The Atari interview discussion thread

[Savetz]

Youth Advisory Board: Tracey Cullinan

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-381-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 — starting at the age of 12. He started a software company, Superior Software, which produced custom software for local businesses, as well as a couple of games for the Apple II computer. At 14, Tracey was invited to be a member of the Youth Advisory Board. As part of that job, he went to the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago to demonstrate Atari computers. The next year, as a 15-year-old, Tracey was interviewed on the "Today" show as a young entrepreneur.

There's a chapter about Tracey in the 1984 book "Computer Kids" by George Sullivan. (His picture in on the back cover of the book.) I'm going to read several passages from that book, quotes from Tracey.
 

...A Computerland store opened
in a mall near my home. I made friends with the people
who worked in the store, and they let me use the computers
there.

The store happened to be within walking distance of
where I live, and I'd go there after school and on week-
ends, or almost anytime I had free time. I often wrote
game programs on the computers, and I bought a disk on
which to store the programs. They let me keep the disk
at the store.

When customers came into the store, I'd sometimes
help out by showing them what a computer could do.
They'd be amazed. "What’s this nine-year-old kid doing
showing me how a computer works?"

I’m now working at the store. I started as an employee
when I was twelve. I was in sales at first but later I shifted
over to computer repair...

I now know five or six computer languages — BASIC,
Pascal, LOGO, plus three machine languages: 6502, the
one that’s used on the Apple and Atari and the one I use
the most, Z-80. I’m starting to learn 8086, the language
for the IBM Personal Computer...

The company that I operate is called Superior Software.
I prepare custom programs for businesses in the
area. One program involves inventorying and invoicing
for a company that sells charcoal fire starters. I’ve got
another program that gathers stock market prices from a
computer, and then correlates them and prints them out
for a local stockbroker.

A third program I wrote for the Los Altos Little
League. It’s a mailing list program. They use it in sending
out notices about tryouts, practices, and things like that.
I became a member of the Atari Youth Advisory Board
because someone at the consulting firm that was getting
the names of kids together for Atari happened to know
my dad. When the consulting firm found out that I was
into computers, they put my name on the list. Then the
people at Atari picked me.

We've been giving Atari advice mostly on their home
computers. Later, I think they're going to ask us for advice
on their video games and arcade games...

I also use the computer to write game programs once
in a while. One that I’ve written is called Glutton [for the
Apple II.] You, the shooter, are armed with little missiles
and positioned on the right side of the screen. You can
move up and down only. You shoot to the left.

The glutton moves back and forth across the screen.
The glutton likes to eat. Different kinds of food fall from
the top of the screen. Some of it is good food, like apples,
carrots, and chicken drumsticks. But some of the food is
junk food, like cupcakes and soda pop. The object of the
game is to keep the glutton well fed, but healthy, You try
to eliminate the pieces of junk food by blasting them with
your missiles.

I've tried to sell Glutton to some of the companies that
market game software to computer owners, to companies
such as Broderbund and Sirius. But I haven’t been successful yet.
...As far as the future is concerned, I plan to go to college.

I'd like to go to a good private university, a technical
one, like MIT, Cal Tech, or Stanford... After that, I
think I'd like to be a game programmer, and maybe work
for Atari, Imagic, or Activision, or some company like
that.

Tracey didn't go to any of those colleges. He died 1986 of brain cancer. He had just turned 18.

I talked with Tracey's mother, Leola Wooldridge; and his younger brother, Cory Cullinan, about their memories of Tracey.

This interview took place on April 17, 2020. In it, we discuss John Dickerson, whom I previously interviewed.

 

[Savetz]

Rik Dickinson, Encore Video Productions
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-episode-382-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 Atari.

This interview took place on April 20, 2020.

Forum about Encore Video Productions Display System

[_The Doctor__]

------Tracey didn't go to any of those colleges. He died 1986 of brain cancer. He had just turned 18.
I talked with Tracey's mother, Leola Wooldridge; and his younger brother, Cory Cullinan, about their memories of Tracey.
This interview took place on April 17, 2020.

 

Thank you for doing this particular interview... I really didn't expect this... In my mind I couldn't see how such an interview could work.  With mom, brother and other material mixed in, you get a good picture of Tracy as well as a passing glimpse of what YAB was about. It's bittersweet. I appreciate your work, it's just so much.

 

 

edit--- did the ports of Tracey's 'stuff' follow as you suggested might take place during the interview conference... to the Atari, and modern computers... I'd bet you'd make a mother and brother so happy.

Edited May 13, 2020 by _The Doctor__

[Savetz]

Thanks you, _TD_. Cory hasn't gotten to his mom's place to locate the Apple disk(s) but he will in time.

[Dracon]

Here is another interview done by me, twenty years ago! But it wasn't here so I put it.

 

[www.atarimania.com]

I noticed Ron Hartman (K-Byte) sent a picture of a Jeep diagnostic cartridge in 2016. Was this program ever dumped?

[Savetz]

26 minutes ago, www.atarimania.com said:

I noticed Ron Hartman (K-Byte) sent a picture of a Jeep diagnostic cartridge in 2016. Was this program ever dumped?

 

I asked Ron about this at the time. It was not an Atari cart. It was for some car diagnostic system that used cartridges with the same physical specifications as Atari carts.

 

-K

[www.atarimania.com]

Thanks for the clarification.

[+Stephen]

1 hour ago, Savetz said:

 

I asked Ron about this at the time. It was not an Atari cart. It was for some car diagnostic system that used cartridges with the same physical specifications as Atari carts.

