Carla Meninsky
Lawyer and Atari 2600 video game designer and programmer
title: "Carla Meninsky" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["year-of-birth-missing-(living-people)", "21st-century-american-women-lawyers", "21st-century-american-lawyers", "living-people", "atari-people", "american-video-game-designers", "american-video-game-programmers", "electronic-arts-employees", "intellectual-property-lawyers", "stanford-university-alumni", "women-video-game-designers", "women-video-game-programmers"] description: "Lawyer and Atari 2600 video game designer and programmer" topic_path: "law" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla_Meninsky" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Lawyer and Atari 2600 video game designer and programmer ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Carla Meninsky |
| employer | Atari, Inc. |
| Electronic Arts | |
| occupation | Video game designer, programmer, lawyer |
| years_active | 1977–present |
| known_for | Indy 500, Dodge 'Em |
| :: |
| name = Carla Meninsky | nationality = | other_names = | employer = Atari, Inc. Electronic Arts | occupation = Video game designer, programmer, lawyer | years_active = 1977–present | known_for = Indy 500, Dodge 'Em | notable_works =
Carla Meninsky is a former video game designer and programmer active during the early years of the Atari VCS.{{cite web | url = http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3766/atari_the_golden_years__a_.php?page=18 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080825070827/http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3766/atari_the_golden_years__a_.php?page=18 | url-status = dead | archive-date = August 25, 2008 | title = Atari: The Golden Years — A History, 1978–1981 | first = Steve | last = Fulton | work = Gamasutra | date = August 21, 2008 | accessdate = December 4, 2010 }} Along with Carol Shaw (creator of 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe and River Raid), Meninsky was one of three female programmers at Atari, Inc. to develop video game cartridges.{{cite book |title = Chris Crawford on Game Design |first = Chris |last = Crawford |authorlink = Chris Crawford (game designer) |publisher = New Riders Games |year = 2003 |pages = 223, 437 |isbn = 0-13-146099-4 |url-access = registration |url = https://archive.org/details/chriscrawfordong00craw_0/page/223 She later became an intellectual property lawyer.
Background
Meninsky's mother was a programmer and Carla learned programming in high school, but she switched from mathematics to neuropsychology and brain modelling at Stanford University. Given her artistic bent, Meninsky was particularly interested in vision and eventually veered back toward programming and a lifelong dream of creating animation tools.
She began her college career at Stanford studying math but eventually switched to psychology because it sounded more exciting. She learned basic Fortran in high school from her mother, who was a programmer, and through this built an interest in computer animation.
Atari, Inc.
Meninsky joined Atari after graduating from Stanford University with a degree in psychology.
For the Atari 2600 she wrote the racing games Indy 500 and Dodge 'Em (similar to the 1979 Head On coin-op from Sega), a 1981 port of Atari's Warlords, and the 2600 version of Star Raiders (originally designed by Doug Neubauer for the Atari 8-bit computers). She later worked on a port of Tempest that was never released, but prototypes exist.{{cite web | url = http://www.atariage.com/programmer_page.html?ProgrammerID=37 | title = Programmers: Carla Meninsky | first = Albert | last = Yarusso | work = AtariAge | accessdate = December 3, 2010 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121016082815/http://www.atariage.com/programmer_page.html?ProgrammerID=37 | archive-date = October 16, 2012 | url-status = dead
Law practice
Meninsky worked for Electronic Arts (EA) and other game publishers and eventually started her own successful contract programming company. In the course of writing contracts and seeing intellectual property rights being ignored by some companies, she became interested in intellectual property law. Meninsky graduated from George Washington University Law School and now practices intellectual property law. As an EPIC Public Interest Opportunities Program Fellow, Meninsky testified before the U.S. Senate in 2002.
References
Publications
References
- (12 November 2011). "A conversation with Carla Meninsky".
- Meninsky, Carla. (November 2016). "Computer Programs and Copyright: Using Technological Measures to Lock out Competition". Munich Intellectual Property Law Center.
- "EPIC Statement on Biometrics and Identify Theft". Electronic Privacy Information Center.
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::