Antic The Atari 8-bit Podcast

David Gedalia, Atari-controlled Telescope Listener Paul Somerfeldt sent me a blurb he found in a book titled "The Dobsonian Telescope" by David Kriege and Richard Berry. The book reads: "Computer-controlled Dobsonian telescopes entered amateur astronomy in the late 1980s. An outstanding early example was David Gedalia's 10-inch f/4.5 Dobsonian driven by an Atari 800XL computer, shown at the 1987 Riverside Telescope Makers Conference. With the Atari driving altitude and azimuth stepper-motors, the telescope would move automatically to coordinates entered on the computer’s keyboard. David was a third-year engineering student when he built this telescope." I sought out David to find out more about his Atari-controlled telescope. This interview took place on May 29, 2020. Photos of David with his telescope The Dobsonian Telescope by David Kriege and Richard Berry New Horizons in Amateur Astronomy by Grant Fjermedal

Brad Stewart, Covox Brad Stewart was the co-founder and chief designer of Covox, the company that created Covox VoiceMaster. VoiceMaster was speech digitizer and voice recognition hardware for the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit, and Apple II computers. Covox's own demonstration audio tape describes it well, although the demo tape that I found doesn't mention the Atari. This interview took place on May 21, 2020. Aerosynth Brad's blog post about Covox Voice Master Kay plays with VoiceMaster in 2014 Covox Voicemaster Demo cassette A Bionic Approach to Speech Processing Escape from Planet X at AtariMania

Henry and Nancy Taitt, Creative Learning Association Henry Taitt was founder of the Creative Learning Association, which created books and classes about how to program computers in BASIC. Henry, along with his wife Nancy Taitt, ran the company from 1982-1988. The book series, TLC For Growing Minds — TLC means Thinking, Learning, Creating — delivered self-paced lessons about the BASIC programming language. Versions of the series were available for Atari 8-bit, Apple II, IBM PC, TRS-80, and other platforms. Each platform series had seven books with color-coded covers: the red cover was level 1, orange for level 2, yellow for level 3, and so on down the rainbow. Another series offered platform-agnostic microcomputer projects. The material was used as the bases for in-person classes at computer labs around the United States. Creative Learning Association also published a newsletter and a "national registry of computer programers" highlighting students who had progressed in the book series. I have been able t

Claudia Cohl, Editor-in-Chief of Family Computing and K-Power Magazine Claudia Cohl was the editor-in-chief of Family Computing Magazine for its entire run. Published by Scholastic, the magazine ran for 49 issues, from September 1983 through September 1987. Then it published 11 more issues, though August 1988, as "Family and Home Office Computing." Finally, it was rebranded "Home Office Computing". Claudia remained editor there until a new division was formed, and she moved to the Professional Publishing department to focus on magazines for teachers. In a 1983 New York Times article "Children's Magazine for a Computer Age," Claudia is quoted: "Our magazine is primarily for parents. Parents feel confused about computers and software and they feel they have no place to turn. We think parents will be using our magazine themselves or with their kids. Children will be picking up the magazine too." Claudia was also editor-in-chief of K-Power magazine, a computer magazine for kids. Only eight issues of K-Power w

ANTIC Episode 68 In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Computer Podcast… Jonathan Halliday joins as we discuss his amazing work on the SIDE loaders for the Incognito and Ultimate 1MB  and the work going on for the SIDE3 cart. READY! 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  Interview index: here  ANTIC Facebook Page  AHCS  Eaten By a Grue   What We’ve Been Up To plotter ink https://twitter.com/KaySavetz/status/1258830441320079360 But steve bowsell @A8bit working on 3-D printable solution  Kay’s old Atari games https://twitter.com/KaySavetz/status/1259569122364407808 ; https://github.com/savetz (Scavange, boggler, rats, testtube, hubcap of fortune, Komix Creator)  Carrington and Kay play Scavange at Eaten By A Grue http://monsterfeet.com/grue/notes/35 play it at https://archive.org/details/Scavange  Catalina broke Altirra unde

