Antic The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Russ Wetmore: Preppie!, Sea Dragon, Homepak Russ Wetmore started at Adventure International, where he worked with Scott Adams on Savage Island Part II. He then went on to program Preppie!, Preppie! II, and Sea Dragon - all of which were published by Adventure International - and Homepak business software, which was published by Batteries Included. This interview took place on September 24, 2015, and then a little bit more on January 4, 2016.  After the main interview took place, Russ sent me the source code for Preppie!, Preppie! II, and Sea Dragon, plus an demonstration disk of an unfinished Atari game called Lulu. I successfully archived all of those disks and have posted them to archive.org. I also made a YouTube video of the Lulu demo. Links are below. Links Game source code Video of Lulu Lulu discussion and ATR download AtariMania list of Russ Wetmore software JavaScript version of Preppie AtariAge discussion about the source code Teaser quote: “I actually only spent about 18 months writing those three g

Paul Lewandowski, APX Puzzler Paul Lewandowski was in high school when he wrote Puzzler, which was published by Atari Program Exchange and won the Atari Star Award in fall 1983: first prize in the learning category. Puzzler is a game that shows you a picture on the screen, chops it into equally sized squares, and scrambles them. Then, the player uses the joystick to try to put the picture back together - like one of those plastic puzzles where you slide numbers around to put them in order. Puzzler had three difficulty levels: 4x4 was easy, 8x8 was hard, and 10x10 was “insane”. This interview took place on December 9, 2015 Teaser quote: “The whole thing was such a great idea ... having users write programs. It was so ahead of its time.”  Links APX catalog featuring Puzzler Puzzler download at AtariArchives.org Paul on Twitter

Clinton Parker, Action! Welcome to this special interview edition of Antic, the Atari 8-bit computer podcast.  All of our interviews are special in some way and we appreciate the time that the interviewees donate to the Atari 8-bit community at large.  This interview is a much-anticipated one due to the beloved nature of the software provided by the interviewee and due to the fact that the he has been away from the Atari 8-bit community for some time.  The software I’m talking about is the Action! programming language and the author is Clinton Parker.  Action! was released in 1983 by Optimized Systems Software (better known as OSS).  It quickly became one of the favorite programming languages ever produced for the Atari 8-bits and was used in the development of some commercial products.  The 6502 source code for Action! was made available under the GNU General Public License by the author in 2015. This interview took place on September 6, 2015 via Skype. Teaser Quotes “It was an opportunity for me having

Peter J. Meyer - Tempest Xtreem, Venture, Delta Space Arena The intro music to this episode is the tune “Mind’s Eye” from the Atari XL/XE version of Tempest Xtreem; composed by Sal KJMANN Esquivel.  Our guest for this interview is the author of Tempest Xtreem, as well as Delta Space Arena and Venture for the Atari 8-bits, Mr. Peter J. Meyer.  Peter has done a great job of developing game software for the Atari in the modern era and continues to develop additional software.  His software is available at Video 61 and Atari Sales, run by Lance Ringquist.  Please enjoy the interview and let Peter know you appreciate the work he continues to do for the Atari 8-bits. Teaser Quote: “I was on my Atari and my friends brought over this Nintendo system and they said ‘Oh, your Atari will never be able to do anything like this!’” Links: Video 61 and Atari Sales - http://members.tcq.net/video61/main.html Delta Space Arena at YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW_9myJ2Cu0 Tempest Xtreem Music (Mind’s Eye) by Sal Esqu

Larry Reed, Childware Larry Reed was a programmer for Childware, where he worked on two educational games for the Atari 8-bit computers: Word Flyer and D-Bug, both of which were published by Electronic Arts. This interview took place December 6, 2015. Teaser quotes: "I'll tell you, working with FORTH on the Atari was great until we exceeded the memory capability of the Atari, and then it was a royal pain in the ass." "'Anybody who thinks there is a distinction between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either.'" LINK http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-childware-inc_developer_298_8_G.html

