Antic The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Jeff Johannigman Jeff Johannigman published his first two computer programs through Atari Program Exchange: Rabbotz and Snark Hunt. He went on to program the Atari ports of Mask of the Sun and Serpent's Star for Br0derbund, then worked on Relax for Synapse, GI Joe for EPYX, copy protection for Electronic Arts, and was producer of Master of Orion, published by MicroProse. Jeff is also one of the co-founders of the Game Developers Conference. This interview took place on January 30, 2016. Teaser quotes: "So the next day, an email goes out to everybody in the company. 'No more Atari ST software, period.' So, somebody has no realization that he totally sabotaged the Electronic Arts support for Atari ST with one phone call." “[Dan Bunten] also gave me one of the best pieces of advice about game design back then. He said that what's important in making a good game is not what you put in; its what you keep out." Links: AtariMania's list of Jeff's Atari games - http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe

Leigh Zeitz, Epson Connection book Leigh Zeitz wrote the book The Epson Connection: Atari Edition, about using your Atari 8-bit computer with Epson printers; as well as a version of the book for the Commodore 64. This interview took place on November 8, 2015. Teaser quotes: "IBM came out and said: 'Well guess what? As of next month we're not going to be creating any more IBM PCjrs.'" "'Uh, Leigh, I probably don't even need to make this phone call, but we don’t need your book.'" Links: Epson Connection at Archive.org - https://archive.org/details/The_Epson_Connection_Atari_Edition Epson Connection at AtariArchives.org - http://www.atariarchives.org/epson/ Lee's blog - http://drzreflects.com

David Johnson, Popeye David Johnson co-created the Atari 400/800/5200 version of Popeye, which was released by Parker Brothers. This interview took place on November 9, 2015. Teaser quote "That was my first work experience. I really enjoyed it.  We were doing like 60, 70 hours a week."

Steve Baker: Defender, Stargate Steve Baker is well-known in the Atari world as having done the 400/800 and 5200 conversions of Defender.  He also did ports of Stargate for the 5200 and the 400/800.  Additionally, he developed Miniature Golf and Microgammon SB for the 400/800 and 5200, and Reversi and Gomuku for the 400/800.   He worked for Apple from 1980 to 1982, then for Atari from 82 to 84.  Steve also wrote games for the Apple II, the Atari 2600, the Intellivision, and the Commodore 64. This interview took place on November 1, 2015. Links: Interview with 2600 Connection - http://www.2600connection.com/interviews/steve_baker/interview_steve_baker.html Defender video at YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiB_DttmN3Y Defender at AtariMania - http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-defender_1561.html Stargate for the 400/800 Video (YouTube) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI1iILhB9Dg

Mike Potter: Protector II, Shadow World, Nautilus, Chicken Mike Potter ported several Apple II games to the Atari 8-bit computers for Crystalware, including Protector. He later developed five programs for Synapse Software: Protector, Protector II, Chicken, Nautilus and Shadow World — in a one year period, with the combined sales of 93,000 copies.   In this interview we discuss Steve Hales and Ihor Wolosenko, both of whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place October 22, 2015.   Teaser quote: "Let's see, I got married in '84, and my brother-in-law had every single one of my games pirated. And I was like, 'What? You have all my games!'"   AtariMania's list of Mike's games - http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-potter-mike_team_1073_8_G.html Mike’s web site, includes history and videos of people playing the Atari titles - http://mikepotterhere.com

Arthur Leyenberger, Atari columnist Arthur Leyenberger wrote the "Outpost: Atari" column in Creative Computing magazine, the End User column in A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing, and the ST User column in ST-Log magazine. He was also editor of the Jersey Atari Computer Group newsletter. This interview took place on November 10, 2015.  Teaser quote: "If I think about one thing that really captures that era, is that it was exciting. It was exciting, it was fun, it was something new, it was something you could share - you could join a user group, there were all these magazines. ... A lot of information out there, a lot of stuff to learn, a lot of stuff to have fun with and share." Outpost: Atari in Creative Computing beginning Nov 1983 http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/index/index.php?author=Arthur+Leyenberger The End User column in A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing http://www.atarimagazines.com/analog/index/index.php?author=Arthur+Leyenberger The ST User column in ST-LOG http://www.atarimagazines.com/st-log/index/index.php?auth

Jeff Bell, Atari coin-op Jeff Bell worked for Atari Games for 31 years. He stated in 1973 as a Pong inspector, then moved to the engineering department, specifying requirements for parts. He worked in IT and system administration, and did other jobs in his more than three decades with the company. He also ran the Itsy Bitsy Bulletin Board System. This interview took place on November 7, 2015. In it, we discuss Bob Stahl, whom I previously interviewed. Teaser quote: "People say Atari died in — what? — 1983? Didn't happen. Didn't happen. We were in Milpitas making video games. We made great video games."

