Tod R. Frye (born 1955) is an American
computer programmer once employed by
Atari, Inc.
Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari was a key player in the formation of the video arcade and video game industry.
Based primarily around the Sunny ...
, and is most notable for being charged with the home adaptation of ''
Pac-Man'' for the
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocesso ...
video computer system, which, while reputedly the top selling title for that system, is popularly claimed to have been a factor in both Atari Inc.'s downfall and the
video game crash of 1983
The video game crash of 1983 (known as the Atari shock in Japan) was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985, primarily in the United States. The crash was attributed to several factors, including ma ...
.
Following the collapse of Atari he worked at video game and computer game companies such as
3DO and Pronto Games.
In 2015 he was working as Senior Embedded Software Engineer for the
SunPower Corporation, where he worked in the field of IoT, developing hardware and software systems for monitoring solar power systems. His work extended from 'edge' devices, collecting and transmitting device telemetry, to cloud hosted Big Data systems for storing, analyzing, and reporting device data.
Leaving Sunpower in late 2016, Tod joined Bonsai AI, which was developing an artificial intelligence platform, focusing primarily on reinforcement learning.
Atari Pac-Man
Frye landed the 2600 ''Pac-Man'' project in early 1981. Atari had licensed the arcade games ''Defender'' and ''
Pac-Man'' and while Frye preferred ''Defender'', when fellow programmer Bob Polaro got that assignment, Frye got ''Pac-Man'' by default.
Frye's landing the high-profile title did not pass without critical comment. One Atari employee wrote "Why Frye?" on the Pac-Man arcade machine contained in Atari's in-office arcade room. In response, Frye drew a horizontal line over the "Why", which means "Why not Frye" in logic notation.
Frye's ''Pac-Man'' port was started in May 1981, and was the most anticipated release for 1982, so marketing pressed Frye to produce the game on a very strict timetable (lead times on the cartridge ROMs was several months, so the code needed to be completed in September 1981 to get the product into stores during the first quarter of 1982). Atari corporate management demanded Frye complete the game in the standard 4K ROM, as the 8K ROM form factor was not quite available at the time.
Frye made several decisions which later proved controversial. First, he decided that supporting two-player gameplay was important, which meant 25–30 bytes of the 2600's meager 128 byte memory was utilized to store the second player's game state, score, etc. as opposed to using it for game data and features. Second, he chose to abandon plans for a flicker-management system which would have minimized the flashing of objects. Finally, his game did not conform to the arcade game's color scheme in order to comply with Atari's official home product policy that only space type games should feature black backgrounds. Frye states that there were no negative comments within Atari about these elements, but upon release the title drew criticism for not closely hewing to the specifics of its arcade counterpart.
''
Pac-Man'' proved to be a stunning financial coup for Atari, and Frye reportedly received $0.10 in royalties per ''Pac-Man'' cartridge.
Atari would manufacture 12 million cartridges, making Frye a millionaire in the process.
Notable contributions
Frye contributed to the LCD ''Breakout'' Atari handheld, the
Atari 8-bit family version of ''
Asteroids
An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...
'', the ''
Swordquest'' series (''
Earthworld
''EarthWorld'' is a BBC Books original novel written by Jacqueline Rayner and based on the long-running British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. It features the Eighth Doctor
The Eighth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doc ...
'', ''
Fireworld'', ''
Waterworld
''Waterworld'' is a 1995 American post-apocalyptic action film directed by Kevin Reynolds and co-written by Peter Rader and David Twohy. It was based on Rader's original 1986 screenplay and stars Kevin Costner, who also produced it with Char ...
'', and the uncompleted ''
Airworld
Airworld Aviation Ltd was the in-house charter airline for the travel agent Thomas Cook Group. It began operations in 1994, and was the first British operator of the Airbus A321. It was integrated into Flying Colours on November 1, 1998 when ...
''). Unreleased titles include ''Save Mary'', ''Shooting Arcade'' and ''
Xevious
is a vertically scrolling shooter video game developed and published by Namco for arcades in 1982. It was released in Japan and Europe by Namco and in North America by Atari, Inc. Controlling the Solvalou starship, the player attacks Xevious f ...
'' (
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocesso ...
).
Frye also developed the Red-Blue kernel (frequently misnamed as the Red-vs-Blue kernel) vertical
sprite re-use technology used in ''
Realsports Football
''RealSports Football'' is a 1982 American football video game made by Atari, Inc. for the Atari 2600. Versions for the Atari 5200 and Atari 8-bit family followed in 1983. It is part of the ''RealSports'' series of games.
''RealSports Football' ...
'' and several other Atari 2600 products.
After parting ways with Atari, Frye later worked for Axlon (one of the many companies founded by Atari Pioneer
Nolan Bushnell
Nolan Kay Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American businessman and electrical engineer. He established Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre chain. He has been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consu ...
) and was hired as a programmer alongside fellow Atari employees Rob Zydbel, Bob Smith, and
Howard Scott Warshaw
Howard Scott Warshaw (born July 30, 1957), also known as HSW, is an American psychotherapist and former game designer. He worked at Atari in the early 1980s, where he designed and programmed the Atari 2600 games '' Yars' Revenge'', ''Raiders of t ...
at
The 3DO Company
The 3DO Company (formerly THDO on the NASDAQ stock exchange), also known as 3DO, was an American video game company. It was founded in 1991 by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, in a partnership with seven other companies. After 3DO's flagsh ...
.
Frye remains active in video games, making technical contributions to classic compilations such as ''
Midway Arcade Treasures
''Midway Arcade Treasures'' is a video-game compilation of 24 arcade games, emulated from the original PCBs. The overall release was developed by Digital Eclipse and issued by Midway Games for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and Microsoft ...
''.
References
External links
Tod Fryeon
IMDb
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...
Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frye, Tod
Video game programmers
Video game designers
Atari people
Living people
1955 births