Back in the earlier days of coin-op video, several figures who’d done pioneering work on the new genre have been forgotten by industry history, among them was Bernie Stolar. This unassuming man who’d worked for Atari, Sega and Sony, has passed away at age 76. He’d been living in a Los Angeles retirement home at the time.
A favorite of many manufacturer reps, Bernie had developed one of the movie ‘Jaws’ renditions on the coin-op screen. Called Shark Jaws, it was built by the old Game Plan pinball maker and was licensed on a contract with the film’s distributors Universal Pictures. But the story goes that Bernie stopped production just before royalties were to kick in. Rest in Peace.