Doug Neubauer

Doug Neubauer is an American integrated circuit designer, video game designer, and programmer. Following graduation for Oregon State University and working at National Semiconductor, Neubauer worked at Atari, Inc. where he would develop the logic design on Atari's POKEY chip and designing and programming the video game Star Raiders (1980) both for the Atari 8-bit computer line. Star Raiders would go on to become one of the best-known games for Atari's 8-bit computers.^[3]

Neubauer left Atari and worked for several companies such as Hewlett-Packard and developing video games for 20th Century Fox based on popular films for the Atari 2600 video game system. He would make more follow-ups for the system for Atari in the later half of the 1980s such as Solaris (1986). After attempting to work on a Nintendo Entertainment System video game, Neubauer left the video game industry stating that "the days of one programmer doing a complete game were over, and by the time I got the game done, the NES was obsolete."^[2] He worked at Integrated Information Technology in the early 1990s as a hardware designer.

Neubauer earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Oregon State University.^[4] He attempted work making coin-op carnival-style games and became interested in working in video games after seeing the arcade video game Computer Space (1971).^[5] After graduation, Neubauer began work at National Semiconductor. At the company, they began work on early video game work with the company attempting to develop a home video game system. The project was cancelled as the company felt they couldn't compete with Atari and their home computer line, which led to Neubauer and many others to leave National Semiconductor to work for Atari.^[2]

At Atari, Neuabuer worked on the Potentiometer and Keyboard (POKEY) chip. It had the keyboard interface, paddle controller interface, serial port and audio. Following the completion of the chip, he began working on a game on wire-wrap development systems that would become Star Raiders (1980); a project that Neubauer said he "just did it for fun."^[2] The game became a hit with Neubauer not receiving any royalties from the games financial success.^[2] He left Atari and worked for Hewlett-Packard and later as an independent contractor for 20th Century Fox's new game division, making Atari 2600 video games. These games were based on films, such as Alien (1982) and M*A*S*H (1983) hoping it would lead to making a Star Wars themed game which did not go into development.^[6][2] Neubauer pitched Solaris to Atari in 1984. The company suggested making it into a video game tie-in for the film The Last Starfighter (1984). Atari flew Neubauer to Los Angeles for a screening of the film, but he soon found out that Jack Tramiel had bought the company and most of the staff was laid off. Neubauer described these lay offs as appearing like "the end of video games for Atari."^[5] Following this departure, Neubauer worked at Imagen, an image processing and laser printer company doing chip and system design.^[5]

Atari re-released the Atari 2600 as a smaller, budget-priced console in January 1986.^[7][8] Atari also reconnected with Neubauer to revive his game, now titled Solaris.^[5] Following its release, Neubauer went on to make other Atari 2600 games, including Super Football and Radar Lock. He had attempted to make a space-oriented game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) that was never published, saying that "the days of one programmer doing a complete game were over, and by the time I got the game done, the NES was obsolete."^[2]

Neubauer was the video hardware design manager at Integrated Information Technology in 1992.^[4]

In 2007, Henry Lowood, the curator of the History of Science and Technology Collections at Stanford University, created a project to preserve video games. Lolwood submitted a list of games to the Library of Congress through a committee that included himself, game designers Warren Spector and Steve Meretzky, Matteo Bittanti, and Joystiq journalist Christopher Grant. Neubauer's Star Raiders was included in their initial game canon of ten submitted video games.^[9]

• Digital Eclipse (November 11, 2022). Atari 50 (Nintendo Switch). Atari. Highs and Lows: The 2600 "Jr.": In addition to the 7800, Atari also rolled out a smaller, budget-priced revision of the 2600. Retailing for just $49.99, it was a very affordable alternative, and Atari began to put more 2600 games on the shelves.
• Barton, Matt; Loguidice, Bill (September 8, 2009). "The History of Star Raiders: Taking Command". Gamasutra. p. 2. Archived from the original on September 12, 2009.
• Bailey, Doug; Cressa, Matthew; Fandrianto, Jan; Neubauer, Doug; Rainnie, Hedley K.J (October 1992). "Programmable Vision Processor/Controller". IEEE Micro. Vol. 12, no. 5. IEEE Computer Society. ISSN 0272-1732.
• Bevan, Mike (2010). "The Making Of... Star Raiders". Retro Gamer. No. 79. Imagine Publishing. ISSN 1742-3155.
• Chaplin, Heather (March 12, 2007). "Is That Just Some Game? No, It's a Cultural Artifact". New York Times. Retrieved July 11, 2023.
• Fleming, Jeffrey (September 20, 2007). "Video Games' First Space Opera: Exploring Atari's Star Raiders". Archived from the original on February 27, 2008. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
• Hawken, Kieren (2016). "Atari 2600 Jr". Retro Gamer. No. 161. Imagine Publishing. ISSN 1742-3155.
• Loguidice, Bill (September 8, 2009). "The History of Star Raiders: Taking Command". Game Developer. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
• Oxford, Nadia (September 24, 2012). "Solaris: The Last (Atari 2600) Starfighter". 1up.com. Archived from the original on October 8, 2012. Retrieved June 16, 2023.
• Pappas, Lee H. (October 1986). "An Interview with Doug Neubauer". ANALOG Computing. No. 47.
• Tomczyk, Michael S. (March 1980). "Star Raiders: The Wizard Behind the Game". Compute. ISSN 0194-357X.

• Official website
• Doug Neubauer at IMDb