In the early 1980s, a company known as Magic Carpet Software produced software titles for the Commodore PET and Commodore 64 home computers, spearheaded by two main programmers, Robert Carr and Kathy L. Higby.

However let’s backtrack a bit first.

Cursor Magazine began a tape publication of home-made games submitted to them by programmers. Cursor was published by The Code Works and ran from 1978 into the early 1980’s. Each Cursor magazine had a cover page: a menu that allowed the user to select the program to run from that particular issue.

Kathy Higby

In 1980, a woman by the name of Kathy Higby wrote a game titled Ouranos for the Commodore PET. It was published in an issue of Cursor Magazine.

In Ouranos, two players competed against one another using weather to try to destroy one another’s bases. For example, you could use lightning or wind to try to defeat the other person. While the majority of Cursor Magazine titles were written 100% in BASIC, Ouranos featured a machine language snippet to flash the screen like lightning. This was particularly innovative for 1980. As for the game’s title Ouranos, it’s likely that Cursor changed the game’s name to avoid confusing readers with a previously published game named Weather.

Higby would then publish a second game for Cursor titled Lawn (June 1981) in which you had to mow your lawn while avoiding obstacles.

Bob Carr

Bob Carr also had software published by Cursor Magazine including Frogs and The Rain Dance. Rain Dance is perhaps a politically incorrect demo by today’s standards. It features a native tribe performing a rain dance. In Frogs, your objective was to catch flies while trying to save energy.

Bob later released Weather War II for the C64 which was a colourized version of Ouranos although using his own name for credits.

Magic Carpet Software

It was around 1982 that Carr's and Higby's software ceased being published by Cursor and was then being published by a company known as Magic Carpet Software. Early advertisements for Magic Carpet Software had a Postal Office box out of Phoenix, Arizona. Magic Carpet ran advertisements in Cursor Magazine, The Torpet (1983) and Compute.

In a 1982 advertisement, Magic Carpet was selling Vortex and Phantom fighter for the Commodore PET for $14.95 per cassette. Additionally you could purchase Wasps, Graphic Duo and Game Pac.

Several of their PET titles were ported over to the Vic-20 and Commodore 64.

Who was Magic Carpet Software?

If one examines the listings of the Cursor Magazine software, usually the author's address was found placed in the REM statements. We can see that in the early 1980’s, Kathy had an Arizona address while Bob Carr had a California address. Given that Magic Carpet Software had an Arizona P.O. Box, I'm surmising Kathy ran the company. In an undated advertisement, Magic Carpet Software had an ad with the contact name of Katherine Carr. At some point, it's assumed that the two programmers were married. They published their software titles together under this company.

The last mention of Magic Carpet Software would be in 1986 in an issue of the Midnite Software Gazette. From there the couple faded into history.

The search comes to an end... almost!

After spending a week trying to track down any information about the couple behind Magic Carpet Software, I believe I found what I was looking for. I stumbled upon a website that was registered under the Carr couple's name. In the depths of the website I found a resume for Katherine that seems to strongly coincide with the information from where she'd have lived while running Magic Carpet.

I immediately sent off a message to her and Bob asking if they'd like to answer some questions about the PET days. The message to Bob bounced while the one to Kathy did not. Just to be certain, I also sent a copy to two Gmail addresses that were linked from the website under Kathy's name - those also bounced back.

While the website was registered in 1997 for a period of 25 years, it seems to have been dormant since around 2014. That's when the content seems to stop. Kathy was part of several community groups, and some were linked from the website. Those websites no longer work. It seems that most of the content is stale, and the website code is quite obsolete as well.

I found a resume hidden away in the website belonging to Kathy from 2005. I can't be absolutely certain that this is the same couple, but I believe it is.

Bob worked for 22 years in government, which might be why there seems to be an effort to distance himself from the Stroker game title :). In 2001 he was 51 years old, today he'd be 73 years old. In 1992 he started a web design business (some of the client pages still exist).

Kathy was a bit more revealing. She was the daughter of a navy officer, and moved around a lot. By 2005, she'd moved 10 times in the last two decades.

Kathy worked for a telephone company between 1969 and 1980 in San Diego, California. From 1980 to 1984 she worked at a different telephone company in Phoenix, Arizona. That time period corelates to the timeframe that Magic Carpet Software used a post office box in the same city. Then from 1984 to 1990, Kathy worked in information systems for AT&T in the Phoenix and San Diego area. Her resume shows her last position being from 1990 to present in another telephone company in San Diego. This would be in the same area that Bob Carr lived.

Some of her job duties included maintiaining a top sales position in telemarketing, radio and newspaper interviews to promote programs offered by her phone company that were available to small businesses and technical/sales training of new staff.

She also attended Southwestern College for 2.5 years.

While this answers the question of what did she do during those years, it also leaves many unanswered. Did they release any other software? Are they still alive today? For now, the interview questions remain not responded to and I don't know if she even checks her email on the domain. I do have her address which I believe is recent, but I don't think it appropriate to contact her this way. Also, I've been vague about her job experience intentionally.

Note these photos are roughly 18 years old and Bob's photo was half his face, so I mirrored the other half.

Further reading...
https://genesistemple.com/the-history-of-magic-carpet-software