bolt and then you'd get a little wire in there through that hole and you'd you know I know you had to be some kind of uh you know insane genius but uh you'd bend the wire so that you could trip the coin neck coin neck but you know getting like a code hanger through the lake like net hole lake bolt hole yeah pretty crazy yeah that's why I wondered why they put um the later games put those metal plates in front of the lake bolts uh and the inside I always wondered why they did that that was exciting that was the reason guys were getting free games with wires I mean it's nuts yeah I heard like at one time they used plastic back glasses and guys would drill holes in the back glass so that they could actually move the credit unit up from the face of the game oh man the the old days yeah that was uh it was a fun you know I guess what was what was funner you know playing the game or cheating uh I think cheating it actually so tell me now you went to Atari right after right after Berkeley how did you get that job yeah so that was kind of crazy I um uh you know it was I graduated was graduated from Berkeley and uh so I went on you know all these interviews with the right interview with NCR and Hillet Packard and you know all these uh like the naval research I even interviewed at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in uh Pasadena and it's like to uh computer programs for you know lunar probes and spaceships and stuff you know maybe I should have stuck with that job but anyway I ended up uh and I interviewed at this place called Atari you know which was pretty cool you know I was like wow man this is some pretty cool stuff and uh um I had studied computer science and you know when I favored courses it was micro processors and then at this time you know micro processes were just kind of like this is back in like 75-76 and the micros were just like coming out and uh I used to go to this thing called the home brew computer club which was uh in the Bay Area and then you know guys like you know Steve Jobs are hanging out there and showing off the Apple one computer you know and uh it was kind of cool you know the geeks that were uh you know in the micro processes you know guy would come to like a meeting of the home brew computer society you know and and like shot his new system and like yeah man I got you know 16k of ram and I'm running at you know one megahertz and you know and I got you know three floppy disks cooked up to my system you know and the any decimal what are you what are you using it for you know you know and he goes well what do you mean what am I using it for I mean I got three floppy disks on my system and I got 16k of ram and I'm I'm kicking ass and it's like kicking ass and taking names but I have not a single application to run you know but it was like that was it was kind of like the hardware thing and it's like like guys soup it up their cars you know and uh yeah but then they don't have a driver's license exactly that was kind of the thing and so you know everybody was just crazy about micro processors and obviously Atari was getting going with some of their early games now did you see the early Atari games you see the pongs and all you know in the in the computer space that you know the the Nolan computer space and that stuff on location you know I never I don't think I ever saw computers but I've say I played pond a lot of location I don't know if I ever actually saw a computer space I must have somewhere but it's amazing that game was a complete bomb you know amazingly sophisticated game and you know obviously inspired by the game space wars from MIT and but nobody got it you know because that was before pong and people just weren't ready for like you know controlling a spaceship flying around you can even steer your shots you know which is something I don't even think you can rarely do in today's games you know it was just it's crazy yeah it's a quick it's kind of a cool game a guy just a couple miles from me like you know maybe a year ago said I get this old video game you want it you can have it for free and I'm like okay sure whatever and I go over there and it's a metallic red fiberglass computer space and I'm like oh my god you're giving this too many it's like yeah you can have it it doesn't work you know and I got it running and it was a bit of a game to play but you're ready what's kind of sophisticated certainly for TTL logic. That was cool yeah actually I have one of those in my basement I bought it you know it's a oxygen and like 82 for a hundred bucks and I also have the red metal flake single pair there were like double-player cabinets and there's a different variety different colors of that game. Yeah yellow green blue and red but the most common is red but I think that's the one that most everyone likes the sickest is the yellow and the greens are like man that's a strange color to make a game. It's funny I mind has the old probably years of the same way it has an old magnilocks monitor in there yeah it's like a TV it's two of yeah it's it's basically just an old tube TV and then they took the speaker out of the TV and like mounted it on the cabinet and that's the sound system and it's pretty the coin box was a gallon can of paint thinner and they like took a can opener and opened the lid on it and that was a coin box and I was going man you know that is smart you know yeah I and mine was missing the missing the coin box. Are you saying that you've got a dual computer space to play? I have a single but I think there were actually some dual ones out there. Yeah they're really really rare though I mean if a regular computer space is rare a dual is 10 times rare. Yeah I mean a buddy of mine worked at Empire Distropeting in Chicago once a summer and whose job was to