 

-K

I just realized, that I have listened to SO many of your awesome interviews, that I cannot read your posts, without "the voice in my head" being you reading the posts.  Cool but creepy at the same time.  Am I the only one that does this?

[Savetz]

Gregg Squires, Atari Manager of Hardware Engineering
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-383-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 picture of the timeline, costs, and issues involved with creating that computer.

 

This interview took place on February 13, 2019.

[_The Doctor__]

Rut Roh, some folks are going to have fun porky pig that's not all folks...

how is it I just got notified of this last interview now, and the forum says you posted it Wednesday....?

Edited May 25, 2020 by _The Doctor__

[nonprophet]

On 4/15/2020 at 4:16 PM, Savetz said:

Many times. He has layers of protection around him.

 

-K

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

.

[_The Doctor__]

Kay has been interviewed to death, but some old blogs and sources are disappearing...   the internet sucks in that people always link but don't preserve.... some do... so hopefully all is not lost...

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by _The Doctor__

[nonprophet]

20 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

the internet sucks in that people always link but don't preserve...

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.

[Savetz]

Fandal: Atari programer and archivist
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-384-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 interview. Shortly after, Fandal and I and several other attendees hooked up a multijoy and played some rounds of Mashed Turtles with six players (up to eight can play), and it was so. much. fun.

[www.atarimania.com]

Fandal is really a class act. Modest, too.

[Lynxpro]

Paul Laughton, who headed Fox Video Games, posts in the "Vintage Computer Federation" group on Facebook. He popped into a programming discussion about the TI-99 4/A being the hardest to program for while also mentioning how they developed for the Atari 2600, the A8s, and the C64. He mentioned he wasn't aware of any lost/unfinished games after their division was shut down because he had moved on to his own voicemail startup company.

 

Sounds like he'd be an interesting interview if he hasn't been interviewed already... 

[Savetz]

23 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

Paul Laughton, who headed Fox Video Games, posts in the "Vintage Computer Federation" group on Facebook. He popped into a programming discussion about the TI-99 4/A being the hardest to program for while also mentioning how they developed for the Atari 2600, the A8s, and the C64. He mentioned he wasn't aware of any lost/unfinished games after their division was shut down because he had moved on to his own voicemail startup company.

 

Sounds like he'd be an interesting interview if he hasn't been interviewed already... 

 

2014. https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-the-atari-8-bit-podcast-paul-laughton-interview

 

-K

[Lynxpro]

Just now, Savetz said:

 

2014. https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-the-atari-8-bit-podcast-paul-laughton-interview

 

-K

 

Well then, right on. 

[Savetz]

Software Automatic Mouth: Mark Barton
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-385-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.

[Savetz]

Sherman Rosenfeld, Atari Institute for Education Action Research
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-386-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 education programs, even a prison.  

Ted Kahn, whom I have previously interviewed, recently dug through his files to uncover several documents about the Institute, including "Informal Learning and Computers," the working paper written by Sherman Rosenfeld for the Atari Institute for Education Action Research in September 1982. Ted also graciously scanned a 1981 Atari Institute brochure, a 1983 progress report, and "Atari in Action," the Institute's newsletter, dated fall 1982.

This interview took place on May 25, 2020. Sherman talked to me from his office in Israel. A video version of the interview is also available.

[www.atarimania.com]

Did you ask Sherman Rosenfeld if he still had anything from the days he headed Edunetics? According to his résumé, he became the CEO of the company in 1985. Edunetics developed programs for the Atari in 1984 so he might have been involved in these titles:

The ABC of CPR

Animal World

Pilots

 

The ABC of CPR appears in catalogs but was never released as Atari's educational division was closed down:

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-abc-of-cpr-_12807.html

 

The other two were canned entirely but still exist as prototypes (I believe it was Nir Dary who managed to rescue them).

 

It would be great to know what happened to this software and whether any other titles were written or planned.

 

[Savetz]

On 6/8/2020 at 1:30 AM, www.atarimania.com said:

Did you ask Sherman Rosenfeld if he still had anything from the days he headed Edunetics? According to his résumé, he became the CEO of the company in 1985. Edunetics developed programs for the Atari in 1984 so he might have been involved in these titles:

The ABC of CPR

Animal World

Pilots

 

The ABC of CPR appears in catalogs but was never released as Atari's educational division was closed down:

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-abc-of-cpr-_12807.html

 

The other two were canned entirely but still exist as prototypes (I believe it was Nir Dary who managed to rescue them).

 

It would be great to know what happened to this software and whether any other titles were written or planned.

 

 

Sherman told me: "I wasn't the CEO of Edunetics.  I worked for them for a while, but didn't know of any connection between this company and Atari.  Also, I'm not familiar with the titles mentioned."

 

-Kay

[Savetz]

Claudia Cohl, Editor-in-Chief of Family Computing and K-Power Magazine
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-387-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 Publishing department to focus on magazines for teachers.

In a 1983 New York Times article "Children's Magazine for a Computer Age," Claudia is quoted: "Our magazine is primarily for parents. Parents feel confused about computers and software and they feel they have no place to turn. We think parents will be using our magazine themselves or with their kids. Children will be picking up the magazine too."

Claudia was also editor-in-chief of K-Power magazine, a computer magazine for kids. Only eight issues of K-Power were published, running from February 1984 to November/December 1984, after which it was merged with Family Computing.

Our interview took place in two portions, on June 29, 2018 and December 11, 2019.

[+Stephen]

Nice - I still have 2 or 3 Family Computing magazines from when I was a kid.  I so looked forward to that and Compute back then.  The type-in programs were awesome.