Atariage welcomes Chris Crawford...Aka Mr. Eastern Front

[carmel_andrews]

Just noticed his post in the thread about the 'C' language

 

welcome aboard Mr Crawford, I hope you enjoy your stay here at Atariage (i am guessing that you are THE Chris Crawford

 

perhaps you can give us a better insight in what it was like as a programmer working for the big A

 

And perhaps a story or two about the development of Eastern Front and a similar game using the same engine/logic, legionaire

 

What was your opinion of the other 'star' programmers at the big A, especially those that were working on the portovers from coin op

 

Is it also not true that you helped start up APX (which emanated from another software concept that was already existing within the big A)

[chris_rainbow]

Well, assuming he is THE Chris Crawford, I too would like to say hi. His ideas on UI in De Re esp. concerning Eastern Front had a huge impact on me as a teenager. I also think he said something along the lines of "why are there 4 ghosts in Pacman? If the programmers were any good there would only be need for one!"

 

If he's not the real CC my comments still stand

[Rybags]

I'd say he's very much the real deal. This time it'd be nice to have an old timer hang around rather than be chased off by dozens of pointless probing questions.

 

I remember the article on his writing Eastern Front and cramming it to work in 16K - Creative Computing (I think), it was a good read.

[Mclaneinc]

Chris who?

 

was he good

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seriously, welcome Chris, you actually were the reason I got my job with Atari's in the day, I was the only person who could demonstrate Eastern Front properly to customers

[slyde]

wow, one of my favorite games back in the day. (in fact, i still have my original cart and played it just last week). Welcome!

[Heaven/TQA]

Yeah welcome Chris if the true. All stuff published well written esp. regarding eastern front. it was only 16k? cool.

[+doctorclu]

Welcome aboard Chris! Never played the game much myself (wasn't into strategy games at the time) but I remember being really impressed with the game when I loaded it up and tried it.

 

Yeh... I think I got it off a BBS I think.

[kenjennings]

Eastern Front was a killer. War games are not my forte or the reality of the simulation is that it was impossible for the Germans to win. The best ending I could manage was get one unit to the nearest Russian city and then keep the key pressed for end of turn to give the computer as little time as possible to calculate its turn (aka cheating). Still, it was the same as losing. War is heck.

[+Larry]

Sometimes, Atari notables prefer to keep a lower profile. We had one here a few years ago that I think was one of the principals of Spartan Software.

 

-Larry