put like a hundred of those in the dumpster. I mean how sad that is you know you think about it today they're probably I don't know what they're worth maybe a thousand bucks for you to sell. Yeah still it's like throwing money out. Yeah but yeah that's a cool I love that game I rewired mine to be asteroids compatible. I can play it because basically the the rotate and the thrust fire are exactly the opposite of asteroids and I just could deal with that you know my mind couldn't switch over right so I rewired it to make it asteroids compatible and it actually is pretty fun in that aspect and you wonder if like it's just that the control aspect where it had you shooting and thrusting with your left hand and steering with your right hand and like almost all video game sense had you shoot with your right hand and I just like there's something you know primal about you want to kill things with your right hand you know. Well yeah because most everybody's right hand it probably you know that's kind of the just you're killing your shooting hand and so I think they made a big error in their control panel there. Now so you didn't really know much about Atari when you went and interviewed with him. No other than you know playing pong and this was you know before the days of the the DCS you know the the 26th kind of wasn't even out yet so you know they were strictly a coin up company at this point I guess other than the pong home games too and so we know they were there and interviewed and it was like you know it's like a really exciting situation and like I interviewed on campus initially and then never heard from them again you know and liking was like four or five months and like well I guess I didn't make the up you know and so I actually ended up taking a job in the pilot Packard and working on some cobalt compiler project there's a six year project to implement you know and see you know 4.78493 cobalt you know. Oh fun delicious. Yeah so I lasted about three days at that one. I just after about the third day I just quit I couldn't deal with it anymore you know and uh and then it's curiously like a dare to lid I got a call from Atari and they finally you know I don't know what happened but my resume somehow served for service and their pilot said hey come on over you know you want a job. I was like okay. Wait I just like to talk about cobalt just for a second who was the genius behind this self-documenting language. I just don't get it. Yeah that was it was only the mind of the government employee could come up with something like that. Yeah it's a good thing you didn't take that job. Thank god you know what I actually I did that was the scary thing but anyway I ended up you know worked out I just uh the Atari thing they were saying hey come on over here you know you're gonna do uh pinball machines you know programming pinball machines like wow you know just I mean it was like the coolest thing ever and so uh I uh it's really it was such a chaotic organization at that time because they were you know growing by leaps and downs they were just at that point um those are early 77 they were starting to get ready to build the the VCS which is the 2600 and uh so there's just you know crazy things going on and uh I've ever been my first like two weeks I think my like a week after it was hired by boss quit and then you know a week after that his boss quit you know and all of a sudden I'm like the head programmer of all pinball you know and you know and I've been there like two weeks you know it's like no do we do we know who these two guys were where they go um they I guess they went to some uh actually some other super secret division of Atari um it's guy I guess we got him fed ye too and I think they're working on some sub secret video phone projects or something that never actually hit light of day um they it's when they had they had all kinds of knowing always had all these these projects going on you know different R&D groups spread you know up in the hills and this year is different places and uh there's a lot of strange things going on I mean a lot of a lot of the stuff never really you know made it uh made it to the real world but uh no one had all kinds of strange things going on so time 2000 what that was the first game you worked on actually was the Atariens which was the first Atari uh game and uh first pinball game they did and I kind of came in in the middle of that project and uh just had to kind of you know wrap up a few things and make a few fixes and uh you know kind of get it out of location testing and you know did you do the programming for the you know for the CPU uh you know the CPU system on that uh we know the program ran on you know I mean that's there was one program that you know was the CPU I mean that was it you know and uh so there was a soundboard they had a hardware sound uh system that was controlled by the main CPU so it was basically like a TTL not it wasn't a a DAC based system well it was actually which was pretty cool I don't know if they actually used the DAC but uh there was a uh I think I had four bits of resolution so it actually was a very small um they had it was a very early form of what you call wave table synthesis and they had a very small little prompt we don't remember that held like little you know I think it was like 16 bytes um that were four bits of resolution I mean it was pretty you know pretty much uh whatever came out of it was pretty much a swearwave you know but right uh so did you actually do the end up then doing the the game software for the Atariens? I think I took it over in midstream so you know I maybe did 20% of it so how were they programming that? It was all done on uh you know assembly language that was a motor oil 6800 but I mean what was were were