Antic The Atari 8-bit Podcast

On this episode of ANTIC the atari 8-bit podcast: we talk about the release of the Star Raiders source code, how to set up an Atari club of your own, and lust over the 1400XL and 815 dual floppy drive. Don’t forget, we have a contest going this month!  Whoever transcribes the most ANTIC interviews from 11/1/15 to 11/30/15 will win a Defender cartridge for the Atari 400/800/XL/XE computers signed by none other than Steve Baker, the person who converted the game from the arcade version!  Check with Kevin (kevin@savetz.com) to see what interviews need to be transcribed. Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast AtariArchives.org AtariMagazines.com Kevins 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 Tricky Tutorials - http://www.atarimania.com/documents/Tricky-Tutorials-1-6.pdf Atlanta Maker Faire - http://makerfaireatl.com/   Star Raiders Source Code - https://archive.org/details/

Bill Hogue, Miner 2049er Bill Hogue was founder of Big Five Software. He was programmer of the hit 1982 game Miner 2049er, and its sequel Bounty Bob Strikes Back!. This interview took place on August 31, 2015. Teaser quotes: “I tried to cram as much color in there as I possibly could, because it was all fresh and new to me.” “I’d forgotten how all the bank selecting and anti-piracy stuff worked that I put into it. . . so I had to spend hours, if not days, breaking my own code.” LINKS AtariMania’s list of Bill’s games Interview with Bill at trs-80.org Electronic Games Magazine 1983 interview with Bill Creative Computing's review of 2049er  

Gerri Brioso: Halftime Battlin' Bands, Coco-Notes, Movie Musical Madness Gerri Brioso is part of The Dovetail Group, a company that created three children’s games for the Atari 400/800 and Commodore 64 computers. All three games were released in 1984: they were Halftime Battlin' Bands, Coco-Notes, and Movie Musical Madness, all of which were released by CBS software. Wikipedia says "These games are notable as they represent some of the earliest examples of the music management subgenre of music video games." The games were also notable because each of those games included a plastic record album, playable on a phonograph, which served as the games’ instruction manuals. The characters in the games and records — Swivel Hips, Wahoo, and Mr. Bass Man — made up a fictional band called The Jazz Scats. This interview occurred on July 30 and 31, 2015. Teaser quotes “They made it doubly hard for us because they suddenly wanted us to not just create for the Atari platform, but to also create for the Commodore platf

Alan Murphy, Atari Animator Alan Murphy was Senior Animator at Atari, where we worked from 1980 through 1987. Alan created the graphics for the Atari 8-bit versions of Defender, Xevious, Galaxian, Countermeasure, Pac Man for the Atari 5200, Demons to Diamonds for the 2600, and many other games. He also worked with engineers at Atari Research on research projects and prototyping, and designed specs for game art and animation systems. This interview took place June 15, 2015. Teaser quotes: “So I did these animations of Mr. and Mrs. Pac Man going across the screen and then they came back the other way and there were little babies. Namco came along and said 'uh-uh...that's a little too suggestive.'” “As far as I know, I think that was the first easter egg by an artist.” Links: Countermeasure Easter Egg Animated Gauntlet Commercial  

Adam Billyard, Chop Suey/ElektraGlide Adam Billyard's first three games for the Atari 8-bit computers were "Bellum", "Henri", and "Chop Suey,".  Bellum was published through the Atari Program Exchange, although Adam never received any royalty from Atari for it.  "Chop Suey" was one of the first modern-style fighting games for the Atari 800. He followed this up with a pair of three-dimensional games: "ElektraGlide," a racing game for the Atari 8-bit; and "Q-Ball” for the Atari ST. If you’re not familiar with any of these games, it's probably because you live in the U.S. Three of his five games were originally released by the U.K.-based English Software and received more publicity in Europe than the versions distributed by Mindscape in the States. This interview took place May 15, 2015. Teaser Quote: “Years later they said ‘did you not get the check for $30?’ which I thought was just completely bizarre.” Links: Adam’s Polystream, the next generation of fully streamed interactive entertainment Adam’s Intervi

