+wood_jl Posted May 1, 2016 Share Posted May 1, 2016 Can't believe the quality and frequency of the interviews! BRAVO!!!!! (also can't believe the beard. Always imagine the "Terrible Nerd" as being youthful and smooth-faced!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted May 1, 2016 Share Posted May 1, 2016 The massive brrrd is a new development. It looked much shorter when I met him back in October (when I went to PRGE). -Thom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted May 2, 2016 Author Share Posted May 2, 2016 Al Casper: Counter, My Spelling Easel, Equestrian http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-167-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, and won second prize in the learning category. His third program was Equestrian, which appeared in the winter 1983-1984 APX catalog (the very last APX catalog) and was the "APX Olympic contest winner." Al also wrote an article called Purge, a quicker and simpler method of housecleaning diskettes, for Compute! magazine, which was re-published in Compute!'s Third Book of Atari. This interview took place on February 7, 2016 Teaser quote: "I remember, we got a quarterly... royalty check. It seems to me the first one I got... several hundred dollars, I think. One of the next ones, it was like $10,000. ... I couldn't believe it, because this was basically just a hobby." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 Kevin, any luck on finding out the status of Randy Glover? I tried for years and never even got close... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted May 2, 2016 Author Share Posted May 2, 2016 Kevin, any luck on finding out the status of Randy Glover? I tried for years and never even got close... Yes! An interview is scheduled. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 Wonderful, well done that man.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 Yes! An interview is scheduled. Holy crap! How did you find him?! -Thom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 Was he hiding in the caves of Afghanistan? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bani Posted May 3, 2016 Share Posted May 3, 2016 (edited) Adams: We've been in contact for more than a year. He still is a low-profile kind of guy. I'm doing what I can. -Kevin would love to know what he thinks about people making modern reproductions of the happy drive, like the atarimax happy 1050. also would like to know how you manufacture your own silicon, the discovery cart on the Atari st had a custom IC -- no small feat! would like to think the happy drive helped in some small part in preserving Atari software for future generations Edited May 3, 2016 by bani Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted May 3, 2016 Share Posted May 3, 2016 .. also would like to know how you manufacture your own silicon, the discovery cart on the Atari st had a custom IC -- no small feat! Obviously he didn't manufacture the custom HART chip. You order them from fabs. Or you mean how he designed the IC? We don't know that, do you? The prototype was surely built with discrete components. And the chip is probably a gate array, not a full custom ASIC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gozar Posted May 4, 2016 Share Posted May 4, 2016 Michael Crick, Frogmaster http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-166-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. Wow, Michael Crick is like the Forrest Gump of technology. I'm surprised there wasn't stories of Bill Joy, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 6, 2016 Share Posted May 6, 2016 (edited) It'd be nice to hear from the guys at Xanth, and see if they still have the source code for some of their demos too... Edited May 6, 2016 by MrFish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bani Posted May 6, 2016 Share Posted May 6, 2016 (edited) It'd be nice to hear from the guys at Xanth, and see if they still have the source code for some of their demos too... the guy you want is michael park, he wrote fujiboink and midimaze. james yee was the owner of xanth and bankrolled the development of midimaze. I think I found daniel berg online somewhere. he was the store manager. i'm pretty sure i'm the one who gave michael park the idea for midimaze Edited May 6, 2016 by bani 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted May 6, 2016 Share Posted May 6, 2016 Michael Park contacted me about my Midi-Maze 8-bit proto page a few years back to correct some typos and provide a little more info. I e-mailed him back asking some questions but he never responded. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted May 7, 2016 Author Share Posted May 7, 2016 Michael Park contacted me about my Midi-Maze 8-bit proto page a few years back to correct some typos and provide a little more info. I e-mailed him back asking some questions but he never responded. Please privately send me that email address. kevin at savetz.com. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted May 7, 2016 Share Posted May 7, 2016 Please privately send me that email address. kevin at savetz.com. Some possible side questions to ask: 1. Did they know how Atari Corp planned to do MIDI Maze on the 7800 without a PIA chip and SIO Port? 2. Were there any politics involved as to why [Nintendo's favorite proxy] Bullet-Proof Software [bPS] didn't release *Faceball 2000* for any Atari game system after taking out the license from Xanth for [nearly] every other gaming platform in release at the time? 3. Did Atari Corp ever attempt to license MIDI Maze for the Lynx prior to the BPS licensing for non-Atari systems? Bob Brodie mentioned years ago at our user's group meeting that he had attempted to persuade the Lynx coders to port MIDI Maze to the platform but they were mostly interested in arcade licenses at the time. This was prior to the "Chicago" office being closed down and development consolidated back at Sunnyvale [boy was that a mistake!]. 