Talk:Bob Whitehead

Dead?

Does anyone know if/when he died? I thought he was still alive, but this says he's dead (see "This game is dedicated to the memory of"). I can't find it anywhere on the Internet, but then I'm not the most proficient Googler either. Of course his birth date would be a boon, too. — Frecklefoot | Talk 18:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

It seems unlikely, given that Jack Nicklaus 6: Golden Bear Challenge is a 1999 title, and Whitehead was the recipient of an award at the 2003 Game Developers Conference and is pictured signing autographs at the 2004 Classic Gaming Expo in a 2005 interview. [1] Can't sleep, clown will eat me 17:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Then why in the world is the game dedicated to his memory? Could it be a different Bob Whitehead? Strange... — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:39, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Bob Whitehead is alive and well, living in the Bay Area. You can occasionally catch him at Video Game conferences. User talk: Doodleq

He is alive although not for much longer (health reason). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.103.93 (talk) 09:32, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Still alive. He's one of my best friends dad, and I saw him a few weeks ago at our local grocery store. --24.104.131.50 (talk) 21:00, 16 February 2011 (UTC)ngmcs8203

Venetian Blinds

The section describing the Venetian Blinds technique is wrong. The technique is obsolete now (sprites are long gone, and this was based on a quirk of the 2600 hardware). The Venetian Blinds demo doesn't need to use the Venetian Blinds technique -- that's part of the joke. The demo was intended to annoy Atari, so the Activision guys could show it and ask, "Is this what you were talking about?" This is discussed in some of the Activision Anthology documentation, but I don't have a good online reference. The technique is the one used in Chess' pieces, Space Invaders' scoring, and the horse's legs in Stampede. The thin slats of sprite look a little like venetian blinds. User talk: ts4z —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 00:17, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Sprites are not totally dead. Hobbyists and portable game developers still use them. And they were one of the building blocks of the modern video game industry. You don't need an online reference, but a verifiable reference. So game documentation is good enough (but like a personal email or letter would not be). Go ahead and correct it if you have better information. Most of the information in the article is taken from an interview with Whitehead. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 13:51, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Football

It's my understanding that Rob Zdybel was the programmer of Football (a.k.a. RealSports Football) for Atari 2600/VCS, not Bob Whitehead. Mobygames agrees. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.37.167.178 (talk) 23:31, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Not a developer of Atari 400/800 OS?

Regarding this edit by Indrian: Can you provide any source that confirms Bob Whitehead was not involved in development of the Atari OS? I am aware of at least 2 important sources that do mention him as a developer:

• the Atari XL OS source code published by Atari in 1984 (see p. 40 of the document)
• a keynote speech by Joe Decuir, one of the designers of the Atari computers (see 1:12:35 for the exact moment).

--Krótki (talk) 16:14, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

• Proving the negative is always a bit of a pain, but you raise legitimate concerns, so here it goes. First, to address the two sources you have provided, while they are both generally reliable, its important to note that neither is exactly authoritative on this point. Decuir was not part of the OS team; he was on the hardware side, so he does not necessarily remember who was in the trenches doing all that. The Atari manual info dates from 1984, and there is no indication where they sourced the credits from. Miller, Crane, Kaplan, and Whitehead were often linked together in everybody's minds since they were good friends and left to form Activision together, so someone compiling credits after the fact when everyone was gone may have made an incorrect assumption.

As for counter sources, I have two. First, there is Alan Miller's interview with Digital Press in which he states the following: "At that point, my boss, George Simcock, who managed the game programmers, volunteered that some of his guys could complete the OS in time for the show. So, we brought in a consultant, Harry Stewart, who helped David Crane, Larry Kaplan, and me on the OS design. I asked Gary Palmer, who had been an early VCS game designer who had left the company, to come back to work on the I/O portion of the OS. Ian Shepard developed the disk drive functions. And we farmed out the BASIC language design to a local consulting firm called Shepardson Microsystems."

The second source is not available unless you have been a patron of Atari Archives at some point, but Kevin interviewed Whitehead as part of his research and posted the complete transcript for paying customers. In regards to the OS, Whitehead says the following: "I’m not sure if this will ever show up in your videos, but if you ever do 400/800 stuff: I was kinda part of the group, I was doing Video Chess and other applications. Other guys like Larry, Alan and David were working on the system side of the 400/800."

So there you have it; Miller does not list Whitehead as someone who was involved in the OS and Whitehead himself says he was not involved. I will take that over Decuir. Indrian (talk) 03:31, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. Obviously Bob's own words have more weight than any other sources. Regarding "Video Chess" - there exists a suspected prototype with that title, of the game released later as "Computer Chess",[2] and that matches Whitehead's account.

But just removing the false information form the article is unacceptable when we have reliable sources that support it. I think the best solution would be to add all conflicting sources to the article and explain the discrepancy. Since I don't have access to the Whitehead interview, I cannot add a reference to it myself. Could you consider doing so yourself? --Krótki (talk) 12:54, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

I guess if you wanted to put in a sentence saying that some sources say he worked on it, but they are incorrect you could, though I don't know what that really adds to the article. If you are proposing including both sides and stating there is a difference of opinion in the sources though, that would not be a good idea . We do not knowingly add false information to Wikipedia just because a generally reliable source demonstrably misstates a fact. Indrian (talk) 21:09, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

"I don't know what that really adds to the article." For one, it would prevent another moron like me from re-adding the false information while under assumption that those "generally reliable sources" are not mistaken. That assumption would seem pretty reasonable when the only source that claims to the contrary is behind a paywall. --Krótki (talk) 06:51, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Another one: David Crane, in an interview from 2003, and in the ANTIC Atari Podcast interview from 2016 (starting at 0:15:48), names Whitehead as one of the persons involved in development of the OS.

I am not trying to prove that Whitehead is misremembering things (although TBH it also must be taken as possibility, considering almost 40 years have passed), but the existence of conflicting accounts from supposedly well-informed individuals IMHO warrants explanation of the issue in the article. --Krótki (talk) 21:56, 24 May 2019 (UTC)