were you using I mean what was the development platform? It was a they had they had to kind of their own uh I actually we used the motor oil exercise I believe which was the system you know debugging system and uh the crazy thing was we actually this was not to show you how how long ago this was you'd actually the programmers didn't have keyboards I think I believe it um we would you'd submit you'd write your software on like a piece of paper and then you'd submit it to the typist who would then type in your code on a they had like a pdp something many computer so you basically I mean this was the day you know like you just you know like write your code on a piece of paper you'd submit it to the typist then you'd go and play games for a couple hours while you'd wait for the typist to enter your program and then the program would compile then sit down to your machine and uh and then you'd test it out. Well would they like just hand you a set of ROMs or something? You know we actually had um I believe that this this is really nuts there was some kind of system where we would have a they could use core memory um that we bought these um cards that had eight kilo bits, kilo bites of core memory that any of you are familiar with magnetic core memory? Yeah sure. It was like every every bit I had like a little the little teeny um like a ring of like magnetic material of a couple wires coming through it and when they were starting to get it was almost it was so fine it was like if you looked at it it looked like a fabrad almost because you know the each of a bit I mean this this board had 64,000 little pieces of core you know strong with wires I mean it was it was like you know it's it's psychotic if you think about it today um and uh and that would basically that would be programmed by the the mini computer and then since core memory retained its memory when the power was off you just unplugged that board from the mini computer and then plug it into your development station and that was how you downloaded your software. Oh and then the developments it now how did you interface the development system or the core to the actual pinball machine to actually play a game? So then the basically that plugged into and I believe it was a motor exercise system which then um then it you know had some sort of um a billacle uh thing that plugged into the slot where the processor would go in the main system so basically the processor was replaced by this development station. So all the are you saying like all the adress and data lines on the 40 pin 6800 that was plugged into the CPU board on the pinball machine would basically have all these wires coming off into your development station. Exactly. So there would be a little socket and then 40 wires would go to your development station. And how um I mean what point in time did they actually say you know okay burn this to an e-prom? Well you when you that's the way you test it you know and from this burning e-proms could take you know an hour or something. So to get any kind of turnaround this core thing was really cool because then you could just you know you could program a core memory in like 10 seconds. So um when you finally you know felt your code was debugged and ready to roll then you'd burn the e-proms. So it's in the whole Atari development that you know when you were there you know you were there till 79. Was all the machines programmed in this manner? Well this was this was in the pinball department. Right. The um you know the other uh the other coders you know the video guys they kind of had their own things but you know similar similar systems in that the key punching was done by there's like a couple girls that typed in all your program for you. Wait what's up with the girls why would they have these girls do it for you? That was the way it was that's the way it was in the old days. I mean programmers uh you know it was like back in those days like men it was like beneath the stature of men to like type you know plus maybe you weren't that good at typing you know. So it was like women did all the typing you know it was just like the boss would you know dictate to a secretary you know all the typing I mean before like 19 you know before even maybe 1980 men did not type it was something about the secretary you had a secretary to do all your typing for so that words per minute really isn't words per minute since it's in men's case it's a wasper minute. That was just the way it was you know and the women typed you know. Okay so you're doing that you're so you did you did the Atari and you did what time 2000 Airborne and Airborne Adventure in Superman right? Yeah. Okay. Were any was there anything unusual or interesting about any of these games in the programming of them? You know it was all very pioneering you know and the funny thing was that I remember the most the most impressive thing I did one of the most impressive things. I guess like one of the guys that had been programming before you know there's always a fight between the programmer and the game designers as a programmer and the manager whatever and you know there it's go well why don't you make the machine you know I want to you know have the thing you know the lights to blink and flash and I want you know the bells to ring and then it serves you a chocolate sunday you know when you get a replay or something you know I mean and the programmer always goes well that's impossible I can't do that you know it's like so there's just like this tension between you know the programmer you know wants to he wants to go home at you know 430 he doesn't want to friggin work and and then the game design aspect for you want the game to do all this cool shit you know and so the programmer in this day such it was kind of a