Antic The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Jerry Jewell, co-founder of Sirius Software Jerry Jewell was co-founder of Sirius Software. Sirius published many Atari titles including Alpha Shield, Capture the Flag, Fast Eddie, Gruds in Space, Sneakers, Wavy Navy, and Wayout. The company was probably best known in the Apple ][ world, but also published software for the Commodore and other platforms - more than 160 titles in all. This interview took place October 15, 2015. Teaser quotes: "In the latter days it got down to where a game would sell for two weeks, three weeks, and then it would die." "It was like the boys hadn't discovered girls yet and my job was to keep them from doing that ... Whatever it took to keep these guys off the streets and away from alcohol and women, it would keep them busy, you know? Keep them programming." On-Line and Sirius Finalize Merge Plans: https://books.google.com/books?id=Hj0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA6 AtariMania's list of Sirius software for Atari: http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-sirius-software_publis

Bob Polaro Bob Polaro was an Atari employee from 1978 through 1984, where he wrote several programs for Atari Program Exchange — very early programs in the APX catalog: Lemonade, Mugwump, Preschool Games, Reversi, Space Trek, and Dice Poker.  He also wrote the States & Capitals and European Countries & Capitals educational programs for the Atari computers, both published by Atari.  He programmed several games for the Atari 2600, including Defender and RealSports Volleyball. This interview took place on January 22, 2016. Teaser quote: “At that time they were starting to request that we put in easter eggs, which kind of took the whole idea away. It was supposed to be hidden, and yet, it ended up being part of the design at some point.” Links: Bob’s web site: http://www.polaro.com Lemonade in Antic magazine: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v4n6/lemonade.html

Dave Pratt, founder of Digital Vision (ComputerEyes) Dave Pratt was founder of Digital Vision, the company that made ComputerEyes for the Apple //, Commodore 64, and Atari 8-bit computers. ComputerEyes was a slow-scan video digitizer that plugged into the joystick port (on the Atari version). You'd connect a video camera or VCR into the ComputerEyes box, and software on your computer would create a black-and-white or greyscale version of the image on the computer screen. This interview took place October 12, 2015. After we did this interview, Dave set up a nice web site with a history of Digital Vision and photographs of the early products, at www.Digital-Vision-Inc.com. Teaser quotes: "Even just running tight machine language loops, it barely could keep up with that kind of rate pulling samples from the scan lines." "That same signature from the very first scan -- literally the very first scan that was done by the prototype initial product -- literally, that same image was used to sign the company's checks f

Thomas Hudson, Atari sales trainer Thomas Hudson was a trainer for Atari, where he taught computer store owners and others about the Atari 8-bit computer line, and attended trade shows to show off Atari's computer products. Later he became a product manager for three products: light pen, touch tablet, and mouse.  In this interview we discuss Andrew Soderberg, whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place on January 21, 2016. Teaser quotes: "And one was this little device that you plugged into the thing, and you moved it around to control the cursor. And he said "I don't know what this mouse thing is, but nobody is ever going to use a mouse on a computer.'" "He called me up at work, and in the unmistakable voice said, 'Tom, this is Alan Alda. I've run into a little problem, and I think you're the only person that can help me. ... I've got a bunch of friends coming over tonight, I wanted to show this program off to them...'" Links Tom's web site: http://thehudsons.com/tom-and-patty/ Tom Swift fan fic

Roger Hector, Atari’s Advanced Products Group Roger Hector started at Atari back in 1976.  As a creative designer, he was originally hired by Pete Takaishi (Industrial Design Manager), before working in the Art Department, and then finally for Al Alcorn.  He managed Atari's Advanced Products Group and helped create the Cosmos system before leaving to co-found Videa with Howard Delman and Ed Rotberg. This interview took place September 17, 2015. Teaser Quotes: “There’s a LOT of interesting stories!” “There was an old saying around there, somewhat cynical, but they said ‘hey, we could make money faster than we can piss it away’” “I think Atari was a place that deserved your fandom.” Links: Roger Hector interview for Gamasutra - http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3672/a_veteran_with_character_roger_.php?print=1 Roger Hector interview for 2600 Connection - http://www.2600connection.com/interviews/roger_hector/interview_roger_hector.html TopTrack Mobile App for Musicians developed by Roger - www.toptrackarti

Bob C., Software Pirate Bob C. was an Atari software pirate in New York who went by the moniker The Missing Link. This interview took place on January 19, 2016. Teaser quotes: "It's all I wanted to do. I skipped going on vacation with my parents because I wouldn't be able to dial into these bulletin boards and see what was going on and leave messages to my friends. It just got, got like a drug." "Sometimes I say, 'Jesus, that ate up a lost of my life, what the hell was I thinking?' But, they were such fun times."