Glenn The 5200 Man Glenn Botts is better known to Atari 8-bit users as "Glenn The 5200 Man.” Glenn was perhaps the most widely-known Atari software cracker, because he had a unique specialty. Most pirates removed copy protection from software, making it so it was copyable and able to be shared for free. Glenn’s skill was in taking games that were developed for the Atari 5200 game system, and converting them so they would run on the Atari 8-bit computers. Many of the games created for the Atari 5200 were not released for the computers, so Glenn’s system conversion cracking had the unique effect of creating games for the Atari computers that otherwise would not have existed. The Atari 5200 was very similar in architecture to the Atari computers, but not 100% compatible — for one thing, the 5200 carts physically didn’t fit into the Atari computers. Also, the joysticks were very different, with the 5200 using analog joysticks and the computers using digital joysticks. This is the first time that Glenn’s identity

Bruce Poehlman, The Last Starfighter/Star Raiders II Bruce Poehlman only worked at Atari for a year — from June 1983 until July 1984 — but he told me “it was an interesting year.” Bruce coded the game The Last Starfighter for the Atari 5200 and 8-bit computers — a game that was never released. Two years later, he was contracted to re-brand the game as Star Raiders II. Teaser quotes: “We have this contract with a movie, and we think you game with little tweaks might be able to fit the theme of that movie. And that movie was The Last Starfighter.” “That bonus, within six months of my starting there, went from $40,000 to $20,000. Then in another three months it went to $12,000 then it went to $8,000.”

Dan Horn, Infocom Dan Horn stated as a programmer at Scott Adams’ Adventure International, where he programmed the Atari version of Treasure Quest. Then he moved to Infocom where he was technical director, then became head of the microcomputing group. This interview took place on May 21, 2015. Teaser quotes: “The feelies were really the copy protection. If you had a feelie, you were compelled — not really for copy protection purposes — but you were compelled to have it because it was cool.” “With the Atari we had thousands of colors. We had the rippling, shimmering effect, and we had all this other stuff. Now, most of it never got to an Infocom game. But it was cool!”

Leslie Wolf, Product Manager for Atari Logo and AtariLab   Leslie Wolf was a product manager at Atari from 1981 through 1984. She managed the design and development of educational hardware and software products such as Atari Logo software and AtariLab. In this interview, we talk about Pricilla Laws, whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place on May 15, 2015. Teaser quote: “I had gone over to my guys in the manufacturing operation and I said, ‘You know what? They don’t know you’re here. Keep working until you don’t get a paycheck anymore.’” LINKS Antic magazine article about AtariLab

Dr. Priscilla Laws, AtariLab AtariLab was a hardware and software package for the Atari 400 and 800 computers. The AtariLab Starter Set with Temperature Module was released in 1983. The Light Module add-on was released in February 1984. AtariLab was developed at Dickinson College under the direction of physics professor, Dr. Priscilla Laws. Dr. Laws joined the faculty at Dickinson in 1965. She has dedicated herself to the development of activity-based curricular materials and computer software to enhance student learning in introductory physics courses — which started with AtariLab. This interview took place May 14, 2015 Teaser quotes: “I saw somebody dip a thermistor into cold water — ice water — and a real-time cooling curve was appearing on the screen. And it blew me away.” “So, Ron said: ‘I watched Ray Kassar open the safe, and he pulled $200,000 in bills out of the safe. He handed it to the woman and he said “Please say no more.”’” LINKS Priscilla Laws’ bio 1984 Atari Connection article about Atar

On this episode of ANTIC the atari 8-bit podcast: we learn about new software and hardware for the Atari. We learn about marketing. We learn that we’re . . .   Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast AtariArchives.org AtariMagazines.com Kevins Book “Terrible Nerd” New Atari books scans at archive.org ANTIC feedback at AtariAge Atari interview discussion thread on AtariAge   What we’ve been up to Eight Bit Fix - Paul Westphal Northwest Retro Computing and Video Game Club “Interesting Times” Podcast with Joe Streckert VCF Midwest Suburban Chicago ATarians (SCAT) “Atari Inc: Business is Fun" at Amazon Atari Book site Dungeon Hunt   News New version of Atari++ and new BASIC++ by thorfdbg on AtariAge Sprint 1 Ported to the Atari 800XL by Norbert Kehrer New game called AtariNet from slor (James Wilkinson) Episodes 5 and 6 of XE-Lent Arcade Games by Kieran Hawkin, arcade conversions for the 8-bits: Part 5 (Q-Bert, Millipede, Donkey Kong) Part 6 (Super Breakout, Lode Runner) Chicken Lips Radio Commodore Podc

Harold Lee, Home Pong Designer and the Man Who Hired Jay Miner In 1974 an engineer by the name of Harold Lee had become burnt out from his work designing arcade game boards and he quit and left Atari.  No sooner had he left then he would receive a call from Allan Alcorn.   Al asked Harold a question - "Could Pong be put on a chip?"  Harold said it could be done and suddenly he found himself now hired back at Atari as an outside consultant.  Harold and Al worked on the design and the chip was finished in the latter half of 1974.  It was, at the time, the highest performing chip used in a consumer product.  Harold was kind enough to talk about his experiences working for and with Atari and the fact that he was the one who hired the legendary Jay Miner into Atari. This interview took place on April 25, 2015. Links The Pong Story

John Schulte and Feridoon Moinian, Dorsett Educational Systems John Schulte and Feridoon Moinian were both employees at Dorsett Educational Systems, the company that created the Talk And Teach educational cassette tapes which were sold by Atari. Dorsett also sold many more cassette-based classes directly via mail order, for the Atari, TRS-80 Color Computer, and other platforms. Feridoon worked primarily as a programmer, and John was primarily an editor. As my co-interviewer for this discussion, I invited Thomas Cherryhomes, an expert in the technical aspects of the Talk and Teach system. I interviewed Thomas previously on this podcast, in ANTIC interview 57. Nearly every educational cassette tape that Dorsett released for the Atari has been digitized, they’ll all available at Archive.org, there’s a link in the show notes at AtariPodcast.com. This interview took place on June 25, 2015. Teaser quote: “He [Loyd Dorsett] would tell them, “Shall we go have lunch now?’ Yes. ‘OK, let’s go downstairs and we’ll h

Peter Rosenthal, Marketing and Strategic Planning Peter Rosenthal worked at Atari from March 1979 thru the middle of 1983. He joined Atari as a marketing research associate in the consumer division, and served as Vice President of Business Development in the Home Computer Division, then Vice President of Strategic Planning. After Atari, he moved to marketing and sales at Designware, an educational software startup that published software for the Atari 8-bits and other platforms. This interview took place on May 18, 2015. Teaser quote: “That tension between marketing and engineering is not unique to Atari. I’ve been around now long enough to see lots of other companies and very often when a company’s sales goals aren’t achieved or product reviews are less favorable than one would like, I think generally marketing is the butt of the argument as to why it wasn’t successful.” Links Designware software list at AtariMania

Cathryn Mataga: Shamus, Zeppelin, Mindwheel   Cathryn Mataga wrote several games that were published by Synapse software: Shamus, Shamus Case II, and Zeppelin, then three electronic novels: Brimstone, Essex, and Mindwheel.   In this interview we discuss Ihor Wolosenko, whom I previously interviewed for this podcast.   This interview took place on May 17, 2015.   Teaser quotes:   “These games were pretty hard. It was quite a bit of work, actually, to make a game by yourself. And it was all assembly language. And I was doing all the art and all the stuff. They were pretty involved projects for me, personally.”   “There was a tragic bug in the music driver in all of the Synapse 8-bit titles ... When they went to the new Atari XLs, when they upgraded the operating system, all these games crashed. And they all came back.”   Link: Software at AtariMania

