ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

  Rob Zdybel, Star Trek, Missile Command, Bug Hunt Rob Zdybel was a long-time employee at Atari, having worked there from 1979 to 1996, when the Tramiels left.  Rob has a long line of credits including Pigs in Space, Real Sports Football, Stellar Track and Star Trek for the Atari 400/800, SOS for the Atari 2600, Missile Command for the Atari 5200, and Bug Hunt for the Atari XE.  He also designed t...

Lane Winner: Graph-It, XEP-80, De Re Atari Lane Winner was an Atari employee for about a decade: he worked in the software development support group, as a programmer, and as an engineer. He is the author of Atari's Graph-It, contributor to De Re Atari, and designer of the XEP-80 80-column peripheral. Lane wrote several early releases for Atari Program Exchange: BASIC Cross-Reference Utility, BASIC...

Dave Menconi, Atari Customer Service and User Group Support Dave Menconi started at Atari in 1982 doing customer support for the Atari computers. Later he moved to the marketing group, where he helped support the Atari users groups. Dave wrote the program "Dancin' Man" for Antic magazine, and wrote several articles for Atari Connection magazine. In this interview, we discuss Chris Crawford, Ted Ri...

Stan Ockers, public domain game programmer Stan Ockers started on the KIM-1 single board computer, where was was co-author of The First Book of KIM with Jim Butterfield. He later got an Atari 400, and became a prolific author of public domain programs which were distributed by users groups and in Antic magazine. His game credits include Chicken, Frog, and Bats, all of which were published in early...

Harry Guiremand, SynChron Harry Guiremand wrote SynChron, a calendar application, which was published by Synapse Software in 1983.  This interview took place on April 15, 2016. Thanks to Wade at the Inverse ASASCII podcast for his research and suggestions. You can hear Wade's thorough review and walkthrough of SynChron at the Inverse ATASCII podcast. Teaser quote: "I had a password system where if...

Greg Thrush and Marian Dillashaw: Stock Management and WordGo Greg Thrush published two programs through Atari Program Exchange: Stock Management and — with his wife Marian Dillashaw — Wordgo. Stock Management first appeared in the fall 1982 APX catalog, where it won first prize in the business and financial applications category. Wordgo first appeared in the summer 1983 catalog.  This interview t...

In this episode of Antic the Atari 8-bit podcast, we are joined by Rob McMullen to discuss hacking on Jumpman, we explore several new hardware projects and new games. And we jump in the time machine to visit computer clubs in the 1980s. Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast AtariArchives.org AtariMagazines.com Kevin's Book "Terrible Nerd" New Atari books scans at archive.org ANTIC feedback at AtariA...

Wes Horlacher, Magic Melody Box Wes Horlacher published one program in Atari Program Exchange: Magic Melody Box. Magic Melody Box first appeared in the winter 1982-1983 APX catalog, where it was awarded second prize in the education category. It was also published as Boîte à Musique by Atari France. Teaser quotes: "These machines aren't just for accounting and computation and mathematics. We can d...

Steve Smith, ANTIC chip Steve Smith was an engineering technician at Atari from 1977 until 1979, where he worked on the development of the Atari 400 and 800 computers. He was one of the technicians who designed the ANTIC and CTIA chips. In this interview, we discuss Liza Loop, whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place on February 9, 2016. Teaser quotes: "...Huge roomful of 1 MhZ but...

Clyde Spencer: Stereo 3-D Graphics and Isopleth Map Making Clyde Spencer published two programs through Atari Program Exchange: Stereo 3-D Graphics Package and Isopleth Map-Making Package. Stereo 3-D Graphics Package was first available in the winter 1982 APX catalog, and Map-Making in the Spring 1982 catalog. Clyde was also co-founder of the Bay Area Atari Users Group, and wrote some reviews for...

Robert Waldman, Financial Asset Managment System Robert Waldman wrote Financial Asset Managment System, which was published by Atari Program Exchange. It first appeared in the Fall 1981 APX catalog, where it won second prize in the personal finance and record keeping category. As explained in my interview, Robert submitted a program called Atari 800 Olympic Gamebook System to Atari Program Exchang...

Tod Frye, Asteroids Hi, there!  Welcome to the next in the series of Atari-related interviews being produced by Antic, the Atari 8-bit computer podcast.  My name is Randy Kindig and I'll be leading this interview.  Most notably, while working at Atari, Tod Frye developed the 400/800 version of Asteroids and the 2600 version of Pac-Man, converting them from the coin-op version.  He has many other g...