Tony Nicholson and John Babinchak II, Hi-Res Magazine In this episode, two interviews for the price of one: two people who helped create Hi-Res Magazine — the computer magazine that only published four issues. First, we’ll hear from Tony Nicholson, the publisher of Hi-Res magazine; then John Babinchak, the editor of the  magazine. Hi-Res was a short-lived magazine dedicated to Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64 computers. It was published from late 1983 to early 1984. Although they didn’t publish months on the cover, I believe the first issue would have have a cover date of November 1983. Subsequent issues would have been January 1984, March 1984, and the final issue was May 1984. Hi-Res came to the Atari magazine party late in the game, fighting against magazines with established advertiser and subscriber bases. A.N.A.L.O.G. magazine started in January 1981, and ANTIC magazine’s first issue was April 1982. Creative Computing was starting its tenth year around that time.  You can read all four issues of Hi-Res at w

Kevin Hayes, Atari Games Ireland On this interview episode, we take a trip to Ireland, and to the coin-op side of Atari. Kevin Hayes was Controller for Atari Irerland Ltd. in 1978, then became manufacturing director. Later he moved to California where he was VP of Manufacturing for Atari Games, then vice president of Operations. This interview was recorded December 7, 2015. Teaser quote: "They had goats grazing on our property, and ... he killed one of their goats, he slaughtered it. ... the owner of the goat came on the property and wanted to be compensated for it."

On this episode of ANTIC the atari 8-bit podcast: our annual holiday buying guide for Atari 8-bit lovers, we announce the winner of the interview transcription contest, I test all of the BBUC game contest entries, and we outright start bribing people to donate to archive.org. 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 Kevin KansasFest 2015 Session - https://archive.org/details/Kansasfest2015SessionsHowToGetInterviews part of https://archive.org/details/kansasfest Gideon Marcus digitized many disks fromJacksonville Atari Computer Enthusiasts and Lotsabyes, put them online at  http://sdfo.org/jace/ Tricky Tutorial #11 Memory Map Tricky Tutorial #6 Sound and Music News Bill Wilkinson has died Kevin’s 2014 interview with Bill - ANTIC Interview 7 - The Atari 8-bit Podcast - Bill Wilkinson, OSS R

Alan Ackerman, MPP Alan Ackerman co-founded Microbits Peripheral Products (MPP) with John Wiley. MPP made modems and printer interfaces for the Atari 8-bit computers. MPP also published software: Microfiler and Assault Force 3-D. The company would re-structure to become Supra, a giant in modems which became the largest hardware manufacturer for Commodore Amiga computers. This interview took place on October 2, 2015. Teaser quote: “The volumes got to be insane. ... You know, at that point if we had a product we were selling 5,000 units a month, we thought that was pretty damn good.”

Alan Stratton, plant controller Alan Stratton was Atari’s plant controller, managing the financial functions in the El Paso, Texas manufacturing facility. He was also involved with the infamous dumping of game cartridges in the Alamogordo, New Mexico dump. This interview took place on October 2, 2015. Teaser quotes: “A rumor got out that we were going to search people as thy left the floor, as they left shift. Later that evening as we went into the lavatories, the floors were littered with cartridges and PC boards that were fully functional.” “This was all planned in advance, until the landfill opened up a brand new cut - a brand new area - so that we could be on the very, very bottom.” “If I had an auditor come in, I’d sit him down at an Atari game console or my computer, and have him play some games. Boy that audit went sweet after that.”