Stephen Lawrow, Mac/65 assembler Stephen Lawrow created the Mac/65 assembler, which was published by Optimized Systems Software. Stephen became an employee of OSS, where he also worked on the company’s enhanced BASIC products, BASIC XL and BASIC XE. This interview took place on November 1, 2015. In this interview we discuss Bill Wilkinson of OSS, whom I previously interviewed.  Teaser quotes: “I got so frustrated, I couldn’t wait till I got Mac/65 mature enough where it could start assembling itself. So that’s why it has a lot of compatibilities syntactically with the Atari Assembler/Editor.” “A lot of us were not formally educated in software development. Because it just didn’t exist in the colleges at the time ... Algorithms, searching, and things like that — all that stuff happened after that.”

Bob Stahl, Atari receiving inspection and software quality Bob Stahl worked in the Atari home computer division, where he was the senior technician in the receiving inspection department, doing first article inspection. (He explains what that means in the interview.) He then moved to software quality engineering, testing produced software to make sure it looked right and worked correctly. Later, he was hired by Atari's coin-op division to do receiving inspection for that company. He also ran an Atari BBS called Modem Magazine. In this interview we discuss Cassie Maas, whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place on November 1, 2015. Teaser quotes: "Biggest problem we had, of course, was the cassette tapes in the early days losing data ... Huge dropouts in the data stream, looking at the status signal through an oscilloscope. But we never found out exactly why, and you know that technology went away really quick." "I took a 300 baud acoustic modem and a Mr. Microphone on one computer, and a stereo

Clayton Walnum, A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing and ST-Log Clayton Walnum was writer and editor at A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing and ST-Log magazines. He started out as technical editor at A.N.A.L.O.G., and was eventually executive editor of both magazines. Clayton wrote the C-manship column - an ongoing tutorial on the C programming language - as well as many, many other articles. This interview took place on November 8, 2015. In the interview we talk about Lee Pappas, whom I previously interviewed. Teaser quotes: “The first day, he pointed out my desk and it was like a foot deep in submissions that they hadn’t gotten to yet. So my first job was to go through all of those submissions and find the stuff that looked interesting, and see what we might want to buy for the magazine.” “At that point on the masthead I was listed as executive editor. I was pretty much single-handedly producing both A.N.A.L.O.G. and ST-Log.” Clayton’s articles in A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing: http://www.atarimagazines.com/analog/index/index.php?author=Cla

Bob Polin, Blue Max Bob Polin was the programmer of Blue Max and Blue Max 2001 — both published by Synapse Software, and co-creator of Puzzle Panic with Ken Uston. He also wrote the game "Maxter Mind" which was published by Antic magazine. This interview took place on February 15, 2016. In it, we discuss Ihor Wolosenko, whom I previously interviewed. After we did this interview, Bob sent me the floppy disks containing the source code for Blue Max, which I was able to recover. There's a link to the source code in the show notes. Teaser quote: "I literally — when I do a game it's very, very intense where I day in and day out do it. I just burnt out, did nothing for a few years." Blue Max source code: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/249933-blue-max-source-code-for-you/ AtariMania's list of Bob's games: http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-polin-bob_team_1070_8_G.html Maxter Mind: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v2n7/MaxterMind.html InfoWorld review of Blue Max: https://books.google.com/books?i

Steve Hales: Slime, Dimension X, Fort Apocalypse Steve Hales published several games with Synapse Software: Slime, Dimension X, Fort Apocalypse, and Mindwheel. His first job was reverse engineering the Atari 2600 to create the Starpath Supercharger. His game for that platform was Suicide Mission, an Asteroids clone. This interview took place on October 21, 2015. In it we discuss Ihor Wolosenko and Cathryn Mataga, whom I previously interviewed; and Mike Potter and Bob Polin, whose interviews are forthcoming.  Steve has released the source code for Fort Apocalypse. He and I talked about the possibility of also releasing the code for his other games. In March 2016 he emailed me, "I did a deep look into my archives, and didn’t find anything useful. I have one more place to look, but its not near me at all, so it will take a few months to look." However, he does have Mindwheel running on a web site at http://mindwheelgame.com and his more modern game, Squirrel Warz for iOS, is available at http://www.squirrelwarz.

Glenn Faden, Microsailing Glenn Faden published one program for the Atari 8-bit computers: Microsailing, which was published by Atari Program Exchange. Microsailing first appeared in the Spring 1983 APX catalog. This interview took place on January 27, 2016. Teaser quote: “I got a lot of interesting feedback. One of the comments that I got back from people was that it was too difficult.”

Surfer Bob, Warez Sysop "Surfer Bob", real first name Carlos, ran The Pipeline BBS, an Atari bulletin board system that offered warez for download -- pirated software. This interview took place on January 28, 2016. Teaser quote: "He didn't have anybody to back him up but he had a stun gun ... he had that in his pocket, and he walked up to Shlomo and grabbed him ... took out the stun gun and just, like, sparked it in his face."

