Marc Blank

Marc Blank
Blank, Marc
Born	1954
Occupation	Founder, Software Developer, Programmer

Career

Marc Blank was born in 1954.
He studied at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), where he became involved in computing and worked with early text adventures.
He also attended Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and earned his MD degree in 1979.

After medical school, instead of pursuing a full-time medical career, Blank decided to continue his work in programming and interactive fiction.
On June 22, 1979, Blank co-founded Infocom, together with others including Dave Lebling.
At Infocom, Blank took on many roles: co-author of games, developer of core technology, and leadership in product development.

As one of Infocom’s “Imps” (implementers), Blank co-authored several landmark titles:
- Zork I, Zork II, Zork III
- Deadline, Infocom's first non-Zork mystery game.
- Enchanter (co-authored with Dave Lebling)
- And solo creations: Boder Zone and Journey: The Quest Begins

Technologically, Blank was involved in developing and maintaining the Z-Machine (Infocom’s virtual machine) and tools such as ZIL (the “Zork Implementation Language”) and associated compilers. These allowed Infocom’s games to run on many platforms.
He was Vice-President of Product Development at Infocom during its heyday.
In 1986, Blank resigned from Infocom, citing dissatisfaction with the direction the company was taking, plus personal reasons.

After leaving Infocom, Blank continued to work in software and games, evolving with the industry.

In 1993, he co-founded Blank, Berlyn and Co. with former Infocom writer Michael Berlyn. This company later became Eidetic.
At Eidetic, he worked on productivity / non-game software as well as games. For example, Notion: The Newton List Manager for the Apple Newton became one of the more successful third-party applications on that platform.
Eidetic also developed several games under the PC / PlayStation lines, the most notable being Syphon Filter (1999) and its sequels. These became major hits for Sony.
In 2000, Sony acquired Eidetic, which later became known informally as Sony Bend.
Blank left Sony in 2004, after which he worked on other software projects. One is ChatterEmail, an email client for the Treo smartphone.
He also worked at Palm, Inc., after they acquired ChatterEmail.
Later, he had roles at Google (contributing to Android) and at Amazon’s Lab126.

In 2009, IGN named him one of the top 100 game creators of all time.
In 2013, Marc Blank and Dave Lebling were awarded the Pioneer Award by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, in recognition of their foundational role in interactive fiction and the development of the Zork games.