Sherman Rosenfeld, Atari Institute for Education Action Research Dr. Sherman Rosenfeld is an internationally-known leader in informal learning and science education. He was a consultant to the Atari Institute for Education Action Research. Founded in June 1981 and led by Ted Kahn, the Institute provided equipment, advice, and financial support to non-profit educational organizations. It granted more than $1 million in hardware and software to schools, science museums, vocational and special education programs, even a prison.   Ted Kahn, whom I have previously interviewed, recently dug through his files to uncover several documents about the Institute, including "Informal Learning and Computers," the working paper written by Sherman Rosenfeld for the Atari Institute for Education Action Research in September 1982. Ted also graciously scanned a 1981 Atari Institute brochure, a 1983 progress report, and "Atari in Action," the Institute's newsletter, dated fall 1982. This interview took place on May 25, 2020.

Software Automatic Mouth: Mark Barton Mark Barton was creator of SAM — Software Automatic Mouth. Released in 1982, SAM was the first software-only speech synthesizer for personal computers. It was available for the Apple II, Commodore 64, and Atari 8-bit computers. He later developed Macintalk, speech synthesis for the Macintosh computer; and narrator, the speech system for the Commodore Amiga. This interview took place on May 22, 2020. SAM Demo Disk Steve Jobs movie Steve Jobs introduces the Macintosh Peter Ladefoged at Wikipedia Peter Ladefoged at UCLA SAM in your browser Switched On Bach by Wendy Carlos Why Modern Digital Synthesis Is More Analog Than Analog by Mark Barton Mark's Soundcloud ANTIC Interview 124 - Jerry White, programmer of Poker SAM. and Chaterbee   Bill Lange's deep dive into SAM ads and reviews 

Fandal: Atari programer and archivist Frantisek Houra is better known to the Atari community as Fandal. He's an Atari computer programmer and long-time archivist of European Atari software. He has created many original Atari games and conversions from other platforms: including Fruity Pete, Mashed Turtles, Crescent Solitaire, and Diamondz. This interview took place on August 28, 2019, during the Fujiama Atari conference in Lengenfeld, Germany. Roland Wassenberg sat in to assist with the interview. Shortly after, Fandal and I and several other attendees hooked up a multijoy and played some rounds of Mashed Turtles with six players (up to eight can play), and it was so. much. fun. Fandal's web site Mashed Turtles Xenophobe game for sale at Video61

Gregg Squires, Atari Manager of Hardware Engineering Gregg Squires was a Manager of Hardware Engineering at Atari from 1982 through 1984, working from their New York office. He was project manager for Val, a cost-reduced version of the Atari 2600; and project manager for the Atari XL computer series. He was co-designer of the 65816 microprocessor architecture. Greg sent me a scan of an Atari 600XL Product Status Meeting handout dated January 1983. It's an impressive 45 pages and paints a clear picture of the timeline, costs, and issues involved with creating that computer. This interview took place on February 13, 2019. Atari VAL photo Atari 600XL Product Status Meeting Handout The Working Clock-Timer by Joel Moskowitz ANTIC Interview 65 - Steve Mayer, 400/800 Designer

Rik Dickinson, Encore Video Productions Rik Dickinson is founder of Encore Video Productions, a company that rented Atari 8-bit computers to hotels for use as character generators. The computers would show information about the hotel on channel 2 of guests' televisions. This was part of a service that Encore offered to provide in-room movies that ran off videotapes. The tape machines ran on a timer, and when the movie ended, the video feed switched back to the text information displayed by the Atari. This interview took place on April 20, 2020. Forum about Encore Video Productions Display System Encore Video Productions