Peter Langston, LucasArts Peter Langston was a founding employee at the game development company LucasArts, part of the team that created the Atari 8-bit games Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus. Peter composed Song Of The Grid, the memorable theme to Ballblazer. He also created the classic mainframe game Empire, and Oracle, the precursor to the Usenet Oracle (now called Internet Oracle.) Check his web site at langston.com for an interesting collection of papers, scans of LucasArts articles, and related material. This interview took place on January 16, 2016. Teaser quotes: "I remember at one point, some magazine said that LucasFilm has the ... best computer graphics in the game industry. And Alvy Ray Smith said that the games industry had the worst computer graphics that LucasFilm had ever done." Links Peter's Web site: http://langston.com/LFGames/ Internet Oracle: http://internetoracle.org Empire on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_Classic Peter Langston on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org

Tom Harker, ICD Tom Harker was co-founder of ICD, a company that created many popular add-ons for the Atari 8-bit computers including P:R: Connection, U.S. Doubler, and SpartaDOS. Later, they created several upgrades for the Atari ST and Amiga computers, and the CatBox networking hardware for the Atari Jaguar. According to a 1987 article in Antic magazine, "Tom Harker started ICD in his basement in Rockford, Illinois, with Mike Gustafson, who then lived in Minneapolis. The company was incorporated in 1984, with Harker as president and Gustafson as vice president in charge of development." This interview took place on January 19, 2016. Teaser quote: “It started out, when we did the U.S. Doublers, I was assembling all of those myself and we were baking them in our oven. We potted them in epoxy so people wouldn’t copy it. ... I remember baking them to cure the epoxy in my oven. My wife loved it.” Links Tom’s ICD memorial site: http://www.icd.com Antic Magazine article about ICD: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n

Jerry White, Atari author and programmer Jerry White was a prolific Atari software developer and writer. He published Player Piano, Bowler's Database, and other software for Atari Program Exchange. He wrote Poker S.A.M. and Chaterbee, two talking programs distributed by Don't Ask Software. He was co-author of the book The Atari User’s Encyclopedia, and wrote dozens of articles for Antic, A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing, Compute! and other magazines. He wrote two lessons in the Tricky Tutorial series, and was the founder of the Professional Atari Programmers Information Exchange (PAPIE). This interview took place on January 1, 2016. Teaser quotes: "Believe it or not, I think I got to like 30 things on the market at one time. I was really hellbelt on quantity rather than shoot-em-up games, because I didn't want to really spend my time trying to develop another game." "My income from the Atari stuff was more than I was making [at my day job.] So I retired from the job I was doing so I could develop software 24 hours a da

Steve Defrisco, H.E.R.O., Wing War Hello and welcome to Antic, The Atari 8-bit Computer Podcast.  My name is Randy Kindig.  This is another in the continuing series of Atari 8-bit related interviews.  This time, we talk to a former game developer for the Atari 8-bits, Mr. Steve DeFrisco.  Steve worked for Imagic and Activision, working on porting such titles as H.E.R.O. (Helicopter Emergency Rescue Operation) and Wing War as well as developing software for the Intellivision and Atari 2600.  He also is the man doing the juggling in an Imagic video from 1983; link provided in the show notes. Teaser Quote “The next Spring, when my first game Tropical Trouble was done, was when Atari announced their big loss.  So, I put kind of a kibosh on the whole being a millionaire before I was 20.” Links Steve in Imagic Video (he’s the one doing the juggling for a few seconds beginning about 1:17 in) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3x6Idp8oT0 Steve’s Web Site - http://www.stevedefrisco.com

Thomas Newton, Basic/XA and Keypad Controller Thomas Newton, published two programs with Atari Program Exchange: Keypad Controller, software for reading the keypad game controllers from BASIC; and BASIC/XA, a set of add-ons for Atari BASIC programmers. This interview took place December 11, 2015.

Arlan Levitan, writer Arlan Levitan wrote for many computer magazines including Creative Computing and Compute!, where he wrote the Telecomputing Today and Levitations columns. He helped design the menu system and feature set of the AMIS bulletin board system, and hosted the first AMIS BBS at his house. He was heavily involved with MACE, the Michigan Atari Computer Enthusiast user group, and wrote the book The User's Guide to Atari 400, 800, 1200XL Computers, Software & Peripherals. This interview took place on December 10, 2015. Teaser quotes: "They [Atari] were either, depending on how you want to look at it, very generous or very foolish with their money." "It's not so much about the hardware, I think, as the people."  Link: Arlan's articles in Compute!: http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/index/index.php?author=Arlan+R.+Levitan