Aric Wilmunder: Star Raiders II, Temple of Apshai Here’s how Aric Wilmunder introduced himself to me: “When The Last Starfighter didn’t do well in the theaters and marketing re-branded the Atari 800 Last Starfighter game as Star Raiders II, they didn’t take into account that there was already an actual sequel to Star Raiders that was just a few months away from completion.  I was the designer and solo engineer who worked for about a year on the project as a member of an R&D team inside Atari Coin-Op.  A friend helped me copy the disk image a few years back and when I saw Steve Hales post your tweet about the source code [for Star Raiders] I thought there might be some interest. “The game was close to being finished, but there were still parts that needed polishing like the enemy AI, so I’ve been hesitant to release it since it might be judged as a finished work. I’d hate to wait 30 years to release the game just to get a bad review.” Aric Wilmunder started writing programs on the Exidy Sorcerer computer,

Courtney Goodin, Compu=Prompt teleprompter Compu=Prompt was the first electronic, personal computer based teleprompter, which ran off of an Atari 800XL computer. It was created by Courtney Goodin, who won an Emmy award for it, for “Pioneering Development in Electronic Prompting.” He also created the Atari graphics programs Color Print and Graphic Master, both of which were distributed by Datasoft. This interview took place on December 4, 2015. Teaser Quotes: “This software is probably one of the most expensive pieces of software sold that ran on the Atari.” “We sold systems to companies like IBM, we sold to JC Penney, we sold them to the Defense Intelligence Agency - the government.” LINKS Photos of the device from the eBay listing: http://imgur.com/a/oc6S6 Device on eBay Proprompt: http://proprompt.com 1984 InfoWorld article mentioning Compu=Prompt Antic magazine article about Color Print and Graphic Master: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v2n10/ComputerArt.html

Anthony Jones, Atari UK Anthony Jones was general manager of Atari’s headquarters in the United Kingdom. Later he moved to the United States, where he was group product manager in the marketing arm. There he worked on the Mindlink controller, a controller for the Atari that strapped to your forehead with a headband. Later, he worked at Nolan Bushnell’s Catalyst Technologies incubator. This interview took place on September 22, 2015. Teaser quotes: “As opposed to a video game where it gets faster and faster as you go on the game (in the older games at least) this one was kind of the opposite: the more you relaxed, the higher your score cranked. It was quite a surreal experience.”

Forrest Mozer, Pioneer in Digitized Speech Forrest Mozer invented and patented the first integrated circuit speech synthesizer in 1974. He licensed this technology to TeleSensory Systems, which used it in the Speech+ talking calculator. Later, National Semiconductor also licensed the technology, used for its "DigiTalker" speech synthesizer. In 1984, Mozer founded Electronic Speech Systems to develop and market speech synthesis products. In 1994, Mozer and his son Todd, founded Sensory Circuits, Inc., now Sensory, Inc., where they developed the RSC-164 speech recognition integrated circuit.  Mozer has 17 US patents in the areas of speech synthesis and speech recognition. Electronic Speech Systems did the work to add digitized speech to several games for the Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64 computers. You can hear digitized speech created by ESS in the Atari versions of Kennedy Approach by MicroProse, 221B Baker Street by Datasoft, and Ghostbusters by Activision. The Atari versions often had fewer spoken phrases th

Bryan Edewaard Bryan Edewaard briefly worked with Atari and with ICD.  In 2004, 20 years after the 5200 was cancelled, he wrote the homebrew game "Castle Crisis" and released it on Atari Age for the 5200 and for the 400/800. Castle Crisis is a clone of the arcade game "Warlords". Bryan lives on a 300 acre farm in Costa Rica with full lodging facilities. He's planning to host classic gaming retreats in the future and welcomes inquiries from people who would like to visit the area. His user name is Bryan on AtariAge or he can be contacted at bryede@yahoo.com. I want to apologize for a couple of quality issues that I ran into with this interview.  First of all, I had a cold at the time of the interview and this affected my voice.  Secondly, a Costa Rican rain storm came up during the interview and while I attempted to remove the noise of the rain on the metal roof, it did affect the quality of portions of Bryan’s speech. This interview was conducted on July 11, 2015. Links Atari 5200 Super System review of the v

