Antic The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Ron Bieber, SmartDOS   Ron Bieber was involved with the creation and marketing of SmartDOS, an alternative DOS that was bundled with disk drives from Rana and Astra, and also sold by Sears stores. SmartDOS'swas the first disk operating system to be "Density Smart" — automatically changing between the disk drive's density modes depending on the disk used.   This interview took place on March 4 2015.   Teaser quotes:   "So I decided that instead of trying to sell the program, I want to be paid for every single floppy disk drive that a manufacturer makes."   "It was designed for sort of a moment in time, and the goal was not to keep evolving it as new hardware became available. It was to fulfill the need at that time."

Doug Carlston, Broderbund CEO   Doug Carlston was co-founder and CEO of the software publisher Broderbund.   Broderbund published many hits across several platforms, including Bank Street Writer, Print Shop, A.E., Choplifter, Lode Runner, Karateka, Spelunker, David's Midnight Magic, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.   This interview occurred March 5, 2015.   LINKS AtariMania.com's List of Br0derbund Games   Teaser quotes:   "So we thought it'd be funny to call it Br0derbund and put a slash through the O. Caused all kinds of grief."   "There was a competition between us and a number of other companies like Sierra Online and Sirius Software to see how many [products] we could get on the best seller list at the same time. I think maybe the best we ever did was something like 6 products out of 30."   "It was kind of a game: we had very talented engineers in-house who loved to try to put copy protection on, and sometimes carried it to unfortunate lengths."   "I drove across the country and back over 5 wee

Victor Cross, Atari copywriter   Victor Cross was a freelance copywriter for Atari from 1982 through 1984. He wrote many press releases and product announcements for Atari 2600 and 5200 games. He also wrote the documentation for the Atari 5200 Baseball game; plus various catalog copy for Atari.  He also wrote game manuals for LucasArts, Spectrum Holobyte, Br0derbund, and other software companies.   Victor lent me his collection of Atari news releases that he wrote, which I scanned and uploaded toarchive.org. You'll find a link to that in our show notes atAtariPodcast.com.   This interview was conducted March 5, 2015.   LINK   Victor's Atari 5200 and Atari 2600 News Releases   Teaser quotes:   "For me, this was kind of like my big break... it was a huge blessing for me, really."   "I did play the game, and I kept killing E.T.. ... He kept dying on me. He'd literally have little crosses over his eyes. And I was going my god, nobody's going to like this."

Liza Loop,Technical Writer   Liza Loop wrote the first users manuals for the Atari 400 and 800 computers. She was a Consultant/Technical Writer for Atari from June 1979 through April 1980, sometimes writing documentation for interfaces that had not been designed yet -- so her description became the de facto interface specification.  Liza also worked for Personal Software, where she wrote the reference manual for the original VisiCalc program.  And in an interesting Atari-related note, she and her husband Steve Smith were married by Atari 400/800 designer Jay Miner -- she talks about that in the interview, too.   This interview was conducted January 28, 2015. As of the day I'm recording this in April 2015, Liza hasn't been able to find the manuals and newsletters that we discuss to scan them -- but she says she's still on the lookout. When she finds them and we get them scanned, they'll be added to the show notes atAtariPodcast.com.   LINK   History of Computing for Learning and Education: A Virtual Museum   T

Hello, you are listening to Antic, the Atari 8-bit computer podcast.  I am Randy Kindig, one of the co-hosts, and I’m bringing to you today an interview episode with the author of one of the best games ever released for the Atari 8-bit computer line.  That would be David Fox, one of the authors of Rescue on Fractalus.  David shares his memories of developing that iconic game, working for LucasFilm (later LucasArts), publishing a book about Atari graphics and much more.  Please enjoy.   This interview was conducted March 18, 2015 via Skype.   Teaser Quotes:   “Every time someone does a LucasArts or LucasIflm retrospective, they find me and they ask me to do stuff.  Happy to talk to them because it's fun!”   "The original 2 games that we did, which were Rescue and Ballblazer, were intended to be kind of throw-away games."   "Thank you George (Lucas).  He knew about story telling in a way that I didn't and it was really great to have his feedback on that."   "And I think Star Raiders also kind of inspired me to

Charles Ratcliff, son of MAT*RAT   Charles Ratcliff is the son of Matthew Ratcliff, the prolific writer for the Atari magazines. Matthew Ratcliff -- or MAT*RAT -- died in 1999.   Matthew wrote for Antic, STart, Compute!, A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing, and ST-LOG. In 1986 won Antic magazine's award for Outstanding Contributor. Here's what they wrote about him:   "In 1985, Missouri programmer Matthew Ratcliff was really on a roll--publishing four major Antic programs on a remarkable variety of subjects. In March, he delivered the powerful printing utility Custom Print. Following in August was Atari 'Toons, an ambitious animation program that we featured in a popular contest. In September, it was the innovative Revision C Converter that debugged a longstanding problem for many users of Atari BASIC Revision B. Then in December, BBS Crashbuster was a valuable safeguard for bulletin board sysops needing protection against destructive system-crashers."   Charles dug around in his dad's filing cabinets and found a lot of in

Michael Phillips, Atari Bench Tech   Michael Phillips worked as a bench technician at Atari from February 1981 to June 1984, doing component level repair of Atari video game systems, personal computers, and peripherals.   Because Michael is a lifelong stutterer, he didn’t want to do a voice interview — but he was willing to be interviewed by email. Because this is an audio podcast, I’ve enlisted Randy Kindig to read Michael’s responses. You can also read the original written version of this interview via the link below.   The interview was conducted via email, February 2015.   Teaser quotes:   “Beating the device in question...was part of being a good tech. The key is knowing how hard and where to hit.”   “Misspellings, bad English and odd terminology were par for the day. One guy once referred to the I/O cable as a ‘hose’.”   “One I vividly remember was an 810 [disk drive] that came back 3 times. The guy claimed it would randomly erase disks, but we could never find a culprit...”   LINK   Read the original w

Ian Chadwick   Ian Chadwick is the author of Mapping The Atari, which was -- and remains -- the ultimate memory map for the Atari 8-bit computers. Mapping was published in two editions: the original was for the 400/800 computers, then an updated version was later released for the XL and XE machines. Ian also did a lot of documentation writing behind the scenes, including many of Antic's software manuals, and several manuals for Batteries Included and other companies.   This interview was conducted on March 3, 2015.   Teaser quotes:   "So I would write these little BASIC programs that would go along, and they'd POKE a bunch of memory locations, and at the same time they'd be PEEKing into other memory locations to see what would happen. And it was so much fun!"   "It wasn't intentionally started out as a book, it really intentionally started out as a database of information for my own use."   "They'd say 'You're the guy who wrote Mapping The Atari! You know, that turned my life around when I was 18!' or somethi

Louis Massucci, Atari Bench Tech   Lou Massucci was a bench technician for the Atari 800 line, repairing 8-bit computers and peripherals in Somerset, New Jersey. Later, he was was promoted to field service representative for the southwest territory.   This interview was conducted on March 2, 2015.   Teaser Quotes "Actually, that's what was causing some of the failure modes because the debris left behind by the cockroaches is very acidic and would actually eat through the PC board traces."   "And it kind of came out of nowhere. I mean, we were repairing these things for a year, and really never had a problem with the keyboard. Then all of a sudden we're starting to get this rash of defective 800s with spacebar problems."   "I think it was a Friday afternoon. We got a call from Atari California, and my manager came in saying, 'You need to get the modem going and they're going to download this file.' We complete the download and it was basically a beta copy of the Pac Man cartridge. So for the next two hours, I

On this episode of ANTIC the atari 8-bit podcast: a plethora of news about new atari software and podcasts Randy tells us all about the “other” official  basic, Microsoft BASIC for the Atari and we de-brief about all of the recent interviews. Yoomp will have a great time listening!   Links mentioned in this episode:   Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast AtariArchives.org AtariMagazines.com Kevins Book “Terrible Nerd” New Atari books scans at archive.org ANTIC feedback at AtariAge the Atlanta Historical Computing Society What We’ve Been Up To Atari Meeting at VCFSE - thread on AtariAge Floppy Days Episode #33 - The Atari 400/800 Part I (History) Broderbund FBI FOIA response EPYX FBI FOIA Response Synapse Software FBI FOIA Response Antic and Kevin won a FOILies award for the weird FBI reply about Mattel! worked with Roland at AtariWiki on finishing up the education tape software collection Atari 5200 and Atari 2600 News Releases provided by VIctor Cross   Interviews Discussion Ozark Softscape Revelation

Al Alcorn, Atari Employee #3   Welcome to Antic, the Atari 8-bit computer podcast.  I’m Randy Kindig and this is an interview-only episode of Antic.  My guest for this interview was employee #3 at Atari where he created the world's first commercially successful video game: Pong, Mr. Al Alcorn.  Al was a very influential figure in the early Atari and has a lot of great stories to share about those early days.  He tells us about Steve Jobs stealing employees from Atari, his opportunity to buy into Apple, why Atari got into the home computer business, a special meeting with IBM concerning Atari computers, and his thoughts about why Atari failed.  Al has a terrific sense of humor and I very much enjoyed talking with him.  I hope you enjoy it too.   Links   Al twitter   Al Alcorn at Wikipedia   Space Ghost Coast to Coast with Al   Al Alcorn Interview at IGN  

William Volk   William Volk wrote three Atari games for Avalon Hill: Conflict 2500, Voyager 1, and Controller. He also wrote Forth Turtle Graphics Plus, a 3-D graphics library for the Forth language that was released by Atari Program Exchange; ValGraphics for Valpar International; and Super Smart Terminal, an 80-column terminal application which -- may have been released by APX? He later went on to work on Return To Zork for Activision.   This interview was conducted March 25 2015.   Teaser quotes:   “True story, when we did Conflict 2500, we had no documentation, so we literally started poking addresses to find out how to do things. Literally.”   “It sounded like a good deal but I was still in grad school so I said, ‘I would only do that if you paid me X,’ where X was for the time was some ridiculous amount of money. And they said ‘Sure, we’ll pay you that much.’”   “It looked terrible. It looked annoying as hell but it was funny because it made you think you were in a radar room, you know?”   “Voyager 1 was

Jerry Jessop   Jerry Jessop worked at Atari from 1977 through 1985 where he did many jobs - including lead of production repair, customer service supervisor for the Atari 400/800, and he worked with the secret skunkworks group that was creating the Amiga, when it still could have been an Atari product. In this interview he shares great stories, including how he hand-assembled Atari 800s on the production floor, and fired up the very first 800XL prototype the very first time.   This interview was conducted on March 28, 2015.   Teaser quotes:   "I worked on the 1400XL. I could tell from day one, nobody had their heart into it."   "It was good stuff cutting up Atari 2600s on a Sunday afternoon."   "I shoved 72 Atari 810s in a 1979 Dodge Colt one day. I took the seats out so that I could load up as many 810s as I could possibly get in there."   "We had this big inflatable frog that we grabbed from the party, and we're walking down the street in Chicago and we ran into a very drunk on-the-street Muhammad Ali."

David Cramer - Western Design Center   David Cramer is the VP of Business Development at Western Design Center, the company that still, today, manufacturers and sells the 6502 chip, the CPU that's at the heart of the Atari 800, Apple ][, Commodore 64, and many other classic computers. In fact, the 6502 is used in many modern applications like pacemakers, and it's also available in development kits for hobbyists, as David explains.   This interview occurred on March 27, 2015.   LINKS   Western Design Center 65xx.com mouser   Jameco Electronics  

Rich Pasco   Rich Pasco was Manager of VLSI Development where he worked on the FREDDIE memory management chip used in the Atari XL and XE series computers. He worked at Atari from November 1982 through May 1983. He lobbied management to create some products for the Atari 8-bit line -- including a mouse and an 80+ column display system -- which were not developed. Prior to his time at Atari, he was a member of the research staff at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).   This interview took place on March 27, 2015.

ANTIC Episode 20 - Visicalc, Choplifter   LINKS:   Virtual Apple ][ Drop 300 Inches Podcast

Peter Dell, WUDSN and THE!CART Studio   Hello, welcome to another interview-only episode of Antic, the Atari 8-bit podcast.  My name is Randy Kindig and today I’ll be talking with Peter Dell, also known as JAC! on AtariAge.  Peter is the developer of the outstanding WUDSN product for developing Atari 8-bit software and also is the developer of another product called THE!CART Studio, which is used to put software onto the flash cartridge product known as THE!CART.  Peter is doing some amazing work for the Atari 8-bits and I hope you enjoy this interview.   This interview was recorded via Skype on December 21, 2014.   Links http://www.wudsn.com/ http://www.mega-hz.de/Angebote/THE!CART/THE!CART_EN.htm

W. Sean Hennessy   W. Sean Hennessy worked in the Consumer Electronics Division at Atari from April 1982 through March 1984 where he developed Realsports Tennis for the Atari 800 and 5200, and created the version of Centipede for the Atari 5200, and Pengo for the Atari 800 and 5200. He also worked at The Software Machine, a company that was working to create edutainment software for the Atari and other platforms.   This interview took place March 1 2015.

Scott Adams - Adventure International   Scott Adams is probably best known for his line of text adventures for early personal computers -- including AdventureLand, Pirate Adventure, Mystery Fun House, and many others. He was also the founder of Adventure International, the company that brought Atari users myraid programs, including Preppie!, Rally Speedway, Whomper Stomper, and lots of others. The company also released countless programs for TRS-80, Commodore, Apple ][, and other platforms.   This interview took place March 16 2015.   LINKS Scott Adams' web site Play Scott Adams' adventures on the web AtariMania's list of Adventure International games

Michael Katz is a video games industry pioneer. Katz was Marketing Director for New Product Categories at Mattel Toys, where he helped create the portable, hand-held games category with the Auto Race and Mattel Football handheld toys. And he was Vice President of Marketing at Coleco, where he worked on ColecoVision and the Coleco tabletop arcade game line. Then he was president at Epyx, where he oversaw the release of three hits for the Atari 8-bit computers — Pitstop, Jumpman, and Summer Games. He left Epyx for Atari, where he was head of the short-lived entertainment electronics division.(What's electronic entertainment? Think hardware toys like Teddy Ruxpin and Laser Tag.) Later, he was president of Sega Entertainment, where he oversaw the launch of the Sega Genesis.   LINK   Coleco Electronic Quarterback commercial