ANTIC Episode 67 - Still Socially Distant In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Computer Podcast...Randy forgets to call the artist, formerly known as Kevin, as Kay about 100 times, we continue discussion on AtariFests and World of Atari, we help you with your free time by telling you about papercraft computers and RetroPie, and help you navigate what’s happening with vintage computer shows; plus a whole lot more Atari news! READY! 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  Interview index: here  ANTIC Facebook Page  AHCS  Eaten By a Grue   What We’ve Been Up To Carol Shaw’s Colleen Calculator - View the pages or download the images - https://archive.org/details/ColleenCalculator9K/mode/2up  Carol also sent the printout of Rev. A of Atari VCS Checkers - https://archive.org/details/VCScheckersA/mode/2up  A community member has

Youth Advisory Board: Tracey Cullinan This is the seventh in a series of episodes featuring the kids of Atari's Youth Advisory Board. In 1983, Atari formed a Youth Advisory Board, selecting teenagers from around the United States to share their opinions about computers and video games, test software, and promote Atari's computers at events. The group consisted of kids aged 14 through 18, including Tracey Cullinan. Tracey worked as a salesperson at the ComputerLand store in Los Altos, California — starting at the age of 12. He started a software company, Superior Software, which produced custom software for local businesses, as well as a couple of games for the Apple II computer. At 14, Tracey was invited to be a member of the Youth Advisory Board. As part of that job, he went to the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago to demonstrate Atari computers. The next year, as a 15-year-old, Tracey was interviewed on the "Today" show as a young entrepreneur. There's a chapter about Tracey in the 1984 book "Computer

Atari Speed Reading: Karlyn Kamm and Brad Oltrogge The Atari Speed Reading software package was released by Atari in 1981. It was a self-paced program, for use with the Atari computer and a cassette drive, that promised to teach you to increase reading speed and comprehension with 30 days of practice. The package contained a workbook and five cassette tapes. This is an interview with two of the people who created the Atari Speed Reading package. Karlyn Kamm created the speed reading educational material at the University of Wisconsin with Dr. Wayne Otto. In 1975, she and Dr. Otto published a book titled "Speedway, the Action Way to Read." Dr. Otto died in 2017. Brad Oltrogge is president of Learning Multi-Systems, the software publisher that was contracted by Atari to turn Kamm and Otto's speed reading material into a product for the Atari home computer. This interview took place on April 16, 2020. Atari Speed Reading Workbook Atari Speed Reading at AtariWiki Dr. Otto obituary Speedway: The action w

Gabriel Baum: Atari Conversational French and Spanish Gabriel Baum worked at Thorn EMI, where he managed the project to create two early language learning programs that were published by Atari: Conversational French and Conversational Spanish. (Atari's language learning series would also include Conversational German — Gabriel started that, but left Thorn EMI before that project was finished — and Conversational Italian.) After Thorn EMI, Gabriel moved to Mattel where he became one of the "Blue Sky Rangers," creating Intellivision games. If you'd like to hear more about that, Paul Nurminen interviewed him about that time in episode 37 of The Intellivisionaries podcast. For a deep dive into the Atari Conversational French software, listen to season 5, episode 1 of the Inverse ATASCII podcast. You can download the software and audio for all of the conversational language series from AtariWiki. This interview took place on March 31, 2020. In it, Gabriel mis-remembers a bit of the technical capabilities of th

ANTIC Episode 66 - Socially Distant In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Computer Podcast: We talk about what we’re doing Atari-wise in these socially distant times and we bring you all the Atari news from around the world. READY! 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  Interview index: here  ANTIC Facebook Page  AHCS  Eaten By a Grue   What We’ve Been Up To Bill Lange points us to Atari 1020 plotter pen refill / restoration video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdVHkZwGZhk  Thornton's Luxury Goods Premium Fountain Pen Ink Bottle 30ml - https://amzn.to/2RcNtL6  5 Pack 5ML/CC Premium Ink Filling Syringe - https://amzn.to/34gxctN  Supercard Pro and Atari 8-bit Software Preservation Initiative - http://a8preservation.com/  AtariFest/World of Atari thread on AtariAge - https://atariage.com/forums/topic/304554-atarifest-and-wo

