Jul 13, 2016
John Harris: Jawbreaker, Frogger, Mouskattack
John Harris created the games Jawbreaker, Frogger, and Mouskattack for the Atari 8-bit computers. He worked at Sierra On-Line and later Synapse Software. He later created video character generator systems based on the Atari machines.
This interview took place June 10, 2016.
Teaser quotes:
"Literally — I mean, a day or two difference could have made — gosh, my goodness, what a huge difference in my life if I had gone into that store a couple of days earlier."
"He just said, you know, 'I'll give you $1,500 a month to live on for two months, and if you haven't finished a game in two months, you won't make it in this industry anyway.'"
"The general public opinion was, 'Oh, this is just more Jawbreaker.' ... But I still kind of have a fondness for it."
AtariMania's list of John's software
John in Halcyon Days: http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/HARRIS.HTM
Jawbreaker in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawbreaker_(video_game)
John Harris in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harris_(software_developer)