mysterious art you know nobody really knew anything about programming and it was all kind of magical like holy shit you know that the programmer had convinced everybody in the company that you could not blink a light on a pinball game there was impossible it was you know something in the program that you know that would you know just you know the programmer to explode or something like the light of the flip film so what you mean the light was either on or off but we couldn't go on and off quickly yeah it was just like lose its memory you know the state would be lost or something you know and so like when the like the second week I was there I like sort of blinking lights you know and this people were like amazingly impressed you know like and they kind of they were they were actually this guy a guy who was kind of the head of the design area guy by name of Eddie Boasberg I don't know if he used to be his family used to run New Orleans a double tea company okay I don't know they may still run that company down in Louisiana and he was like an old-time pinball guy and you know and he was just like he was so about he was so you know impressed that I blinked the light that he gave it a nickname dr. J so but then on I was dr. J and the rest of history so when you went to Williams and you did the multiball countdown on fireball you must have just like everybody was like dancing in the aisles and you get screaming your name like you know like you're a rock star well actually that was pretty impressive because again people were worried that if you you know the score was up in the display you know and so there was some really big concern that if you remove the score from the score display that your score would disappear and be lost forever and you lose your score and it would come back it would be different or you'd forget your score you know and so when you when they took away the score and did that countdown in there you know it was like people were oh my god you know where's the score you know it's gone you forgot it you know how do you remember how did you remember the score you know how could you do that you know oh my god so you didn't do any tricks like that of the tarry then um you know the the Atari games the the most exciting stuff I did was uh working with Steve Ritchie and uh I guess maybe the game time 2000 actually had two different bonuses you know it was you know kind of cool but um now I guess it was kind of a bizarre play field I had two complete you know sets of flippers and that was kind of interesting I didn't hear it play in the game but I had like two basically like two out holes and two like a complete double a play field pretty crazy as game well now this guy what Marty Ross and all he was the game designer for time so he he laid that one out he laid that game out you know then he quit you know like everybody kept quitting you know so he quit he had to get a game laid out and then he quit uh and then it was like you know this was like made my fourth week on the job it's like okay here's you're here's a new game you know like make it work you know do whatever the hell you want to do with it so you know we just you know me and some of the guys just kind of sat around and you know made up all the rules and made it happen you know and so it you know that was a fun project uh I guess the fun it I guess the most exciting things you know working with George Oppenheimer who was a did a lot a lot of the great Atari artwork of that era I mean the guy just made amazing artwork and had this kind of the Atari style of that era and they both the consumer packaging and the uh pinball art uh the guy was amazing and it was it was it was just wonderful the work of him well what happened to George Oppen you know George uh he continued working there and I think sadly he uh he died of cancer of like lung cancer I think uh you know maybe 20 years ago hmm maybe well maybe 25 years ago so now you you did airborne adventure and Superman was Steve Ritchie I mean is it how did you meet Steve I mean it was just purely through work right yeah so that I mean that that was you know in that really was was the highlight of my career in Atari um Steve was actually when I started he was just a guy in the prototype lab and he was just you know screwing post on games and screwing you know putting rubber on and adjusting flippers and you know that and first the Atari game was very notorious for unreliability and you know the ship would just fall apart um it was one of those things where you know no one but now he kind of looked at all the traditional pinball game to that era and you know this is just obviously this guy is in Chicago don't know what they're doing there a bunch of troglodites and we're going to redesign everything you know and obviously I think he had a great idea with with doing the solid state pinball and all the you know obviously all the um the atrix at that broad to pinball and all the uh game plan and special effects and everything but the he also uh kind of you know there was a redesign of every mechanical components in pinball and there were you know there was a lot of uh and when you start dealing mechanical things there's a lot of things and just kind of work over the years and you know you have an evolution and things are made a certain way because they they work you know and unless you're willing to you know test your components you know for millions of cycles and you know all that stuff I mean you're you're taking a big chance by redesigning all the mechanics of the pinball game and uh so regrettably you know in the you know kind of the the philosophy of the time that you know everything is new and everything old is stupid um the game was completely re-engineered mechanically and a lot of the stuff just