Centipede
How Atari’s first female programmer, a Pretenders song, and a computer chip used in Cadillacs changed video game history forever.
If I am any kind of gamer, it’s an old-school, golden-era, 1980’s arcade gamer. Tempest, Galaga, Tron, Dig Dug, Zaxxon: I still find it hard to resist losing quarters to them in bars or snack shops. But of the hundreds of classic arcade games, one holds a special place both in my heart, and in the history of gaming: Atari’s Centipede.
Centipede was released in June of 1981 and by the following year was one of the top four highest-grossing arcade games in the United States, along with Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong. [1] It popularized the trackball controller: [2] instead of a joystick or knob, a rolling ball mounted in the chassis of the game allowed the player quick and continuous movement in multiple directions. Most significantly, Centipede was an early arcade game to achieve popularity among female players, and, perhaps not coincidentally, was the first to be designed, developed and co-programmed by a woman: the first female programmer at Atari. [3]
Developed in 1975, the MOS Technology 6502 was a popular microprocessing chip used for many systems, including video games of the late 1970s and early 1980s. [4] These chips are integrated circuits that handle data processing, allowing them to perform functions, run programs, store data, and to serve as the Central Processing Unit or “brain” of computers. [5]
Dona Bailey programmed these chips at the GM-Delco plant in Santa Barbara, CA in the late 1970s, where they were used for climate control displays. It was in Santa Barbara where Bailey heard the instrumental track ‘Space Invader’ off the Pretenders’ first record. [6]
When she asked what the song was about, a friend excitedly took her to a local bar that had a Space Invaders console, where she saw the familiarity between the video game and the displays at her job:
“I recognized how much the game display looked like the climate control display I programmed on the car back at work, and that’s how I fell in love with video games… I ended up moving to Sunnyvale, CA in 1980 (to work for Atari). I don’t remember how I learned Atari used the same 6502 microprocessor I had programmed at GM-Delco, but I believed it was a sign for me to work there after I found out.” [7]
At Atari, Bailey was immediately handed a notebook with about 30 ideas for video games and expected to develop one to completion. Most of these ideas had violent ‘shoot em up’ themes, but a one-sentence concept stood out from the others:
“Most of the other game ideas were based on lasers, wars in space, and shoot down this and that. Centipede, described as “a multi-segmented bug crawls out on the screen and gets shot, piece by piece,” sounded the most different from the other game descriptions and the most appealing to me. I could envision it looking distinctive and compelling, with a gliding, turning, and twisting motion.” [8]
“The shooting part was left kind of implied because if the multi-segmented insect is the bad thing and the player is at the bottom, you kind of have to shoot. But it didn’t seem that bad to shoot a bug.” [9]
Like many early video games (Space Invaders is another example) Centipede has a vertical, ‘top-down’ playing style where ‘enemies’ (bugs) appear at the top of the screen and are shot at from below. In Centipede, the player’s ‘bug blaster’ can move left, right, up, down, and diagonally to avoid collision with foes, but only to a certain height (about 20% of the lower screen) using the trackball. A fire button allows the player to shoot from the bug blaster at the oncoming bugs. [10]
‘Enemies’ that bombard the player include fleas, spiders, scorpions, and the iconic centipede. Like Space Invaders, when two objects occupy the same space (such as a ‘blast’ from the player hitting a bug, or a bug colliding with the player), one is eliminated. Some eliminated foes turn into mushrooms, which serve as obstacles for both the player and most of the other bugs.
All of these functions are ‘baked in’ to the Motorola MOS Technology 6502 chip. This chip is mounted to a motherboard inside the arcade game’s chassis. [11] The motherboard can be thought of as the central ‘hub’ or ‘backbone’ of the system, allowing communication between the other necessary components.
Mounted directly to the motherboard, along with the 6502 chip, are the player controls (the trackball, fire button, and buttons to select number of players/plays), a trigger which counts the number of play credits when quarters are deposited, a sound chip, and a graphics card. [12]
The graphics card works in conjunction with the 6502 chip (the CPU), to create and display the images seen on the arcade game’s CRT (cathode ray tube) display screen. The sound chip creates the game’s audio, played through speakers mounted in the arcade game’s cabinet. [13]
“I really like pastels … I really wanted it to look different, to be visually arresting.” [14]
“I always thought it was really beautiful, like a shimmering jewel when you walked into the arcade.” [15]
Dona Bailey
In my opinion, the success of Centipede can be attributed to several factors, including the game’s vibrant color palette, its fantastical theme, distinctive sounds, and its learning curve: it’s a game that is easy to understand, but difficult to master. Even today, more than 40 years since its initial release, scores of variants and clones of the original game remain popular, [16] serving as a testament to its enduring appeal and the vision of Dona Bailey.
Citations
1 “1982 Jukebox / Games Route Survey”. Cash Box. Cash Box Pub. Co. 20 November 1982. p. 53.
2 Hester, Larry(2012) “Interview: Dona Bailey speaks on creating Centipede and its evolution.” Complex.com. https://web.archive.org/web/20150405133709/http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/07/interview-dona-bailey-speaks-on-creating-centipete-and-its-evolution/
3 ‘The Unsung Female Programmer Behind Atari’s Centipede.” VICE Motherboard Video. https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/hello-world-dona-bailey/55e0d8e8def5f894792e5d8d
4 Spectrum, Ieee (2017) “Chip Hall of Fame: MOS Technology 6502 Microprocessor” IEE Spectrum https://spectrum.ieee.org/chip-hall-of-fame-mos-technology-6502-microprocessor
5 Spectrum, Ieee (2017) “Chip Hall of Fame: MOS Technology 6502 Microprocessor” IEE Spectrum https://spectrum.ieee.org/chip-hall-of-fame-mos-technology-6502-microprocessor
6 ‘The Unsung Female Programmer Behind Atari’s Centipede.” VICE Motherboard Video. https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/hello-world-dona-bailey/55e0d8e8def5f894792e5d8d
7 Hester, Larry (2012) “Interview: Dona Bailey speaks on creating Centipede and its evolution.” Complex.com. https://web.archive.org/web/20150405133709/http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/07/interview-dona-bailey-speaks-on-creating-centipete-and-its-evolution/
8 Hester, Larry (2012) “Interview: Dona Bailey speaks on creating Centipede and its evolution.” Complex.com. https://web.archive.org/web/20150405133709/http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/07/interview-dona-bailey-speaks-on-creating-centipete-and-its-evolution/
9 Ortutay, Barbara (2012) “Woman behind Centipede recalls game icon’s birth.” Yahoo News. https://news.yahoo.com/woman-behind-centipede-recalls-game-icons-birth-213543450--finance.html
10 https://www.arcade-history.com/?n=centipede-upright-model&page=detail&id=427
11 Smith, James AKA ZNUH, arcade game owner and repairman
12 Smith, James AKA ZNUH, arcade game owner and repairman
13 Smith, James AKA ZNUH, arcade game owner and repairman
14 Krueger, Anne (March 1983). “Welcome to the Club”. Video Games. p. 51. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
15 Ortutay, Barbara (2012) “Woman behind Centipede recalls game icon’s birth.” Yahoo News. https://news.yahoo.com/woman-behind-centipede-recalls-game-icons-birth-213543450--finance.html
16 Hester, Larry (2012) “Interview: Dona Bailey speaks on creating Centipede and its evolution.” Complex.com. https://web.archive.org/web/20150405133709/http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/07/interview-dona-bailey-speaks-on-creating-centipete-and-its-evolution/