David Stoutemyer, The Soft Warehouse David Stoutemyer was co-founder of The Soft Warehouse, a company that specialized in mathematics software for several computer platforms. The company published three programs through Atari Program Exchange. Algicalc and Polycalc first appeared in the summer 1982 APX catalog for $22.95 each. Algicalc was described as a "valuable tool for students and teachers of algebra and calculus and for professionals who want a quick way to perform operations in symbolic algebra and calculus." It won third price in the education category in that catalog. Polycalc was described as "a computational tool for performing symbolic algebra and calculus operations. It differs from ALGICALC in that POLYCALC supports polynomials that are generalized to permit fractional and negative powers of variables, and the program can use many unassigned variables, whereas ALGICALC can use only one. However, POLYCALC is essentially a polynomial system rather than a rational expression system." Their third At

David Crane, Pitfall! and Atari 400/800 OS David Crane started his programming career at Atari, making games for the Atari 2600. He also worked on the operating system for the Atari 800 computer, as well as the games Outlaw and Howitzer, which were sold through APX.  David left Atari in 1979 and co-founded Activision, along with Alan Miller, Jim Levy, Bob Whitehead, and Larry Kaplan. While at Activision, he was best known as the designer of Pitfall! This interview took place October 23, 2015 Links “Meet David Crane: Video Games Guru”, HI-RES Vol. 1, No. 2 / January 1984 / page 46 - http://www.atarimagazines.com/hi-res/v1n2/davidcrane.php David Crane Interview at Good Deal Games - http://www.gooddealgames.com/interviews/int_David_Crane.html PRGE 2015 - David Crane (Activision) - Portland Retro Gaming Expo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbinkHyWde8

Bill Rice, HYSYS Bill Rice published one program in the Atari Program Exchange catalog: HYSYS, or Hydraulic Program. It was a tool that did calculations for sizing hydraulic systems and components. HYSYS first appeared winter 1982 APX catalog. This interview took place on January 27, 2016 Teaser quote: "So you can imagine with something like a hydraulic program, they're like 'No we've got our scientific calculators and we look really cool punching in these numbers. We're not going to get a home computer and do that.'"

On this episode of ANTIC the atari 8-bit podcast: I cause a robot invasion in Portland, Bill Kendrick goes ultra-mega-retro gaming with Game ‘N Watch inspired games for the Atari, Randy wraps up the retrochallenge, and we still manage to keep the podcast under 3h 21m. Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast AtariArchives.org AtariMagazines.com Kevin’s Book “Terrible Nerd” New Atari books scans at archive.org ANTIC feedback at AtariAge Atari interview discussion thread on AtariAge ANTIC Facebook Page What we’ve been up to “The Atari Book Volume 2” - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BKS5SHU/?tag=ataripodcast-20 BASIC Tenliners Contest 2016 - http://atariage.com/forums/topic/247971-basic-tenliners-contest-2016/ Axlon Andy Robot, ANTIC VOL. 3, NO. 12 / APRIL 1985 - http://www.atarimagazines.com/v3n12/profiles.html Interview Discussion Luis Baeza transcribed Glenn the 5200 man - http://computingpioneers.com/index.php/Glenn_The_5200_Man News Atari SuperBowl Ads (article) Atari SuperBowl Ads (video) - https://

Jerry Falkenhan, Finance Software Jerry Falkenhan had three programs published by Atari Program Exchange: Family Cash Flow, Family Budget, and Family Vehicle Expense. Atari bought Family Cash Flow and Family Budget and packaged them as an Atari-branded product, Family Finances. This interview took place on January 26, 2016. Teaser quote: "I get my first royalty check. I'll never forget: $35,000. I go down to Wells Fargo and they wouldn't cash the darn thing." Picture of Jerry during our Skype session: http://i.imgur.com/5y2yFMc.png Inverse ATASCII podcast on Atari Family Finances: http://inverseatascii.info/2015/01/27/s1e9-atari-family-finances/ Inverse ATASCII podcast on Family Vehicle Expense:  http://inverseatascii.info/2015/10/13/s2e02-apx-family-vehicle-expense/

Bill Louden, CompuServe and GEnie Bill Louden was part of the team that built CompuServe, the first consumer online service, where he was director of the computing, games, entertainment, e-mail, chat, and forum products. He went on to be the founder of the GEnie online service (General Electric Network for Information Exchange.) This interview took place October 15, 2015. Teaser quotes: "You know, we expected at CompuServe customers to spend $10 to $15 a month. ... We never expected people to come online and spend $1,200, $2,000 a month playing MegaWars." "We're there to serve the customer so I want [a name] that sort of embodies a service configuration, and it's magical. It's something new. And the best name they came up with was Albert, for Albert Einstein. This cost me $50,000. I literally came home from that meeting crying."