Ursula Wolz, early computing and education Ursula Wolz was thinking about computers and education in the early days of personal computing. She worked on Apple ][ games for Children's Television Workshop, consulted for Atari Research on their endeavors in educational software, and taught Logo to some of the first students who learned it. This interview took place on February 12, 2016 Teaser quote:...

Owen Rubin: Major Havoc, Space Duel Owen Rubin worked in Atari's coin-op division from 1976 to 1984 — he is best known for his programming work there on Major Havoc, Space Duel, and Battlezone. He also served as a go-between between the arcade division and the consumer division, where the Atari home computers were created. After that, he was a game designer at Nolan Bushnell's Bally Sente.  In thi...

Randy Glover, Jumpman Randy Glover is the creator of one of the best games for the Atari computers, Jumpman, which was published by EPYX. He also created the sequel, Jumpman Junior, and programmed the swimming competition portion of Summer Games. Randy ported Jumpman to the Commodore 64 and created another C64 game, Lunar Outpost. This interview took place on May 7, 2016. I am joined on this inter...

Mike Silva, Syncalc Mike Silva worked at Synapse, where he wrote the Syncalc spreadsheet application. In this interview we talk about Ihor Woloseko, whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place on February 11, 2016. Teaser quotes: "If I had put out a game ... it would have sold a few thousand copies and that would been it. So I just got dumb lucky by being talked into writing a spreads...

Richard Lindgren, APX financial software Richard Lindgren published two programs in Atari Program Exchange. Real Estate Cash Flow Analysis first appeared in the winter 1983 APX catalog, where it won first prize in the business and professional applications category. Strategic Financial Ratio Analysis was first available in the summer 1983 catalog, where it took second prize in the home management...

Marcin Sochacki, SIO2BT Marcin Sochacki, also known as Montezuma on AtariAge, is originally from Poland and currently lives in Germany.   In recent years he developed theSIO2BT, or SIO to Bluetooth for the Atari computer line.  This hardware allows you to connect your Atari to your modern computer,tablet, or smartphone to share files.  Mar-TEEN also developed the NVC (Next Valid Character) softwar...

Al Casper: Counter, My Spelling Easel, Equestrian Al Casper published three programs with Atari Program Exchange. His first, Counter, was first available in the fall 1982 APX catalog. It won first prize in the learning category in that catalog. Counter was also released in a French language version by Atari France. Next was My Spelling Easel, which was first available in the spring 1983 catalog, a...

Michael Crick, Frogmaster Michael Crick created the game Frogmaster, which was published for the Atari computers by Atari Program Exchange. It first appeared in the summer 1982 APX catalog, where it won first prize in the entertainment category. Michael later made a version of Frogmaster for the Commodore 64. He created two other C64 games: Break Street (a break dancing game), and Go For the Gold...

On this episode of Antic the Atari 8-bit podcast, we venture out into the big scary world — both Randy and I went to VCF SouthEast, and Kevin went to the museum. The winners of the 2016 10-line BASIC programming contest are announced, and Bill Kendrick drops knowledge about the demo scene. Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast AtariArchives.org AtariMagazines.com Kevin's Book "Terrible Nerd" New Ata...

Yakov Epelboim: Pushky and Devilator Yakov Epelboim is a Russian immigrant who published two programs for the Atari 8-bit computers. Pushky (which I learned is the Russian word for "cannons") was published by Atari Program Exchange, and first appeared in the Winter 1982-1983 APX catalog for $22.95. He also wrote Devilator, which he self-published as Zebra Company. Both programs were written in mac...

John Palevich: Dandy and Deep Blue C Compiler John Palevich wrote several programs which were published by Atari Program Exchange: the Chameleon CRT Terminal Emulator; Mantis Boot Tape Development System; Deep Blue C Compiler and its source code on a product called Deep Blue Secrets; and Dandy, a graphical dungeon crawl game that is famously the inspiration for the arcade classic, Gauntlet. He lat...

Ron Luks, Founder and manager of the Atari Forums on CompuServe Welcome to this interview-only episode of Antic, The Atari 8-bit computer podcast.  My name is Randy Kindig.  In this show, I’ll be talking with Mr. Ron Luks, a name that you’re probably familiar with if you used your Atari to access the Compuserve Information Service.   Ron was founder and manager of the Atari Forums on CompuServe (S...

John Powers, Atari Director of Software Development John Powers was co-founder of The Authorship Resource, the company that created all of the software for the CyberVision 2000 computer. From 1980 to 1982 he worked at Atari as Director of Software Development for personal computers. While he was there, he wrote three pieces of software for Atari Program Exchange: Newspaper Route Management Program...