ANTIC Interview 30 - Jerry Jessop, Atari

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."