Joseph Warren Robinett Jr. (born December 25, 1951) In the A. Miller interview, Robinett says he was 26 in November 1977. is a designer of interactive

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

, notable as the developer of 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 microprocessor- ...

's ''

Adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...

'' — the first graphical adventure

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

— and as a founder of

The Learning Company The Learning Company (TLC) was an educational software company founded in 1980 in Palo Alto, California and headquartered in Fremont, California. The company produced a grade-based line of learning software, edutainment games, and productivity ...

, where he designed ''

Rocky's Boots ''Rocky's Boots'' is an educational logic puzzle game by Warren Robinett and Leslie Grimm, published by The Learning Company in 1982. It was released for the Apple II series, Apple II, TRS-80 Color Computer, CoCo, Commodore 64, IBM Personal Comput ...

'' and ''

Robot Odyssey ''Robot Odyssey'' is a puzzle video game developed by Mike Wallace, Dr. Leslie Grimm and published by The Learning Company in December 1984. It was released for the Apple II, TRS-80 Color Computer, and DOS. Most players have found it incredibly ...

''. More recently he has worked on

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

projects. Robinett graduated in 1974 with a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

from

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

, with a major in "Computer Applications to Language and Art". After graduating from Rice University, he was a Fortran programmer for

Western Geophysical Western Geophysical was an international oil exploration company founded in California in 1933 by Henry Salvatori for the purpose of using reflection seismology to explore for petroleum. The company prospered and was sold by Salvatori to Litt ...

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. He received an M.S. from

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1976, and went to work at

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 ...

in November 1977.

Atari, Inc.

His first effort at Atari was '' Slot Racers'' for the Atari 2600. While he was working on it, he had discovered and played Crowther and Woods' ''

Colossal Cave Adventure ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' (also known as ''Adventure'' or ''ADVENT'') is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the pl ...

'' at the

Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Stanford University has many centers and institutes dedicated to the study of various specific topics. These centers and institutes may be within a department, within a school but across departments, an independent laboratory, institute or center ...

, and decided that a graphical video game version "would be really cool". However, with 128 bytes of

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and 4096 bytes of

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

, Atari's ''Adventure'' was a much simpler program, and with only a

joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. A joystick, also known as the control column, is the principal cont ...

for input, the set of "commands" was necessarily brief. ''Adventure'' was a hit upon its 1979 release, and it eventually sold a million copies. Atari designers at the time were not given credit for their games, because Atari feared having to bargain with well-known designers. In response to this, Robinett placed a hidden object in the game that would allow the player to reach a hidden screen which displayed the words "Created by Warren Robinett," hence creating one of the earliest known

Easter eggs Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tra ...

in a video game, and the first to which the name "Easter egg" was applied. Robinett then wrote the '' BASIC Programming'' cartridge, finishing both ''BASIC Programming'' and ''Adventure'' in June 1979, and quit Atari.

The Learning Company and later

He founded

in 1980, and he worked on several educational games there, including ''

'' and ''

'' for the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

. The Learning Company was acquired by Softkey in 1995 for US$606 million. He has since worked on

projects for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

and the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

. In 2016, Robinett announced ''The Annotated Adventure'', a book describing the design and implementation of ''Adventure'' for the Atari 2600. In 2018 Robinett stated that the initial book was being split into two books: ''The Annotated Adventure'' focusing on the technical aspect of the game and ''Making the Dragon'' focusing on the political story. As of December 2022 only the table of contents has been made public. Robinett's ''Adventure'' Easter egg is a plot element in the 2011 novel and 2018 film ''Ready Player One''.

References

External links

Warren Robinett's homepage

Warren Robinett
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ...

Warren Robinett on the history of Adventure, speaking at the Classic Gaming Expo 2002
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robinett, Warren 1951 births Living people American video game programmers Atari people Rice University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni Video game designers Video game programmers Virtual reality pioneers