Steve Woita
American video game designer
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The basics
Quick Facts
| Intro | American video game designer | |
| Places | United States of America | |
| is | Designer Game designer Video game designer | |
| Work field | Arts Creativity Gaming | |
| Gender |
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| Birth | 1 January 1960, San Francisco, San Francisco County, California, U.S.A. | |
| Age | 65 years |
The details
Biography
Steve Woita (born 1960 in San Francisco, California) is an American computer and video game designer, programmer, and electronics hardware designer with over 30 years of experience. He has worked for notable high tech companies such as Apple, Sirius Software, Atari, Sega, and 3DO. A majority of his career has been focused on designing and creating games for various platforms.
Hardware
Apple
At Apple (1980-1982), Steve was responsible for debugging and fixing Apple II motherboards after "burn in". He was instrumental in diagnosing and coming up with a solution for fixing a "color noise leak" issue that caused text to appear fuzzy. His solution, replacing a specific resistor on the motherboard with a different value resistor was approved by Steve Wozniak and put into subsequent production.
Sirius Software Joyport
While at Apple, Bill Budge asked Steve if it were possible to hook two Atari-style controllers to the Apple II for a game called Crazy Climber. He was able to create a prototype, then contacted an engineer in the Apple R&D lab, Keithen Hayenga, who was working on a four paddle device. They combined the two, creating a device that Steve Jobs approved for development by a third party. Sirius Software acquired the rights to produce this product, The Joyport, which was introduced in 1981. The Joyport allowed four game paddles and two Atari-style controllers to be hooked up to the Apple II.
Games
Atari
At Atari (1982-1984), Steve designed and created four published titles for the Atari 2600: Quadrun (1983), Taz (1983), Asterix (1983, Europe), and Garfield (1984).
Sega
Steve joined the Sega development division Sega Technical Institute in 1992, when his cousin-in-law, Scott Chandler, mentioned to his manager, Mark Cerny, that Steve might be available to join the group and would be a tremendous asset to the Kid Chameleon project then currently under development. Steve later went on to contribute to two other notable Sega titles, Sonic Spinball and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, as a designer and programmer.