Jamie Fenton
Jamie Faye Fenton (born in 1954[1] as Jay Fenton) is a video game programmer best known for the 1981 arcade video game Gorf [2][3] and for being one of the creators of MacroMind's VideoWorks software (since renamed Macromedia Director). Jamie has been active in the transgender community and transitioned from male to female around 1998.[2]
Biography
[edit]Fenton was drawn to computer technology while in school because its highly predictable nature appealed to her and it provided a haven from being picked on by other students.[2]
In 1975, while studying computer science in the University of Wisconsin, Jamie and fellow student Tom McHugh volunteered to work at Dave Nutting Associates, who enlisted their help to redesign pinball machines and the Japanese arcade game Western Gun using Intel's 8080 microprocessor, [4] she also later worked on the Bally Astrocade,[5] and wrote the programming language Bally BASIC, based on tiny basic.[6]
In 1978, Jamie Fenton created an early example of glitch art entitled Digital TV Dinner, a 3 minutes film, with Raul Zaritsky.[7][8] For this project, Jamie Fenton was ejecting the cartridge inserted in the Bally Astrocade in wrong moment, to create the glitches.[9] They also punched the game consol.[6] Digital TV Dinner is first presented in 1978, at the Chicago event Electronic Visualization Event 3, In Chicago.[10] A second version will be presented in 1979.
in 1981, while working at Midway Manufacturing, Jamie Fenton designed the game Gorf.
Four years later, she co-created the logicil VideoWorks, which, will then become Macromedia Director, then, after being bought by Adobe, Adobe Director. This software was a precursor of the software Flash.[6]
In 1995, with Cindy Martin and JoAnn Roberts, they created and launched tgforum.com, an online forum for transgender people. It still exists in 2024.[11]
In 2018, Digital TV Dinner was exhibited in the Chicago New Media 1973-1992 exhibition, curated by Jon Cates.[12] During the exhibition, she played Digital TV Breakfast, a video game by Whitney (Whit) Pow, inspired by Digital TV Dinner.[1] The same year, she created a new piece, Primordial Glitch Art, where she filmed herself creating glitches by ejecting Cartridge from a Bally Astrocade, while explaining how to obtain those glitches.[6]
Works
[edit]- Datsun 280 ZZZAP (1976)[13]
- Checkmate (1977)
- Digital TV Dinner (1978)
- Bally Astrocade BASIC re-write (1980)
- Gorf (1981)
- Robby Roto (1981)
- Primordial Glitch Art (2018)[6]
See also
[edit]
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Stability Isn't Everything It's Glitched Up to Be: An Interview with Jamie Fenton". 2022-12-19.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ a b c Newitz, Annalee (2001). "Secrets of Ms. Gorf". Metro Silicon Valley. Archived from the original on 2019-03-30. Retrieved 2010-11-14.
- ^ "Classic Videogame Hardware Genius Guide". Archived from the original on 2019-03-30. Retrieved 2013-12-30.
- ^ Donovan, Tristan. (2010). Replay : the history of video games. East Sussex, England: Yellow Ant. pp. 74–75. ISBN 978-0-9565072-0-4. OCLC 639031262.
- ^ Donovan, Tristan. (2010). Replay : the history of video games. East Sussex, England: Yellow Ant. p. 141. ISBN 978-0-9565072-0-4. OCLC 639031262.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ a b c d e Pow, Whitney (Whit) (2021-01-01). "A Trans Historiography of Glitches and Errors". Feminist Media Histories. 7 (1): 197–230. doi:10.1525/fmh.2021.7.1.197.
- ^ Betancourt, Michael. (2015) The Invention of Glitch Video: Digital TV Dinner (1978) (preview) Archived 2019-03-23 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ "Stored in Memory: Recovering Queer and Transgender Life in Software History". Letters and Science. Retrieved 14 January 2021.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Lê, Corentin (2021-06-29). "Une brève histoire du glitch". Critikat (in French). Retrieved 2024-12-01.
- ^ Betancourt, Michael (2017-01-01). "The Invention of Glitch Video: Digital TV Dinner (1978)". Millennium Film Journal.
- ^ Riedel, Samantha (2023-11-22). "You Can Now Look Back at the Early Trans Internet. Yes, There Were Memes". Them. Retrieved 2024-12-01.
- ^ Cates, Jon (2018). Chicago New Media, 1973-1992. Illinois, United States: university of illinois Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-252-08407-2.
- ^ "Datsun Was The First Car Maker To Officially Brand A Video Game". Jalopnik. Archived from the original on 17 January 2021. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
External links
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