Scott Scheiman: SIO, 850 interface, Telelink I Scott Scheiman worked at Atari for about seven years, where he was part of the 400/800 design team. He worked on the computers' SIO interface, the Atari 850 interface, and the Telelink I communications cartridge. He also wrote the Educational System Master Cartridge software, for use with the Talk & Teach cassette tapes. This interview took place on July 12, 2016. Teaser quotes: "I think what happened was that all the parts were mounted on the t...
Aug 22, 2016•1 hr 6 min
Kathy Forte, Atari's early applications group Kathy Forte worked at Atari in the applications group for about a year beginning late 1979. She worked on an unreleased relational database application, and for a while spent half of her work time as Atari's puppeteer. This interview took place on April 27, 2016. Teaser quotes: "And it said 'What is the Atari 800?' And I saw ... 'It's game machine! It's a personal computer! It's a salami sandwich!'" "Kind of a sarcastic game. ... The helicopter would...
Aug 20, 2016•27 min
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 Music System by Hybrid Arts, a product that connected the Atari 8-bit computers to MIDI instruments. ...
Aug 18, 2016•35 min
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 In Touch video "My vision was constant in the early '80s: that microcomputers were the human interfa...
Aug 16, 2016•36 min
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 Severna Park, Maryland and the company grew into a million dollar plus business until they closed shop in ...
Aug 14, 2016•50 min
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 that! You need to change your ways."
Aug 12, 2016•43 min
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 company that did CAD/CAM, engineering, and design work. It was founded in 1960 to supply the auto industr...
Aug 10, 2016•27 min
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 software titles for the Apple ][ computer. This interview took place on April 3, 2016. Teaser quotes: "...
Aug 08, 2016•55 min
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 author of Pro Bowling, which was published by Atari Program Exchange. This interview took place on Ju...
Aug 06, 2016•30 min
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 Monogram, the software company that produced Dollars and Sense, home financial management software that...
Aug 04, 2016•36 min
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 is a very competitive , one- or two-player educational game that turns math drills into a fast-movin...
Aug 02, 2016•24 min
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
Jul 31, 2016•11 min
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 810 disk drive that circumvented disk copy protection. This interview took place on March 21, 2016. ...
Jul 29, 2016•40 min
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: "SpeedScript was written in a couple of months by our 18-year-old, untrained programmer. ... You've got a w...
Jul 27, 2016•50 min
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 through today. Richard was also a long-time editor of Compute! magazine. This interview took place on ...
Jul 25, 2016•53 min
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 Program Exchange, including the letters that included his royalty statements, and info about BASIC lan...
Jul 23, 2016•25 min
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 Lightning Renumber, an automatic line numbering program that was published in Compute! magazine. This inter...
Jul 21, 2016•17 min
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 towards the sound."
Jul 19, 2016•29 min
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 visionary ideas which he was able to actually implement."
Jul 17, 2016•33 min
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 of Communications from 1989 to 1994. Bob was directly involved in many of the Atarifests in that timefr...
Jul 15, 2016•1 hr 17 min
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 — gosh, my goodness, what a huge difference in my life if I had gone into that store a couple of days e...
Jul 13, 2016•1 hr 9 min
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 the table and said, 'This computer project has software in it, therefore it belongs in my division.' —...
Jul 11, 2016•54 min
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 later published by Antic software. This interview took place on May 26, 2016 — for me — May 27 for Eri...
Jul 09, 2016•21 min
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 this adventure, each node that you went to was a separate file. And if you went to a node that didn...
Jul 07, 2016•25 min
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 at: frankparis at comcast dot net. This interview took place on May 27, 2016. Teaser quote: "6502 as...
Jul 05, 2016•24 min
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 Atari interview discussion thread on AtariAge ANTIC Facebook Page AHCS What we've been up to Norwegia...
Jul 03, 2016•1 hr 38 min
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 PILOT — for ANTIC magazine. This interview took place on May 24, 2016. Kathy and Phil's articles in ANT...
Jul 01, 2016•57 min
David Thiel, musician and interactive audio David Thiel is a musician and interactive audio designer. At Gottlieb, he did the sound for arcade games including Reactor, Q*Bert, and Mach 3. At Action Graphics, David created the sound for Artillery Duel for the Atari 2600, and Beamrider and Pitstop for the Atari computers. And at Free Radical Software/Incredible Technologies, he worked on Winter Games for the Amiga and Atari ST. He has created the sound and music for dozens of other computer games ...
Jun 29, 2016•1 hr 31 min
Gary Yost, The Catalog and Cyber Studio Gary Yost worked at Antic magazine, in product development. He was the man behind The Catalog, Antic's catalog of third-party software. When Atari Program Exchange was shut down, he contacted programmers from APX to re-publish their works in's Antic's Catalog. Gary was instrumental in creating CAD 3-D (written by Tom Hudson), Cybermate, and the Cyber Studio graphics suite — which were all published by Antic — and in commercializing the StereoTek 3D Glasses...
Jun 27, 2016•55 min
Fred Parr, MACE newsletter Fred Parr was a member of MACE — the Michigan Atari Computer Enthusiasts group, and the man who printed the club newsletter. You can find scans of the newsletter at archive.org . This interview took place on April 22, 2016. It in, we discuss Arlan Levitan, whom I previously interviewed. "And I just marvel that something that crude, in today's perspective, could have actually given is so much enjoyment and hope about the future."...
Jun 25, 2016•17 min
