Larry Kaplan

American video game designer and programmer

Larry Kaplan is an American video game designer and video game programmer who, along with other ex-Atari, Inc. programmers, co-founded Activision.

Kaplan studied at the University of California, Berkeley from 1968 through 1974 and graduated with a degree in Computer Science.^[1]

He started at Atari, Inc. in August 1976 and wrote video games for the Atari Video Computer System, including two of the console's launch titles: Air-Sea Battle and Street Racer. Kaplan was one of the developers of the operating system for the Atari 400 and 800 home computers.^[1] He co-founded Activision in late 1979. Since leaving Activision in 1982, Kaplan has worked at Amiga,^[1]Atari Games, Silicon Graphics, Worlds of Wonder, and MicroUnity.

He was hired as Lead Technical Director on the 1998 movie Antz, but stayed with the project for only a few months.^[1]

Games

Atari 2600

Combat (1977, Atari) launch title, developed with Joe Decuir, Steve Mayer, and Larry Wagner^[2]
Air-Sea Battle^[3] (1977, Atari) launch title
Street Racer^[3] (1977, Atari) launch title
Brain Games^[3] (1978, Atari)
Bowling^[3] (1979, Atari)
Bridge^[3] (1981, Activision)
Kaboom!^[3] (1981, Activision)

Atari 8-bit family

Super Breakout (1979, Atari)^[4] port of the arcade game

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Stilphen, Scott. "DP Interviews...Larry Kaplan". Digital Press.
^ "Atari 2600 VCS Combat". Atari Mania.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Yarusso, Albert. "Programmers – Larry Kaplan". AtariAge. Archived from the original on November 3, 2011. Retrieved December 5, 2010.
^ Hague, James. "The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers".