ANTIC #69 Show Notes, July, 2020 Title: Bill Collector Guests Bill Lange - https://twitter.com/BillLange1968 Bill Kendrick - https://twitter.com/billkendrick Nir Dary - https://twitter.com/ndary Bill Winters - https://twitter.com/TheGuruMeditate What We've Been Up To https://archive.org/details/stx_Program_Protection_Methods_for_the_Atari https://archive.org/details/program-design-international-captivity-manual News ABBUC Magazine - http://abbuc.de uDOS (ultra small DOS) - http://www.abbuc.de/co...
Jul 22, 2020•1 hr 49 min
Dorothy Siegel, Pioneer in Computer Music I'm Kay Savetz, and this is ANTIC: The Atari 8-bit podcast. This interview, however, is about events that happened before Atari released its first computers. This interview is with Dorothy Siegel, a pioneer in computer music. The music she created was on an IMSAI 8080 computer and a clarinet. The First Philadelphia Computer Music Festival was held August 25, 1978 as part of a show called Personal Computing '78 held at the Philadelphia Civic Center. In 19...
Jul 21, 2020•1 hr 8 min
Tracy Frey, Atari Birthday Girl There's an article in the New York Times, dated April 9, 1982: "8-Year-Old's Birthday Party in a Computer Center." The story, written by Barbara Gamareklin, is about the birthday party of Tracey Pizzo — now Tracey Frey — which took place at the Capital Children's Museum in Washington, DC. Quoting the article: Tracy Pizzo decided that Chunky's Cheese Pizza Parlor was not the place for her eighth birthday party after all. She chose the Future Center of the Capital C...
Jul 14, 2020•28 min
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, th...
Jul 06, 2020•23 min
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 Cov...
Jun 29, 2020•40 min
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 ...
Jun 22, 2020•43 min
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 P...
Jun 16, 2020•50 min
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 ...
Jun 14, 2020•1 hr 27 min
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 educ...
Jun 08, 2020•46 min
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 Ma...
Jun 01, 2020•55 min
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 intervie...
May 27, 2020•44 min
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 p...
May 21, 2020•1 hr 53 min
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 A...
May 13, 2020•22 min
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 AtariMa...
May 10, 2020•1 hr 4 min
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 ...
May 03, 2020•43 min
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 ...
Apr 26, 2020•56 min
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 ...
Apr 17, 2020•40 min
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 ...
Apr 08, 2020•1 hr 14 min
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 discu...
Feb 20, 2020•1 hr 13 min
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 develop...
Feb 01, 2020•33 min
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 ...
Jan 26, 2020•1 hr 12 min
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 l...
Dec 20, 2019•24 min
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 N...
Dec 15, 2019•1 hr 36 min
Dennis Zander: Artworx, Hazard Run, Strip Poker Dennis Zander was one of the founding partners of the software publishing company Artworx. He programmed a number of games and educational titles, including Hazard Run, Rings of the Empire, Monkeymath, Giant Slalom, Intruder Alert!, Monkeynews, and others. He collaborated with Roger Harnish on Artworx popular Strip Poker game. This interview took place on June 13, 2019. In it, we discuss Art Walsh, whom I previously interviewed. Atarimania's list o...
Nov 30, 2019•54 min
Bruce May, Unreleased Magic Castle Game In 1982 Bruce May created Magic Castle, a game for the Atari 800 computer. He finished the game but was unable to find a publisher for it, so hardly anyone played it. In October 2019 he sent me scans of his original documents regarding Magic Castle: his design notes, and even rejection letters from the three companies that he submitted the game to: Catalyst Technologies, Avalon Hill, and Origin Systems. He hasn't been able to find the floppy disks with the...
Nov 24, 2019•30 min
Wolfgang Burger, President of Atari Bit Byter User Club Wolfgang Burger is the president and a founding member of the Atari Bit Byter User Club, the world's largest user group dedicated to the Atari 8-bit computer. The group was founded in 1985 in Herten, Germany. Today, the group has about 500 members from around the world. The group's quarterly magazine — still produced on an Atari computer — is almost certainly the longest continually published computer magazine anywhere. This interview took ...
Nov 21, 2019•51 min
Bruce Irvine, Atari VP of Software Bruce Irvine was Atari's Vice President of Software — heading the company's new computer software division — from September 1980 through approximately July 1982. Among other responsibilities, he oversaw Atari Program Exchange and the opening of Atari "software acquisition centers." After leaving Atari, he co-founded Mindset Corporation with Roger Badertscher. This interview took place on November 7, 2019. In it, Bruce mentions Steve Gerber, Fred Thorlin, Dale Y...
Nov 14, 2019•1 hr 2 min
In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Computer Podcast: Kevin hobnobs with Atari celebrities at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, Brad and Randy find out they're podcast hosts #2 and #3, respectively, and together we cover all the Atari news that's fit to print. 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 Pa...
Nov 09, 2019•1 hr 20 min
ANTIC Special Episode — Atari 800 series computers: 40 years This is Antic, the Atari 8-bit podcast. I'm Kevin Savetz. On Saturday, October 19, 2019 I had the privilege of taking part in a panel at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. The session was titled "Atari 800 series computers: 40 years." The panelists were Joe Decuir, one of the hardware designers of the Atari 400 and 800; David Crane, who was one of the developers of the Atari's operating system before he famously left Atari to co-found Act...
Oct 27, 2019•48 min
In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Computer Podcast: Kevin comes back from Fujiama with a report and Bill Lange joins us to talk about the David Ahl Collection that he acquired. 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/Savet...
Sep 25, 2019•1 hr 18 min
