Carol Shaw

Who is Carol Shaw?

Originally an Atari employee, Carol Shaw is said to be the first female video game designer. Later she joined Activision, where she programmed her best-known game, River Raid. According to the manual of River Raid, she is also a “scholar in the field of Computer Science.” With Keith Brewster she worked on the Atari Basic Reference Manual.

Carol Shaw left Activision in 1984 after designing Happy Trails for the Intellivision and River Raid for the Atari 800 and Atari 5200. Her other credits include Checkers in 1981 and 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe in 1980 for the Atari 2600. She also worked on Super Breakout. Shaw lives in California, and is now retired and married to Ralph Merkle, a researcher in nanotechnology.