¢PROGRAMMER PROFILE¢¢DAVID LEVINE (Ballblazer, parts of other games including Rescue on Fractalus and The Eidolon).¢¢[Ed: This interview was conducted in 1985 and gives an insight into the development of some of the all-time great games.]¢¢ "I came accoss my first computer at school. It was a PDP8 mini and I learnt to program using that. The first machine I ever had at home was called an Imsai, it was built from a kit and used a Z80 processor - that was around 1976.¢¢ The first professional program I ever wrote was a Unix utility - I was working for a systems software house in Chicago at the time. Around 1983 I started work at Lucasfilms where my job as a computer scientist was to bring state of the art computer applications into the computer games industry.¢¢ The first two games I came up with were BALLBLAZER and RESCUE ON FRACTALUS. [Ed: the Fractalus project was directed by David Fox, with Levine and others providing support]¢¢ They were both created on the Atari - there was a directive not to create convertible games so I think the Commodore 64 versions are definitely inferior.¢¢ The idea with both those games was to create a 3D environment that would give the player a real sense of being in an alternative reality. Computer scientists had already developed mathematically produced computer images to a fine state, but the techniques of maths involved had simply never been incorporated into games before. Rigorous application is all there is to it, though getting the images to move in real time animation to take fullest advantage of the machine hardware was another problem."¢
