Atari engineer Steve Bristow passes away

Video game pioneer Steve Bristow, an engineer during Atari’s early days who contributed to the birth of the Atari 2600 passed away last Sunday.

During it’s hayday, Bristow was in charge of Atari’s Coin-Op Division during the days of arcade machines and was one of the people who helped conceptualize the hit arcade game Breakout with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, and became the VP of Engineering for it’s computer division before leaving the company in 1984.

The news came when author Martin Goldberg of Atari Inc. shared it in a post on the Atari Museum Facebook group. Bristow had also worked on Computer Space as an intern, which was the world’s first arcade game, co-created by Bushnell before the founding of Atari.

Thanks Steve, for helping the video game industry with it’s baby steps.