ANTIC Episode 65 - Cats with umbrellas and dogs! In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Computer Podcast:  Kevin’s dogs do their best to be a part of the podcast, we tell you all about a very busy month of personal Atari stuff, all the programming contests going on, and all the other news we could find. READY! 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  Interview index: here  ANTIC Facebook Page  AHCS  Eaten By a Grue   Donate to Ted Nelson project at: https://paypal.me/Savetz  TEH: Tech Enthusiast Hour - https://tehpodcast.com  What We’ve Been Up To Kevin’s Atari workbench set up! - https://twitter.com/KevinSavetz/status/1220554086593904644  AVG cart. Moon Patrol, and Redux - https://atariage.com/forums/topic/297535-moon-patrol-redux/  XC-11 cassette drive from Rodrigo Castro Sage - https://twitter.com/KevinSavetz/status/122

Craig Hickman, Atari Photography Software and Security System Craig Hickman was featured in the June 1982 edition of Atari Connection magazine for his photography software tools. "Craig has developed two programs written in Atari BASIC for use in his darkroom. One of the programs times the negative’s development, and the other monitors and times enlargements and the making of the positive prints." His Developing program could store up to 30 film processing combinations. "Once the film is developed into a negative, you are ready to use Craig's Enlarger/Timer program to make a positive print." The Atari 400 was connected to the enlarger with relays: the computer would turn the enlarger on and off at precise intervals for making photographic prints. Craig also rigged up an apartment security system using his Atari 400, which he wrote about in an article on his web site. He wrote: "I designed a home surveillance system for our apartment in Seattle that used little magnetic switches from Radio Shack. It displaye

ANTIC Episode 64 - Living in the Future In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Computer Podcast: We talk about our Atari-related resolutions for the new year, how 2020 sounds like we’re living in the future, and bring you news and feedback from across the Atari 8-bit landscape. READY! 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  AHCS  Eaten By a Grue   Donate to Ted Nelson project at: https://paypal.me/Savetz  TEH: Tech Enthusiast Hour - https://tehpodcast.com  What We’ve Been Up To Faster Than Light: The Atari ST and the 16-Bit Revolution by Jamie Lendino -  https://amzn.to/2v5823V  Kevin’s annual computer history work post mortem article - https://www.patreon.com/posts/2019-post-mortem-33065636  Punctuation Put-On -  https://archive.org/details/PunctuationPutOn4amCrack https://twitter.com/KevinSavetz/status/

James Hugard, Neanderthal Computer Things James Hugard was co-founder of Neanderthal Computer Things, a company that created just one product. "810 Turbo" was a hardware conversion board for the Atari 810 disk drive that promised true double density storage, and faster data reading and writing. The device, released in 1983, could be installed inside your 810 disk drive with "no jumpers, no soldering, no extra box." It cost $295. James wrote the firmware for the device. Check the show notes for links to the 810 Turbo Manual and advertisement, photos of the board, and a lively discussion on AtariAge (in which James has answered some questions and added more commentary.) This interview took place on June 7, 2019. 810 Turbo ad 810 Turbo Manual 810 Photos and software NCT Letter to Atari users groups Discussion on AtariAge

SillyVenture and FujiNet In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Computer Podcast: In the tradition of bringing you the latest Atari 8-bit news, we have a couple of very special guests in this episode.  First of all, Bart comes to us literally direct from the fabulous SillyVenture show to give us a rundown, and then Thomas Cherryhomes tells us all about the amazing work going on with FujiNet! READY! 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  AHCS  Eaten By a Grue   Donate to Ted Nelson project at: https://paypal.me/Savetz  TEH: Tech Enthusiast Hour - https://tehpodcast.com  What We’ve Been Up To  SDrive Max from Vintage Computer Center -  https://www.vintagecomputercenter.com/product-category/atari  Atari: A Visual History by Darren Doyle - https://www.greyfoxbooks.com/product/the-atari-a-visual-history/