wasn't very well tested wasn't very reliable not only that but parts were a major problem too like I know when I go to a fix in a tary game it's like oh my god I don't have any parts for them and they're all so so different than anything else you know like in the in the 70s got leaving Williams parts I mean they're not exactly interchangeable but you can usually they're interchangeable enough you know yeah yeah so um so yeah so that was just a huge debacle and Steve was you know one of those guys running around you know just trying to keep you know we had four or five test games out in location and just to keep those things running you know it was just uh a major effort and then they you know they had the boneheaded decision they put the electronic boards in the bottom of the cabinet yes so parts could fall off the play field and on to the electronics right and and so you know you had now he had these shady mechanical devices that were dropping screws and parts and ball bearings then you had the electronics sitting right under them to short out when the parts did fall down it was an nightmare but the games when they did work they made amazing amount of money and and just because of the cool new electronic sound and and uh the you know the cool effects are we able to throw into the program and then the white body uh a play field was really novel and had had you know he had to ramble out of stuff on it uh so Steve in in you know being Steve Ritchie in his spare time he would um he'd be laying out pinball playfields and so we would just kind of get together after hours and you know and have a couple of beers and uh and just hang out and you know and dream about the future of pinball and and Steve would be you know laying out these cool new designs you know trying all kinds of new stuff and um and you know just dreaming about you know getting his own game in production and eventually he he had dropped up an entire play field for the game Airborne Adventure and presented it to uh to management and uh uh and when they got approved for uh for production so Steve became you know from prototype uh builder to game designer what did you think of the game i loved it you know and i uh you know just jumped at the chance to uh program it so uh that was you know it was magical and uh you know we did a lot of work for the sounds and the effects and uh you had some of the first kind of combined effects where sounds and lights were synchronized and uh you know i thought that the game was with the blast so on did you have to do creating any like what you needed sound and i mean did every game have a new sound board and and new technology and sound no uh you know there was a standard does a sound synthesizer you know this hardware you know TPL synthesizer you know which had you know some programmability um you could you know have different uh waveforms different frequency tables so for that uh you know you would either programmer would uh you know create these different uh sounds and uh so you you know you'd you'd feed this synthesizer's different parameters and then get different sounds and so it was really fun to you know learn about the sounds and uh and and to just innovate and do new sounds at at this time nobody else was doing solid state sound everybody still had chimes and bells so that was one of the big big things the Atari game was it had these synthesized uh electronic sounds that were just you know really cool very spacey interview now how was Superman? Superman was you know just uh more the same um you know we uh put the uh you know see you put the play field together and you know we worked a lot that worked alongside of them and we you know did all kinds of interesting things with the sounds and the effects and um funny we actually put it out on on test we I was so you know we didn't know if we're going to get the Superman license or not it's actually the original test whitewood it was called rock star was gonna be you know that was like the code name and so we actually put a whitewood out on location you know which is the play for bear play field with no artwork on it whatsoever other than you know some lettering and uh on the lights to stand the k-warriors with shoot forms etc then uh actually it made a ton of money as a whiteboard on location so we knew we had a good game and uh um we always wanted to make it Superman um and it I guess either the odd thing was as both of us ended it had to quit actually before that game uh certainly Steve quid and I think I worked a little bit but I even I think I had left before the game actually had production because they had actually revamped their entire uh I think electronics and mechanical systems I think Superman went out with like linear flippers as opposed to their crazy rotary flippers and so they had Superman actually had a lot of you know with a pretty refined product that has a pretty good component. Did you now tell me about the Exodus from Atari and to Williams I mean Steve left first and then you followed? Yeah so he left in 78 and um basically uh I mean there was some uh different champ and uh I mean we could see that the uh you know we were you know we were really excited by our you know designs and concepts and the games would make tremendous money initially but then they'd always blow up and catch on fire fail and so the sales weren't as good as they could have been and and we could kind of see the whole the company was shifting obviously you know away from Pennball and you know really focusing on the video games which was whether their bread was buttered so kind of the writing was on the wall that uh Pennball was kind of on this way out. Did you want to work in the video game division of Atari? You know it's funny at that time video games were so simple