Jeff Osorio, Atari Manager of Financial Planning and Cost Accounting Jeff Osorio was Manager of Financial Planning and Cost Accounting at Atari from 1981 through 1984. He was responsible for establishing cost accounting and financial planning functions with a staff of 11 and an annual department budget of more than $1 million. This interview took place September 22, 2015. Teaser quotes: “The one that everybody is always interested in is E.T. And I actually have the distinction of having signed the scrap ticket to write them all off and run them through the crusher.” “He calls me on Monday morning in a panic, and he goes, ‘Jeffrey, where’s all my stuff? ... I’m at the warehouse and it’s empty. All the stuff is gone.’ ... A 100,000 square foot warehouse that was packed to the gunnels with manufacturing equipment on Friday, and on Monday morning it was empty.”

Gary Walton, Atari Store Owner and Pirate Gary Walton owned Discount Video And Computers, a large Atari dealership in Fort Pierce, Florida, and was involved in the Atari software piracy scene. Gary is one of the people who helped me find Glenn the 5200 Man, whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place on September 12, 2015. The New York Yankees lost both games in its double-header with the Toronto Blue Jays that day. This interview contains adult language and content. Teaser quotes: “One day I call up there and I don’t get ahold of him, instead I get ahold of his mother. And I was like, ‘Yes ma’am, may I please speak with Robert [Jaeger]?’ And she’s like ‘Who are you?!’ ‘I’m a friend of Robert’s.’ ... ‘Are you one of those computer pirates?! You know, these computer pirates are getting Robert in trouble and he’s only 16 years old. He doesn’t need this type of trouble!’ screaming at me.” “They were accusing him of having robbed more than $150,000 worth of phone services.” “‘Tell you what we’re goin

Brad Fuller, Composer Brad Fuller started at Atari as audio engineer in the home computer division, where he composed music and sounds for Superman, Donkey Kong, E.T., Robotron, and other games. Then, in the coin-op division he composed music and sounds for Marble Madness, Klax, S.T.U.N. Runner, Rolling Thunder, Paperboy, Xybots, Blasteroids, 720°, and many other arcade games. This interview took place September 2, 2015. Teaser quotes: “You know, you’d map out: OK, we’re going to start developing in September ... then maybe we can play test and beta. And over here, two years from now, it’ll be fun. This is when it’ll be fun. Well, you can’t plan that.” Links:  Brad’s web site: http://www.bradfuller.com/about.html

Bill Mensch, 6502 chip Bill Mensch is co-creator of the 6502 chip, the microprocessor that’s the heart of the Atari 8-bit computers, the Apple ][, Commodore 64, and many other classic computers.  This interview occurred August 6, 2015. Teaser quotes: “These guys at Motorola aren’t going to do the microprocessor that we need to do: that is a low-end microprocessor to complete with the Intel 4040 which sold for about $29.” “I had a bet with Rod Orgle, and Rod Orgle said the 6501 would outsell the 6502.” “I’m in empowerment technology. I want to empower people to do their idea. That’s what I did for Chuck [Peddle], that’s why he came to me.” “Now, you’d think that I was a big fan of Apple, and I’m not. The reason why I’m not is they killed off the Apple II to make room for the Macintosh.” “All of those old brands — Apple II, Commodore, Atari, and the old Nintendo — could all come back to life, with the right relationships. And we have the technology.” Links: Bill and Dianne Mensch Foundation: http://themenschfou

Keithen Hayenga, 5200 Tempest Keithen Hayenga worked for both Apple and Atari and was an Apple II and Atari software programmer. While at Atari, Keithen worked on RealSports Baseball and several other unpublished projects such as Tempest for the Atari 5200, which he later completed and is currently available on AtariAge. Teaser Quote “Their answer was of course ‘well we had Keithen, the best in the business’.  So, it’s like, I was ALMOST in a movie!” Links 5200 Tempest at AtariAge Information on the Unfinished 5200 Tempest Prototype at AtariProtos.com Keithen Interview at Good Deal Games