Paul Laughton

Paul Laughton was a programmer at Shepardson Microsystems and the primary author of Atari BASIC, the interpreter that shipped with the Atari 8-bit home computers. When Shepardson won the bid to complete BASIC for Atari in September 1978, Laughton and Kathleen O'Brien took Data General Business Basic as their inspiration, drawing on his earlier experience with Data General on a time-sharing system. Work began when the specifications were settled in October 1978, under a contract that also covered a File Manager System later known as DOS 1.0 and that set delivery for 6 April 1979. Laughton and O'Brien were married. In early 1981 they joined Bill Wilkinson and Mike Peters in forming Optimized Systems Software to continue the Atari products. Laughton was still employed by Atari at the time, with his manager's permission, and the couple were later bought out by Peters and Wilkinson.