ABOUT ME - JOHN EMERSON BIO
I started programming computers in the early 1970’s at University of Massachusetts. This was back in the days when computers were as big as a walk-in closet, and programs were entered via punch cards. I have often been asked why I wasn’t a computer science major, and the answer is simple; at that time, U. Mass/Boston didn’t even HAVE a computer science major or department (it was an extension of the math department). I started my professional programming career at Raytheon, programming low-level device drivers in assembly language. This turned out to be good training for what was my first “great job”, programming video games for Parker Brothers on the Atari 2600 in 1982, working on such seminal games as Frogger, Q*Bert, and G.I. Joe . When the gaming industry went belly up in 1984, I went to work for several years at Kurzweil Music Systems, makers of the first high quality digital piano (used by artists such as Stevie Wonder, Prince, and Van Halen), where I developed their consumer line, working very closely with the great Dr. Bob Moog. When the Japanese synthesizer manufacturers caught up to us technologically, they fell on hard times just as Nintendo was taking off, so I went back to Parker Brothers to head up their reformed video game department. During this time, I got to have some very rewarding experiences, such as traveling to Tokyo to work for a time at Sega, and programming the first PC version of Trivial Pursuit. During the 90’s, I went to work for a series of small software developers, where I continued to work on large-scale video game projects such as Monopoly, Risk, NHL Stanley Cup for Nintendo, and Links Golf. In the early 2000’s, burned out on game development, I decided to go into teaching. Although I enjoyed this on several levels, my tolerance for unmotivated children made me realize that my true calling was in the computer industry. With the advent of Web 2.0, the time seemed right to return to programming and design, but this time for the Internet, rather than video game systems. And thus, Some Pig Web Design was born.