Artifact Details

Title

Fries, Ed oral history

Catalog Number

102739916

Type

Moving image

Description

This interview begins with a discussion of Ed Fries’ early childhood interests in computing and early video game programming projects, both personal and commercial. He describes, for example, a parody of the game Frogger he wrote for a small software company in California while still a high school student. After high school, Fries went to New Mexico Tech where he was first exposed to large-scale computing systems like the DEC System-20. Fries began work at Microsoft shortly thereafter, where he worked on applications new to Microsoft at the time: Word and Excel. He would eventually hold senior technical and managerial roles on both of these products. With the decision to produce the Xbox game console, Fries was eventually named head of the new Microsoft Game Studios—the creative arm of the Xbox team responsible for producing game titles for sale with Xbox. Fries concludes with a survey of the video game industry’s past thirty years and possibilities for the future of game development.

Date

2014-05-06

Participants

Dennis, Eric, Videographer
Fries, Ed, Interviewee
Spicer, Dag, Interviewer

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Place of Publication

Mountain View, California

Duration

02:07:11

Format

MOV

Copyright Holder

Computer History Museum

Category

Oral history

Subject

MC6800 (Microprocessor); CARDIAC; 6502 CPU; Atari 800 (Computer); BASIC (Computer program language); Spacewar!; Choplifter; Wizardry; Frogger; Froggie; Princess and Frog; Sea Chase; ET; Anteater; Dig Dug; Atari; New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology; DEC-20; VAX computers; Microsoft; Fish-O-Rama; Excel; Microsoft Word; O’Brien, Mark; Lotus 1-2-3; Peters, Chris; Powell, Rick; Sindogs bug; AutoSum; Workaholic Wednesdays; PowerPoint; Age of Empires; Flight Simulator; Direct Xbox; Xbox; Blackley, Seamus; Allard, J; Sony; Playstation; Nintendo; Valentine's Day Massacre; Holmdahl, Todd; Bach, Robbie; Gates, Bill; Ballmer, Steve; Mundie, Craig; Bungie; Halo; Minecraft; Electronic Arts (EA)

Collection Title

Oral history collection

Credit

Computer History Museum

Lot Number

X7162.2014
 

Related Records

102739917 Fries, Ed oral history