ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Lee Actor, Advanced Musicsystem Lee Actor created Advanced Musicsystem, which was published by Atari Program Exchange. It first appeared in the spring 1982 APX catalog, where it won first prize in the Personal Interest and Development category. He also published Jukebox #1, which first appeared in the summer 1982 APX catalog. (There was no followup Jukebox #2.) He was also involved with the MIDI M...

Stacy Goff, Founder of Atari Computer Enthusiasts Stacy Goff was founder of ACE, the Atari Computer Enthusiasts. The group was based in Eugene, Oregon, but grew to more than 50,000 members in 250 chapters in 15 countries. This interview took place on May 6, 2016. In it, we discuss an Atari videotape about users groups, called Keeping In Touch, which is available in the link below. Atari - Keeping...

David Troy, Toad Computers In this episode, I sit down with a long-time Atari dealer back in the 80's and 90's, Mr. David Troy. David ran the Toad BBS from 1984-1988 starting at the age of 12 and then in 1986 as a sophomore in high school, he and partner Ray Mitchell founded a small computer mail order firm specializing in the Atari line of computers.  They shortly moved into a storefront in Sever...

Bill Lapham, Atari Continuation Engineering Bill Lapham was Manager of Continuation Engineering in Atari's consumer division. He worked at Atari from 1980 through 1984. This interview took place on April 25, 2016. "They had an entire booth set up for us. Nobody had ever seen this device. But Atari just went ahead and said, 'OK, we're going to do this.'" "Look, these people are going to die from th...

Ron Hartman, K-Byte Software Ron Hartman was systems coordinator at K-Byte Software, a company that produced four games for the Atari 8-bit computers: Krazy Shootout, Krazy Kriters, Krazy Antics, and K-Star Patrol, as well as K-DOS, an alternative disk operating system. The company also programmed games for CBS Software. K-Byte Software was a division of Koltanbar Engineering, an engineering compa...

Mitch Balsam: NY Atari Research Lab Mitch Balsam was hired at Atari to work as a game programmer for the Atari 2600, and worked on an unreleased game called Electric Yoyo. Later, at Atari Research in New York, he worked on more unreleased products including The Graduate, an add-on computer keyboard component for the Atari 2600; and a buildable robot toy. At Scholastic, he developed educational sof...

Wes Newell, Newell Industries Wes Newell was founder of Newell Industries, a company that produced a number of popular hardware upgrades for the Atari 8-bit computers. Products included Fastchip, which sped up floating point routines by 300%; Omniview, which provided 80-column text output; and RAMrod, which provided memory upgrades and enhanced ROMs; and Omnimon, a hardware monitor. Wes was also a...

John Reese, Tronix CEO John Reese was the founder and CEO of Tronix, the software company that produced two games for the Atari 8-bit computers: Kid Grid (in 1982) Juice! (in 1983.) The company also produced other games for Commodore computers, including Sidewinder, Deadly Skies, and Gold Fever! for the VIC-20; and Suicide Strike for the Commodore 64. John was simultaneously founder and CEO of Mon...

Gregor Novak, Math*UFO and Ringmaster Gregor Novak is the author of two educational games which were published by Atari Program Exchange: Math*UFO and Ringmaster. Math*UFO first appeared in the fall 1982 APX catalog, where it won second prize in the education category. ("A mysterious spaceship floats to the top of the screen. Is it a Martian? No, it's MATH*UFO flashing you number drills! MATH*UFO...

Volker Multhopp, DSEMBLER Volker Multhopp wrote DSEMBLER, which was sold by Atari Program Exchange and was first available in the winter 1981 APX catalog.  This interview took place on March 21, 2016. DSEMBLER in the winter 1981 APX catalog

Duane Bolster, Midas Touch and Advanced Fingerspelling Duane Bolster published two programs with Atari Program Exchange: Midas Touch and Advanced Fingerspelling. Midas Touch, a word game, was first available in the summer 1982 APX catalog. Advanced Fingerspelling, a program for teaching letters in sign language, was first available in the fall 1983 catalog. He also created an add-on for the Atari...

Tom Halfhill, Compute! Magazine Tom R. Halfhill was features editor of Compute! Magazine, and was later launch editor of several other magazines from that publisher, including Compute!'s Gazette, Compute's Atari ST, and Compute!'s PC Magazine. He co-wrote the book Advanced Amiga Basic and was later editor of Game Players magazine. This interview took place on March 29, 2016. Teaser quotes: "SpeedS...

