
The MIT Dropouts Who Created Ms. Pac-Man (2017) - Ivoah
https://www.fastcompany.com/3067296/the-mit-dropouts-who-created-ms-pac-man-a-35th-anniversary-oral-history
======
CharlesW
_(I 'm surfacing a comment I made when this article was linked to in another
recent Ms. Pac-Man submission, to help make sure it isn't lost to history.)_

The uncredited artist who actually created the final visual design of Ms. Pac-
Man was Sharon Perry/Barr, who also worked on Discs of Tron, Spy Hunter,
Rampage, Demolition Derby, and many other classics.

(I got to see some design artifacts while working with her on a Sega Genesis
game. You can find a mention of this, as well as a picture of her as a
vampire, here: [https://www.arcade-history.com/?n=the-spectre-files-
deathsta...](https://www.arcade-history.com/?n=the-spectre-files-
deathstalker&page=detail&id=146787))

------
pochamago
Early video games have some of the most fascinating stories about corporate
intrigue. There was so much room for players of all sizes to duke it out, and
so much legal precedent yet to be outlined.

------
EvanAnderson
Ms. Pac-Man started life as "Crazy Otto"\-- an "enhancement pack" for Pac-Man
that replaced the Z80 with a daughterboard. This daughter-board allowed the
creators to selectively patch-out data and code from the original ROMs with
their own. This was done to prevent needing to burn ROMs that might contain
copyrighted code.

There are some details about a recreation of Crazy Otto (where you can see
some of the game graphics) here: [http://www.pacificarcades.com/crazy-
otto.html](http://www.pacificarcades.com/crazy-otto.html)

Here's a photo of the daugherboard from Ms. Pac Man (which Crazy Otto begat):
[http://lawnmowerman.rotheblog.com/images/msaux.jpg](http://lawnmowerman.rotheblog.com/images/msaux.jpg)

------
dang
Recent and related:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21099120](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21099120)

------
pyreal
Also of interest: GDC Game Postmortem
[https://youtu.be/rhM8NAMW_VQ](https://youtu.be/rhM8NAMW_VQ)