I didn't really appeal to me you know like the pawn type games and even some of the early driving games and uh I mean the first game that really had any kind of appeal was breakout um and that was kind of it was a fairly fairly interesting game but again I mean it was just a bunch of bricks you know I mean uh it just didn't really have uh and it was kind of like a video game was something you'd play for you know 20 minutes than you were done you know so I was still you know very much at the Pennball and um there was uh the guy who was running Williams uh in Chicago Michael Stroll um somehow it got heard of Steve Ritchie and came out to to California to you know Silicon Valley to uh to recruit Steve Ritchie and uh so you know he offered him like you know three times what he was making at Atari and I was honey and uh I think Steve you know had a pretty uh had a pretty easy decision there. Now as far as pay it at Atari it was well first two-prong question was there pay equitable for the time and also did they give you like they sold a lot of a game did you get like a bonus or kickback? You know I don't think uh at least the Penn motherfucker we never got any bonuses um but uh I think there was some kind of bonus plan out there but it was it was kind of a catch 22 bonus plan you know it was like uh something like those Hollywood contracts where they give you a percentage of the profits or something and it was like no matter what you did the the game lost money you know what it was kind of thanks um but uh the uh you know the I think the real motivation uh I think going to Chicago was just the opportunity to really you know have a true Pennball factory supporting your designs you know and to I mean the guy said Chicago knew how to build Pennball games but they were they were pretty clueless as far as game design and like uh software and so it was uh you know it's natural for you know Steve and then later myself to to head out there you know just uh there was just such a need for for that kind of talent and there was such a great infrastructure for Pennball sorry and in Chicago I forget to ask you the Superman license who was uh I mean did did you have any involvement with actually getting that license was it a hard license again did you meet any of the personalities you know I didn't uh the you know that was all you know some guys some guys upstairs and uh the uh it was funny because Atari got sold to time Warner while I was there and time Warner I think owned DC Comics I believe and so it was like the same company actually owned it so you think it was be pretty easy but the way often these these big companies are run and it's by guess for the best really is um you know everything's kind of out to the highest bidder even if you know if you're in the end of the vision of time Warner you still have to bid higher for the Superman license and say got labor somebody else you know so there was it was kind of up but there was like you know some kind of negotiate you know eternal corporate negotiations about getting this title and so there's a lot of you know like would you get it we not get it you know even that even that's in the same company I mean it was crazy now when you got to Williams do you I mean do you remember your first week what was that like was it I mean was it like wow this is completely different work environment in the in the the uh corporate environment was I imagine it's got to be completely different than Atari um you know actually it wasn't uh it was a little more ordered but it was uh in that era it was very much a kind of a seat of your pants era and uh coming to Williams I remember I came in March of one year and you know you come from California which is beautiful green and warm and wonderful you come to Chicago and the snow is like piled up three feet high and everything is just gray and dirty and you know and greasy and you know you got to the Williams factory which was you know built in 1942 and and the walls are painted like the same green that they you know the one the government paid for the paint you know in 1943 you know for the wartime production that's paint still on the wall you know there were there's rats that have been in there since 1946 you know and we were at the vending machines they they would never put any candy bars on the bottom two rows of the vending machine because the rats could get up and eat those you know so you have to you know they'd have to have them high up in the vending machine and uh you know it's just I think it was the most depressing place imaginable from you know certain aspects you know just they were just so bleak and and you know gray and cold and you know everything's old and rotting but you know actually the the the the wonderful part of it was you know just you know you're the you're the kid in the candy store and here you have this amazing factory you know that's going to build your games you know and uh so that was it was it was uh it was cool I mean just to see all the old guys on the line you know the guys who have been testing pinball games for you know 47 years and uh just all the uh kind of the spree decor and uh you know you'd get to know the the women that did all the soldering of the games and you know they could like have three conversations and being you know soldering 27 connectors behind their back and you know and think nothing other you know it was it was pretty amazing just the whole pinball factory uh they had to whatever your day had to walk through this huge factory to get to your office now um firepower was the first game you worked on at Williams and and this was a Steve Ritchie game did you come in right at the beginning or kind of in the middle of the project well actually that was the first game oh okay what was um the