Sandy Dwiggins, AtariLab manuals Sandy Dwiggins wrote the manuals for AtariLab - both the light and temperature modules - while she was an adjunct professor at Dickinson College, teaching Film Studies. She worked closely with Priscilla Laws, whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place on October 14, 2015. Teaser quote: “She [Priscilla Laws] found these two programmers who only came out at night and were barefoot all the time ... they didn’t take showers, they didn’t take baths, they didn’t do anything except sit in their nest.” Links AtariLab starter set/temperature module manual: http://www.atarimania.com/documents/AtariLab_Starter_Set.pdf AtariLab light module manual: http://www.atarimania.com/documents/AtariLab_Light_Module.pdf

Andrew Soderberg, Atari Product Manager Andrew Soderberg was a product manager at Atari from 1980 through August 1983. He oversaw projects including the XL line of computers, and De Re Atari. He was also production manager for several of Atari's TV commercials, one of which won a Clio award. He was a member of the team that build the first computer/laserdisc interactive kiosks for use in retail. In this interview we discuss Tandy Trower, whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place on November 18, 2015. Teaser quote: “So here I am, 21 years of age, in New York City, being put up in the junior suite of the Plaza, for a week. It’s all been downhill ever since!” Links: Andrew’s web site: https://about.me/AndrewSoderberg Conversational French commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXZN9o7qlWU

Mike West, Pirate Mike West was an east coast software pirate who went by the handle “Jolly Roger.” He was — and still is — friends with Gary Walton, whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place on October 9, 2015. Teaser quotes: “The whole thing was kind of bizarre. It’s like, on one side of their moth they would scream about piracy. On the other side of their mouth they would kind of — I don’t know, promote it in some way. It was very weird.” “Piracy did not kill Atari. Atari killed Atari.”

On this episode of ANTIC the atari 8-bit podcast: We explore the possibilities of new Atari software and hardware mods (yea faster Star Raiders explosions); and Randy delves into the turtle-y goodness of Atari Logo. Trigger warning: there may be some Amiga lust and gentle Apple // bashing in this episode. 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 Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga (Platform Studies)” - Jimmy Maher, The MIT Press - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262017202/?tag=ataripodcast-20 News Brad Fuller Interview on Antic RetroChallenge - http://www.wickensonline.co.uk/retrochallenge-2012sc/ Mr. Atari releases new game called Lost In Space Fujiology Archive V2.1 – Biggest Atari Demoscene archive New Years Disk 2016 Listen to the Antic podcast on your Android device with a new app (b

Landon Dyer, Donkey Kong and Super Pac Man Landon Dyer started as a software engineer in the Atari home computer division in 1982, where he specialized in converting arcade games to the Atari 8-bits. There, he programmed the Atari 400/800 versions of Donkey Kong, and Super Pac Man — which was never officially released by Atari (but has been widely available for many years.) After the Tramiels bought Atari, he worked on the Atari ST, including BIOS boot code and the floppy disk driver. Landon’s blog, at DadHacker.com, has many interesting posts about his Atari days. This interview took place December 9, 2015. Teaser quotes: “In many ways, Atari marketing was completely divorced from the process of making games. They didn’t understand what programmers did, they didn’t understand what manufacturing cycles were.” “To get ROMs made inside of Atari you had to go through a mastering lab. So basically you’d hand a couple of guys disks. They would disappear into their lab, smoke some dope, and come out with ROMs. And

Tom Briscoe, APX Software Evaluator Tom Briscoe worked at Atari as an intern in the summer of 1981, where he evaluated the user-written software that had been submitted to Atari Program Exchange. This interview took place on September 26, 2015. Teaser quote: “Hangman was sort of the obvious game for people to submit, and if I recall the obvious business application was the personal finance and record keeping ... budget programs.”

Bob Brass and Peter D’Amato, Cauzin Softstrip If you read certain computer magazines from the early days of microcomputers — magazines like Byte, Family Computing, II Computing and InCider — you might see long, black-and-white strips of bar codes. Those are computer programs encoded for use with the Cauzin Softstrip reader. Introduced in 1985, the Cauzin Softstrip was a hardware peripheral that attached to your Apple //, Macintosh, or IBM computer (there was no Atari version.) It optically read the printed two-dimensional bar codes, which were published in those magazines and in books - allowing you to quickly input data - for instance, inputting programs without having to laboriously type them in. This interview is with two of the people at that company: Bob Brass was co-founder of Cauzin (along with Dr. Jack Goldman, who has passed away), and Peter D’Amato, who was Manager of OEM and VAR Support at Cauzin from 1984 through 1988.   This interview took place on October 5, 2015. Teaser quote: “I remember being

Jim Inscore, Documentation Manager Jim Inscore was hired at Atari in 1981 as a writer in the marketing department, then became documentation manager, where he managed writers and production staff to produce technical and consumer documentation for Atari computer hardware and software. This interview took place on December 9, 2015. Teaser quote: “A process where ... 12 different design firms came in and did 12 different versions of the packaging. Those of us who had been around for a while were just kinda sitting back and going ‘What is going on here? I don’t understand any of this.’”