David Burling, Atari in-house counsel   I like interviewing the lawyers, they always know what’s really going on. David Burling was in-house counsel for Atari from 1980 through 1984. His job included distribution contracts, licensing, and manufacturing. He supervised the customs department, intellectual property, and international business transactions. His stint included being general council of the international division, and council for the AtariTel telecommunications products.   This interview took place on May 22, 2015.   Teaser quote:   “Try and dress like I was in the coin-op industry. I wore sort of an open-throated shirt with two buttons undone at the top and an old, wide lapel jacket and jeans, trying to look sort of hip slick, and cool ... and went down to Los Angeles. They sent me to a major coin-operated games retail ... outlet to see if I could buy one of the Asteroids copies that was coming from Japan.”

Marty Payson, Warner, Office of the President   Hi, everyone, and welcome to another in the long-standing series of interviews being published for Antic, the Atari 8-bit Computer Podcast.  I’m Randy Kindig and this interview is a follow-up to the recent interview that we published with Manny Gerard of Warner Communications, the company that bought Atari in 1976.  This time the interview is with Marty Payson, also of Warner Communications.  Marty began with Warner in 1970, became executive vice president and general counsel in 1982, and in 1987 became a member of the Office of the President for Warner.  He was with Warner during the Atari days, up to 1984 when it was sold to the Tramiels, and was still involved with Atari for some time after that, as you will hear.  Marty was not as intimately involved with Atari as was Manny Gerard, but nonetheless I hope you find his perspective from the Warner side interesting.   This interview was conducted on August 17, 2015.   Teaser Quotes   “The problem with it was

John Constantine, General Accounting Manager   John Constantine was General Accounting Manager in Atari's Consumer Division from 1978-1981, then became Executive Director until he left the company in 1984.   This interview took place May 14, 2015.   Teaser quote:   "One of your clerks sent a package Federal Express — across the street — in the headquarters in Sunnyvale"

Manny Gerard, The Man Who Fired Nolan   For this interview, we’re getting a different perspective of the Atari/Warner relationship, this time from the Warner side.  (Emanual) Manny Gerard was a member of the Office of the President for Warner during the Atari days from 1976, when they acquired Atari, to 1984 when it was sold to the Tramiels.  He in fact was the key person in the decision for Warner to acquire Atari.  As you will hear in the interview, he was also the man who ousted Nolan Bushnell from Atari.  We get Manny’s perspective on Atari from Warner’s view, on the decision to bring out the computer line, and much more.  I think you’ll appreciate Manny’s honesty and his sense of humor.   This interview took place on August 9, 2015.   Teaser Quotes   “I can remember saying this to Nolan, over and over again: You cannot run the company by divine right of kings, Nolan”   It feels to me like the computer’s problem at Atari was that it was; it lived in the shadow of the game systems, because they were s

Tandy Trower, Atari product manager   Tandy Trower started at Atari evaluating software titles, then moved on to the position of product manager, managing new titles including Missile Command, Asteroids, and the port of Microsoft BASIC for the Atari. Then, he left Atari for Microsoft, where — once again, he managed Microsoft BASIC for the Atari. Tandy also wrote the Character Set Editor program which was sold by Atari Program Exchange.   This interview took place May 13, 2015.   Teaser quotes:   “The Atari executives were so impressed with Bill [Gates] at the time that they flew up in their corporate jet to Seattle and offered to try to acquire Microsoft. But Bill and Paul [Allen] were not interested in selling at all at that time.”   “If you had a title, you had to make sure there was an engineer who was available and interested in doing it. So if you couldn’t talk an engineer into writing it — unless you were going to write it yourself. Except for me, there were very few people in the marketing departm