first game I worked on was a game called laser ball I don't know if you're very familiar with that title it was a white body uh it was a very osler game right yes I am familiar with it and uh and so that was uh I uh I had some fun with you know working the Williams had this this wonderful sounds synthesizing system which was just basically a microprocessor tied to a digital analog converter so you could write any program you you could think of to create sounds you know just amazing and uh so laser ball was kind of my chance to to um you know write some new sound programs and uh um so that you know I kind of introduce some really cool sounds in that in that game which um the sound system is amazing the entire sound system with uh the data for 32 sounds occupied 512 bytes of memory and uh it's pretty uh I'm pretty proud uh fitting all those sounds in the 512 bytes now that was the like the system 6 sound board that was in the lower cabinet that had the switch between one set of sounds and another set of sounds right right they had obviously they had the um they were concerned obviously when then the early days that uh some people wouldn't like the new electronics out so they had a switch you know that would give you chimes they're really stupid sounding you know computers synthesized chimes you know but I think anybody ever flipped that switch but you know we're just one of those management kind of things like oh my god those sounds are weird people want chimes so they had to switch I don't think it anybody ever threw the switch though no what they did is they hit the switch by accident then couldn't figure out why the game sounded like crap but uh so that was really fun so and laser ball kind of got that uh that whole thing going and you know learning the system learning how to program and okay we're gonna take a little break from our interview with Eugene Jarvis and we'll back right after this message hey George I just had to call and tell you about this really great magazine I got it's called the Ping Game Journal and it's the only magazine dedicated totally to pinball it's got great articles and interviews with designers and everything no George I won't loan you my copy who knows where you'll take it to you're gonna have to go to PingGameGenerale.com and get your own subscription with George the guy says that each issue will give mail whenever he feels like what's the deal with that all right George I gotta go got a call Elaine and tell her I can't believe how good this magazine okay we're back with Eugene Jarvis firepower was the what's my big project there and I guess really kind of why it came out there Steve uh had been Steve had just finished the game called Flash which was just an amazing amazing game I think to this day I think it was kind of the game that really um you know ignoring Atari and there early games which weren't really that refined. Flash really brought the electronic Iran for pinball in my mind um just with it's a fact flash lamps and sound effects uh yeah one of the first games was like a real background sound the background sound and the um the you know the modern style you know the stevery-che action type layout and stuff and you know it was it was cool it was amazing coming from the white body to the narrow body game and Steve you know how he was able to cram almost everything he crammed into a white body into a narrow body and the narrow body's played better too in my opinion. Yeah the narrow the the problem with the uh you know something that was that magic there with that dimension you know and the way it corresponds with the power on a flipper the problem is you bring a game too wide those wide shots are always on the end of the flipper and they're just kind of crappy shots just don't feel good so you really don't need anything more than a narrow body you know what all came well not what was it done and the narrow body was the the ideal uh you know kind of the golden mean and pinball design so Steve uh you know just you know with his layout of flash which I guess kind of stole a shot I think it was from 4 million BC or something the entry shot which kind of the cross-play field entry shot right right yeah which was awesome I love that I love that shot um and uh so that was you know it's just so excited to be working with Steve and and uh so anyway his programmer Randy Fiverr who did all this wonderful stuff um and of course Steve always would get the fight for this programmer's and you know he was very demanding and and programs would just get burnt out working on him and so Randy just you know packed his bags and said you know fuck you I'm out here and uh it's like freaked out like damn you know I need a programmer and so that's why he he called me to get me to Chicago but you know he was not ready with firepower so I did laser ball first and uh but uh I guess I did work on some sound effects on the game Gorgar which uh like the heartbeat of Gorgar and so that's uh I worked on that while Steve was finishing up the layout of the firepower but firepower we were so excited by firepower because um we wanted to bring back a multiball to pinball and you know that was just uh we had so much fun playing the old you know the bowl bally fireball games the I think was like wizard you know some of the classic uh bally um multiball tables from the uh they're early 70s yeah four million BC fireball and um uh nip it are the three you know the three classic multiball bally eums that people remember yeah who do I know uh now guy named Ted Zale did fireball and Ted unfortunately has long passed uh I don't know who did the other two I don't remember anyway those those are amazing you know inspirations and so that was the the idea of firepower was kind of to forget that back that excitement