If the Wright Brothers were alive today, Orville would have to lay off Wilbur.

I did not deal well with the politicians. I tend to tell people that when they are full of crap, that they are full of crap.

Plus, I was a math and science whiz from my first introduction to the subjects.

Another little known fact about Amazing Tennis - the computer opponents are modeled after real people. In an odd turn of events, I joined a division 3 college tennis team at age 38.

I was a little hesitant at taking the job at Atari. I had never programmed for a living and I worried it might get boring (building circuits seemed more fun). But I would probably still be in the video game business.

Looking back, video game design seems a natural fit, although there was no such thing when I was growing up. I built a Tic-Tac-Toe playing machine in my teens which went up in smoke on the night it was scheduled to go to a science fair.

My background is in hardware design. I found hardware work to be a welcome change from thousands of hours of programming and that led to the designs you mentioned.

One week before Pitfall! was to be released, I only gave you one life to play the whole game. I was experimenting with that concept as sort of the ultimate challenge.

Our co-founder and company president, Jim Levy, came from a record industry background and understood the marketing and promotion of artists as well as products. So the video game business went from absolutely zero designer credit to something approaching rock star promotion.

That's right, fall in one pit and start over from the beginning! Well, thankfully my buddies practically tied me to my chair until I put in extra lives and I'm glad they did.

The letters were universally complimentary, and we designers loved hearing that our games were being enjoyed, but if they weren't sending us a picture of their screens most of those writers would have spent their time playing the game rather than writing letters.

We wanted to create an environment where if a game player enjoyed the 'writing style' of a particular game designer, he or she could look for the next game by that same author and not be disappointed.

We were advised that nobody could stop us from pursuing our craft simply because we had honed, or even developed that craft while working at a company.

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough.

A good motto is: use friendliness but do not use your friends.

Responsibility is the thing people dread most of all. Yet it is the one thing in the world that develops us, gives us manhood or womanhood fiber.

Habits are safer than rules; you don't have to watch them. And you don't have to keep them either. They keep you.

A friend is someone with whom you dare to be yourself.

Most of the things we decide are not what we know to be the best. We say yes, merely because we are driven into a corner and must say something.

You are wise, witty and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading this sort of stuff.