Richard Mansfield: Compute! Magazine, 6502 Machine Language Books Richard Mansfield is author of the best-selling book Machine Language For Beginners, and its sequel, Compute!'s Second Book Of Machine Language, both published by Compute! books. He also wrote Apple Machine Language for Beginners, Commodore 128 Machine Language for Beginners, and a bevy of other computer books continuing right up th...

  Richard Wiitala, Number Blast Richard Wiitala was the author of Number Blast, an arithmetic teaching program that was published by Atari Program Exchange. Number Blast first appeared in the winter 1981 APX catalog, where it won third prize in the education category.  This interview took place on February 1, 2016. After we talked, Richard send me 23 pages of scans of his correspondance with Atari...

Ray Citak, music education software Ray Citak wrote Name the Notes, a music education program that was accepted by Atari Program Exchange, and won an APX award, but never appeared in the APX catalog. (The program is, as far as we know, lost to the sands of time.)  He also wrote the program Keyed Up, "a music education program disguised as a goofy game," which appeared in Antic magazine, and Lightn...

Ted Toal, Cyan Engineering Ted Toal was a software developer at Cyan Engineering, an Atari research group. He worked on Atari's unreleased picture telephone as well as other projects. This interview took place January 24, 2016. Teaser quote: "He wanted to have toys that would be able to listen to sounds in a room and figure out where the sounds were coming from, and like maybe be able to turn towa...

Peter Donoso, Atari Explorer magazine Peter Donoso was managing editor of Atari Explorer magazine from September 1991 through February 1993, primarily covering Atari during the ST era. This interview took place on November 23, 2015. Teaser quote: "[Jack Tramiel's] vision and his ability to find technology that was ahead of the market ... was just remarkable. I mean, he continually had these vision...

Bob Brodie: User Group Manager for Atari Hi and welcome to another special interview edition of Antic the Atari 8-bit computer podcast.  My name is Randy Kindig and I'll be providing the interview questions for this episode.  I'm extremely pleased to provide this interview with a name well-known in the Atari community: Mr. Bob Brodie.  Bob worked for Atari as User Group Manager and later Director...

John Harris: Jawbreaker, Frogger, Mouskattack John Harris created the games Jawbreaker, Frogger, and Mouskattack for the Atari 8-bit computers. He worked at Sierra On-Line and later Synapse Software. He later created video character generator systems based on the Atari machines. This interview took place June 10, 2016. Teaser quotes: "Literally — I mean, a day or two difference could have made — g...

Bob Alkire and Steve Saunders, Rainbow GPU Bob Alkire and Steve Saunders worked in Atari's Corporate Research lab under Alan Kay, where they worked on the Rainbow GPU. Rainbow was a next-generation graphics chip (after ANTIC) which was never released. This interview took place on June 10, 2016. The first voice you hear is that of Bob Alkire. Teaser quotes: Steve: "And they basically went around th...

Eric Freeman: Bootleg and Weakon Eric Freeman published two programs through Atari Program Exchange: Bootleg and Weakon. Bootleg first appeared in the summer 1983 APX catalog: the catalog called it "a search-for-booty maze game submitted from New Zealand," and it received a rare full-page description in that catalog. Weakon was only available in the final APX catalog, winter 1983. That game was la...

Max Manowski, Wizard's Revenge Max Manowski wrote Adventure, a text adventure game that he released into the public domain to Atari users groups. Later, he modified Adventure and called it Wizard's Revenge, which was published by Atari Program Exchange. Wizard's Revenge was available in the fall 1981 APX catalog, the very first APX catalog. This interview took place May 27, 2016. Teaser quote: "In...

Frank Paris, Mathlib for Deep Blue C Frank Paris wrote Mathlib for Deep Blue C, a library of floating-point functions for use with the Deep Blue C programming language. Mathlib first appeared in the fall 1983 APX catalog, where it won second prize in the systems/telecommunications category. The Deep Blue C compiler was written by John Palevich, whom I previously interviewed. You can contact Frank...

In this three-year anniversary episode of Antic the Atari 8-bit podcast — we uncover an abundance of Atari source code, documentation, and engineering notes; Bill explores Five Dots, a new game; and we debate the fate of the 1200XL. 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 A...

Kathy and Phil Bergh, I'm Different! Kathy and Phil Bergh published one program through Atari Program Exchange: I'm Different!, which first appeared in the inaugural APX catalog, winter 1982-1983. The program won third prize in the Education category in that catalog. It was one of the few commercial programs developed in the PILOT language. Kathy and Phil also wrote three articles — also about PIL...