you know of multiball and uh back into pinball and and uh you know with the electronic age uh getting on the the late you know it just it just seemed like you know here was going to be a masterwork you know we could you know kind of synthesize the best of you know 20 you know 20 years of pinball and put it in the one game and uh there was uh I mean it sounds ridiculous these days and you think about it but I mean there was a lot of worry you know from a technical standpoint you know keep a track of the balls and and uh how do you know a lot of software issues when you when you when you have you know three balls out on the playfield and you're locking them and you know all this stuff and uh you have to construct a ball trough for multiple switches to sense on the balls so there's a lot of there's a lot of work on the software side which uh you know at the time was seemed like a lot of work and everything uh I mean today you know you know you're laughing you're laughing you're programming you know 10 minutes but um there's a big deal and uh um and we wanted to come over the way that multiple players could play the game and you know kind of share the locked balls and so we came with you know this all this all logic of you know what holds would be lit for locks and if a ball was already locked in the hole and you like some other hole and you know all that stuff and you know certain points you'd kick out a ball that was locked in a hole you know for the other player to play um you know very involved logic but allowed you know each player to have his own ball locks and and uh and play you know pretty much with that and a great too much with the other players. Yeah the one thing about um firepower was it was really the first game where um the the the the rules were really um for a multiball game first multiball game where the rules really really really made sense and they were simple um but difficult to achieve but they just the whole everything played together like even with flash you know the rules on flash are I you know they're either though they're not you know real deep they're they're a little funky you know what I mean they're not as refined as like firepower was like oh this is the way it's really supposed to be. Yeah firepower was it was just that the unity of the game right you know and then the absolute simplicity of it um where you just you knew what the hell you had to do and it looked easy there's the other thing now where you got those six targets right up front in the middle I mean shit you can't hit those you know the park and and uh but it was just you know obviously there was several you know just killer drain shots off that thing and you know in every table you'd have to you know learn you know one angle with drain you and what wouldn't and you know take the the safe shot and then try to hit the you know you could you'd like the the kicker um the save kicker you know if you hit a bank you know so you you wanted to you know get that thing with and um so it was uh you know the firepower thing was you know to get up high and get your multiplier going you know it had really great flow and he really wanted to um pretty much uh it made it for you to you know move the ball around the field and chewed almost every target on the game no but just the overriding challenge you know it was so interesting where you know pinball was really about the score you know in the in the old days pretty much and uh other than you know you try to get a special like if you think about the game kept it fantastic which is kind of cool where you pound away on those on the drop targets and then you pound away enough on them the specials would start lighting and you know it was pretty cool and so in some ways you could just play kept fantastic just trying to pound the targets and light the special and so firepower it was kind of like you pound the targets and then um you know light lock holes and you have to make the lock shots and you could get it all in there and get all three balls there boom you know the game which is explode um you know with the whole multiball countdown and the sound effects and I mean it was just it was just amazing and you know the background sound would be would be getting up to some crazy high pitch and and finally when you got multiball I mean it was just like you didn't really care what your score was or whether you had a replay or not or it was it was just you wanted to get multiball you know and uh it was just all consuming goal and it was interesting there's a guy at uh Williams the time he was Ron Kraus and he called it the V ball and his his way of playing the game was he'd get multiball and then he'd just like make a V with his hands and then and and just like let him all drain because I mean after you got everything's like don't have to come at it after that you know no wait I got a bone to pick with you though that the one thing that's weird about firepower and all the multiball games of that era is that if you don't have all three balls in the ball trough you cannot start a game and this this must have just confused the crap out of operators because I know people that own the games you know they either either either one of the troughs which is broken or they they they you can't find the third ball and they they can't start a game and they're like oh they they keep turns on it works but I can't get at the start you know so you know I mean like newer games like 90s games if there's a ball missing eventually it'll let you play with you know a ball missing because it you know it doesn't want to hamper uh income as it may be but was that like a

_(Acquisition: whisper_import, Enrichment: v1)_

---

*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: a45572bc-396e-4e45-acfe-8a1468cebbfa*