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Rob Fulop
Rob Fulop (born 1959) is an American game programmer who created two of the Atari 2600's biggest hits: the port of arcade game Missile Command and 1982's Demon Attack, which won Electronic Games' Game of the Year award. While at Atari, Fulop also ported Night Driver to the 2600 and Space Invaders to the Atari 8-bit computers.
Fulop grew up in Oakland, California where was first introduced to computers via a teletype in Skyline High School in 1974, which he used to create simple programs in BASIC such as a coin flipper and a game similar to Nim. His experience with the device inspired him to pursue a degree in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley, Fulop learned to code in other programming languages including Fortran, Pascal, and C.
While studying in university, Fulop got an internship in Atari's coin-op division where he worked on sound design for a Superman pinball machine and developed an editor to be used for generating sound effects for other pinball machines.
After graduating, Fulop went back to Atari. He was hired to work in the company's home division where he created arcade ports for Atari's newly released 2600 console as well as the company's family of 8-bit computers.
After creating the Atari 8-bit port of Space Invaders, which was criticized due to its changing of certain elements of the arcade original, such as the removal of shields, Fulop developed a port of Missile Command for the Atari 2600, which was a commercial success. As a Christmas bonus that year, he only received a coupon for a free turkey. Chagrined by the feeling of being unappreciated by Atari for his work on the game, Fulop decided to leave the company.
On July 17, 1981, a group of employees from Atari's home console division including Fulop quit their jobs to form their own company, Imagic, urged on by the success of the ex-Atari employees who formed Activision and the lack of credit they were receiving for their work at Atari. Fulop developed the studio's debut game, Demon Attack, which went on to become one of the best selling 2600 games of all time.
After finishing working on Cosmic Ark in 1982, Fulop traveled to Hungary to visit relatives. During his visit he met Erno Rubik, the creator of the Rubik's Cube, which inspired him to create a two-player puzzle game as he felt the genre was under-represented at the time. In six weeks, he'd designed CubiColor; however, Imagic decided against publishing the game due to their belief that a puzzle game would not sell well enough. Fulop later released the game via newsletters. About 100 copies are known to exist.
Shortly before Imagic was set to go public, the Video Game Crash of 1983 occurred, causing the company to withdraw its IPO. Fulop left the company soon after.
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Rob Fulop
Rob Fulop (born 1959) is an American game programmer who created two of the Atari 2600's biggest hits: the port of arcade game Missile Command and 1982's Demon Attack, which won Electronic Games' Game of the Year award. While at Atari, Fulop also ported Night Driver to the 2600 and Space Invaders to the Atari 8-bit computers.
Fulop grew up in Oakland, California where was first introduced to computers via a teletype in Skyline High School in 1974, which he used to create simple programs in BASIC such as a coin flipper and a game similar to Nim. His experience with the device inspired him to pursue a degree in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley, Fulop learned to code in other programming languages including Fortran, Pascal, and C.
While studying in university, Fulop got an internship in Atari's coin-op division where he worked on sound design for a Superman pinball machine and developed an editor to be used for generating sound effects for other pinball machines.
After graduating, Fulop went back to Atari. He was hired to work in the company's home division where he created arcade ports for Atari's newly released 2600 console as well as the company's family of 8-bit computers.
After creating the Atari 8-bit port of Space Invaders, which was criticized due to its changing of certain elements of the arcade original, such as the removal of shields, Fulop developed a port of Missile Command for the Atari 2600, which was a commercial success. As a Christmas bonus that year, he only received a coupon for a free turkey. Chagrined by the feeling of being unappreciated by Atari for his work on the game, Fulop decided to leave the company.
On July 17, 1981, a group of employees from Atari's home console division including Fulop quit their jobs to form their own company, Imagic, urged on by the success of the ex-Atari employees who formed Activision and the lack of credit they were receiving for their work at Atari. Fulop developed the studio's debut game, Demon Attack, which went on to become one of the best selling 2600 games of all time.
After finishing working on Cosmic Ark in 1982, Fulop traveled to Hungary to visit relatives. During his visit he met Erno Rubik, the creator of the Rubik's Cube, which inspired him to create a two-player puzzle game as he felt the genre was under-represented at the time. In six weeks, he'd designed CubiColor; however, Imagic decided against publishing the game due to their belief that a puzzle game would not sell well enough. Fulop later released the game via newsletters. About 100 copies are known to exist.
Shortly before Imagic was set to go public, the Video Game Crash of 1983 occurred, causing the company to withdraw its IPO. Fulop left the company soon after.