4. Would Xanth consider homebrew efforts to port MIDI Maze to other Atari systems? [like the Lynx and the Jaguar; it's been discussed porting the ST version over to the Jag but rights were a concern]. Same goes for continued improvements to the existing ST and XEGS versions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted May 8, 2016 Share Posted May 8, 2016 John Palevich: Dandy and Deep Blue C Compiler http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-164-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 later worked in the advanced projects division at Atari, working on Atari's unfinished Eva computer project, as well as the unfinished AMY music chip and RAINBOW graphics chip. In this interview we discuss Joel Gluck, whose interview is forthcoming. This interview took place on November 20, 2015. "It was a situation where whether you made a good business decision or a bad business decision, more money came in the next quarter." "Any time a dignitary, any time a rock star came by to tour Atari, they would come and try out the AMY chip." Thanks for this! Although it was pretty depressing hearing about how the Rainbow graphics chip(s) apparently weren't as good as Amiga's chips - in his opinion - and that he confirmed the AMY had some flaws in it which Sight+Sound has contended for years. He also apparently doesn't have any source code and his 8-player version of Avalanche/Kaboom is lost. I wonder if any ex-APX'ers might have it on disk somewhere. I think the interview could've gone on for several more hours without it ever becoming dry. I didn't catch anything about what he's doing over at Google these days nor any of his thoughts about Atari Corp regarding Dandy "becoming" Dark Chambers. It was interesting to hear he worked on the ST project for "three weeks". I think he had TI confused with NatSemi though because it was a NatSemi CPU that the Tramiels - like several others in the industry at the time - were interested in before it was proven to be such a dud that they went with the Motorola 68K instead. Again, thanks! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 8, 2016 Share Posted May 8, 2016 (edited) the guy you want is michael park, he wrote fujiboink and midimaze. james yee was the owner of xanth and bankrolled the development of midimaze. I think I found daniel berg online somewhere. he was the store manager. i'm pretty sure i'm the one who gave michael park the idea for midimaze Yes, I think I've heard of him before (M. Park). His last name, of course, appears on the "Atari 8-Bit Boink" and "FujiBoink". I think he did the "Swan" demo too. Some of my favorite demos, and of course MidiMaze is amazing. Edited May 8, 2016 by MrFish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted May 8, 2016 Author Share Posted May 8, 2016 Richard Lindgren, APX financial software http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-169-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 category. Richard also wrote the program Banjo Picker, "Program your Atari to make sounds like an automated five-string banjo," which appeared in the October 1985 issue of Antic magazine, and which provides intro tune for this episode. This interview took place on February 8, 2016. Teaser quote: "You know, the APX experience was an intersting experience ... I think it was a really interesting precursor of the models that we're seeing today." 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted May 10, 2016 Author Share Posted May 10, 2016 Mike Silva wrote *the* killer spreadsheet for the Atari, and called himself "dumb lucky" that he was talked into the job. Mike Silva, Syncalc http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-170-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 spreadsheet instead." "These guys, a lot of them, they were in the world - some of them - before they were ready for it. I remember a couple of young programmers, they were just freaked out about having to make decisions, and having to pay taxes. It was almost too much success too early for some of them." 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fultonbot Posted May 12, 2016 Share Posted May 12, 2016 The interviews are getting clicker, and better with each podcast. Great work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted May 12, 2016 Author Share Posted May 12, 2016 Randy Glover, Jumpman http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-171-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 interview by Rob McMullen, host of the Player/Missile Podcast, who has been working to reverse engineer Jumpman using the Omnivore binary editor that he created. For more background on EPYX, you might enjoy Antic’s interviews with Jon Freeman, co-founder of EPYX; and Michael Katz, the CEO of EPYX — he oversaw the development of Jumpman, Pitstop, and Summer Games. Teaser quote: "My guy ran around in this environment purely based on his collision with the environment. I like to think that made him more interesting, more spontaneous. He wasn't pretty -- he was just a little stick man -- but he ran around with a certain flair and he reacted to the environment." 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted May 12, 2016 Share Posted May 12, 2016 Hellz Yeah!! 1. It's pretty cool to hear an interview where everyone has some intimate knowledge of the program. 2. I'd love to know how he got the program over the A8 from the Apple. It's no small feat. 3. It's amazing to think a prominent author wouldn't know about piracy. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted May 12, 2016 Share Posted May 12, 2016 From the little things he's describing, he probably built a romulator. If he just shot it over and did a USR call to where it was in RAM, that would be the most straightforward way.... although, maybe he did build something for the joystick ports.... he was a hardware guy...and honestly, the embedded hardware guys tended to go for the PIA first (as it was easier to understand than the SIO port).. but I can see, 16K would be more than enough to develop a single Jumpman level, and that would be dead easy to make appear over on the cartridge port, especially if you had hacked the 16K Apple Language Card, like Garry Kitchen did for his 2600 development... -Thom 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted May 12, 2016 Share Posted May 12, 2016 What an incredibly cool guy, great interview! BTW, did anybody ever finish the preliminary Jumpman #1? It's available here: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-jumpman-1_21842.html -- Atari Frog http://www.atarimania.com 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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