nonprophet

I think Jaron Lanier worked there. He's still alive, I wonder if he'd agree to be interviewed?

Hi Kay and Randy, Did you not have any luck contacting Robert Leyland for an interview? According to his Facebook page, he's friends with Aric Wilmunder whom Kay interviewed for ANTIC in 2015 (https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-104-aric-wilmunder-star-raiders-ii-temple-of-apshai). Perhaps Aric could convince Robert to do one, too. This could end up being a two-for-one because Robert's wife appears to be Diane Ascher, the co-founder of Island Graphics which was an early microcomputer software publisher. They published Jon Freeman and Anne Westfall's first game for the Atari 400/800, Tax Dodge.

Kay, This was a great interview, thanks for doing it! It's too bad that there wasn't time for Dr. Laurel to talk about Dani Bunten Berry (AKA Dan Bunten) with whom she had collaborated; I remember you've asked previous interviewees to share their memories of Berry because you can't interview her yourself. From https://www.carpeludum.com/dani-bunten-berry-tributes-anticlockwise-september-22-2001/#:~:text=From Brenda Laurel of Purple Moon:

In case anyone's interested, the other Kay, Alan Kay, revealed his motivation for joining Atari during a Kids@Play Summit panel that he participated in in 2010. The "Seymour" he refers to is none other than Seymour Papert.

Hi Randy, You can also try contacting Robert Leyland through his Facebook page (link). I'm pretty sure it's the right one because it's linked to his wife's Facebook page; according to an interview with Paul Reiche III (co-designer of Archon, Archon II and Murder on the Zinderneuf) she's Diane Ascher, the co-founder of Island Graphics which published the first game by FreeFall Associates (Jon Freeman and Anne Westfall), Tax Dodge for the Atari 400/800. Jon Freeman, the star of ANTIC Interview #70, might also have contact information for Robert Leyland.

Hi Kay and Randy, Have you ever sought an interview with Robert Leyland, the programmer of the Atari 400/800 games Murder on the Zinderneuf for Electronic Arts (FreeFall Associates), Dragon's Eye for EPYX and the co-programmer (with Jaron Lanier) of the Atari 400/800 game Alien Garden for Automated Simulations?

Hi Randy, According to atarimania.com, Jaron Lanier also co-programmed the Atari 400/800 game Alien Garden for Automated Simulations soon after they changed their name to Epyx (the box is branded "EPYX" but lists the publisher as "Automated Simulations") e.g. and he did the sound for the Atari 400/800 game Word Flyer for Electronic Arts (ChildWare) e.g. BTW, atarimania.com's programmer attribution for Word Flyer might be a mistake because Larry Reed, who was interviewed in ANTIC Interview #109, claimed to have programmed it instead e.g.

You're right and preservation could have been automated if only Tim Berners-Lee had bothered to make hyperlinks bi-directional i.e. 404 errors could be prevented if a page notified the pages that reference it of its impending doom so that they'd have a chance to make a local copy of it. Google owes its very existence to this design flaw; if hyperlinks were bi-directional it wouldn't be necessary to constantly crawl the entire world-wide web in order to infer a page's referents because every page could just tell you what they are.

Speaking of Alan Kay, here's a profile of him that was filmed while he was Atari Inc.'s Chief Scientist: .

Hi Kay, Well thanks for trying! I've watched a number of his presentations and interviews but I can only remember him mentioning Atari once so, AFAICT, he could probably still tell some stories that few have heard. Hopefully he'll come around before it's too late; you and Randy have long since proven yourselves to be legitimate interviewers who shall be remembered in the annals of computing history for the preservation work that you've collectively done.

Hi Kay, Have you ever sought an interview with Alan Kay? It'd be interesting to hear what his goals were during his time at Atari and the obstacles he faced whilst trying to achieve them.

Hi Randy! Maybe Jay has kept in touch with Jaron through all these years but, in case he hasn't, his current email address on his homepage—which I also provided a link to in my last post—is hello at jaronlanier dot com. Thanks for following up!

Kevin, Have you ever sought an interview with Jaron Lanier, the "father of Virtual Reality", whom Jay Balakrishnan mentioned during his interview? According to a WIRED story from 1993, and Interestingly, Moondust is only listed as being a C64 title in all of the video game databases that I'm aware of so perhaps there was an Atari 800 version that went unpublished?

Kudos to you, Kevin, for pulling off an interview with Bruce Irvine anyway! It's a great interview and we're all very thankful for it.

Hi Kevin, Did he (Roger Badertscher) ever tell you why? One can only hope that the ANTIC podcast interviews of his former collaborators would encourage him to change his mind. No one lives forever.