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The Atari interview discussion thread


Savetz

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Myra Marshall, Computer Applications Tomorrow
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-395-myra-marshall-computer-applications-tomorrow


Myra Marshall, along with her husband-at-the-time Roger Marshall, was co-founder of Computer Applications Tomorrow, a small software company that specialized in educational software for microcomputers. Most of the company's software was self-published and sold in small computer stores, including titles such as USA States and Capitals, Spelling Exam, and Alphabet Keyboard Primer. One title, Musical Computer: The Music Tutor, was sold by Atari Program Exchange. It first appeared in the spring 1982 APX catalog. It was available on disk and cost $14.95.

This interview took place on August 26, 2020.

Musical Computer in the spring 1982 APX catalog

AtariMania's list of Computer Applications Tomorrow software

 

159 people wrote Atari Program Exchange software. 94 have been interviewed; 15 known dead; 7 declined=115 accounted for. 

 

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4 hours ago, Savetz said:

Myra Marshall, Computer Applications Tomorrow
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-395-myra-marshall-computer-applications-tomorrow


Myra Marshall, along with her husband-at-the-time Roger Marshall, was co-founder of Computer Applications Tomorrow, a small software company that specialized in educational software for microcomputers. Most of the company's software was self-published and sold in small computer stores, including titles such as USA States and Capitals, Spelling Exam, and Alphabet Keyboard Primer. One title, Musical Computer: The Music Tutor, was sold by Atari Program Exchange. It first appeared in the spring 1982 APX catalog. It was available on disk and cost $14.95.

This interview took place on August 26, 2020.

Musical Computer in the spring 1982 APX catalog

AtariMania's list of Computer Applications Tomorrow software

 

159 people wrote Atari Program Exchange software. 94 have been interviewed; 15 known dead; 7 declined=115 accounted for. 

 

I thought States & Capitals was an official Atari release done by Rob Zdybel?

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17 minutes ago, Stephen said:

I thought States & Capitals was an official Atari release done by Rob Zdybel?

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-states-and-capitals_5046.html

 

The interviewed person is referring to another title.

 

Probably this title

 

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-usa-states-and-capitals_21489.html

 

 

 

Bob Polaro

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Kai and George Esbensen, Micro-Ed Software
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-396-kai-and-george-esbensen-micro-ed-software


I first heard about the Micro-Ed software company when a member of the Atari community sent me a batch of educational cassette tapes to digitize. The tapes had titles like Maps and Globes, Punctuation, and Spelling Level E. Intriguingly, the tape labels said "Micro-Ed, creators of more than 2,500 programs, pre-school through adult." 2,500 programs? Why had I never heard of this company?

I asked 4AM, a software preservationist specializing in the Apple II — and specializing in little-known educational software — if they had heard of the company. The answer was also no. So I started to research.

A two-page advertisement in Compute! magazine issue 4, May 1980, provided my first glimpse into the company: "LOOK at all the MICRO-ED programs for the PET!" The titles listed include Agreement of Subject and Verb; Run on Sentences; Higher, Same, Lower; Word Demons; and (oddly) Usage Boners. Many of the software tapes were sold in packs, for instance $84 for a pack of 12 elementary school programs. $49.95 for a grade's worth of spelling lessons on 7 tapes.

An item in the Washington Apple Pi journal, four years later, January 1984, intrigued me: "$10,000 EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE GIVEAWAY. Micro-Ed Incorporated has announced its willingness to donate up to $10,000 worth of software to any school district, Special Education cooperative, or parent group willing to establish a school-to-home lending library. No limit has been established on the number of grants Micro-Ed will make. The donation is not contingent upon the purchase of any Micro-Ed products. ... Thorward Esbensen, Micro-Ed's president, 'envisions the establishment of a free lending library of educational software for families.'"

Less than a year later, in November 1984, the Commodore magazine The Transactor (v5n3) wrote that Micro-Ed had donated "more than a half million dollars worth of its instructional programs to school systems" for those free software lending libraries.

So. Micro-Ed was established in 1979 by Thorward (Tory) Esbensen. Based in Eden Prairie, MN, the company specialized in low-cost educational software. The software, written in the BASIC programming language, was available for Commodore PET, VIC-20, and Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit, Apple II, TRS-80, and Texas Instruments computers. Micro-Ed's best-known title was perhaps "Trail West," an Oregon Trail-like game.

Mr. Esbensen died in 2012. I interviewed two of his sons, both of whom worked with their father at Micro-Ed. First, I talked with Kai Esbensen, the youngest in the family. Kai told me in email: "My siblings had all moved out by the time Micro-Ed was in motion, but I lived it. Helping out with Micro-Ed was my first paid job, in 2nd/3rd grade, and I was still on the payroll helping out through age 22." This interview took place on May 28, 2020.  ...

Next, I talked with Kai's older brother, George Esbensen, who was a salesman for Micro-Ed, and later was president of Cycle Software Services, a software duplication company that spun off from Micro-Ed. This interview took place on June 3, 2020.

 

Very old Micro-Ed/Thorwald Esbensen web site

AtariMania's partial list of Micro-Ed Software for Atari

Micro-Ed advertisement in Compute! magazine May 1980

Thorwald Esbensen obituary in StarTribune

Thorwald Esbensen obituary in Duluth News Tribune

Washington Apple Pi, January 1984

The Transactor v5n3

 

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Youth Advisory Board: Steve Cohen
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-397-youth-advisory-board-steve-cohen


This is the eighth 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 Steve Cohen.

He attended George Washington High School in Denver Colorado, where his teacher, Dr. Irwin Hoffman, taught. George Washington High School received a grant from the Atari Institute for Education Action Research, Atari's educational support arm, The Atari Institute Newsletter (fall 1982) wrote: "High school students in a model math and computer program will use their grant of ATARI Home Computer systems to develop individual and group research projects in their own fields of interest. Extensible programming languages, such as FORTH, will be used to develop new syntax for use in other high school subjects: electronics, music, art, history, mathematics, and home economics. This project supports a major 'model school' known for its innovations in computer education over the last twenty years."

This interview took place on May 21, 2020.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Kay,

did you already try to contact Julian Eggebrecht regarding his involvement in M.U.L.E. and particularly the copy of its Atari and C64 source code in his possession?

Perhaps after all these years there might be an opportunity to get it released.

 

A link to the German podcast can be found in post #14 of the same thread.

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On 9/29/2020 at 2:35 AM, DjayBee said:

Hi Kay,

did you already try to contact Julian Eggebrecht regarding his involvement in M.U.L.E. and particularly the copy of its Atari and C64 source code in his possession?

Perhaps after all these years there might be an opportunity to get it released.

 

A link to the German podcast can be found in post #14 of the same thread.

 

No I have not.

 

-K

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You should, he's a really nice guy, he was in the group many years ago and provided images of Spelunker with intro and Rescue on Fractulas with intro..

 

He also has info on the Amiga intro based on Fractulas in Master Blazer, only the intro was coded by Factor 5 (the main game is by Rainbow arts / Lucasfilms) , they wanted to make a Fractulas game but apart from the intro in Fractulas look the game never happened, it mushroomed in to one of the N64 Rougue Squadron games.

 

And small trivia, although being called Rescue on Fractulas it does not use any fractal coding despite looking like it does...

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Dan Noguerol (@Farb): Atari 8-bit Software Preservation Initiative
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-398-dan-noguerol-farb-atari-8-bit-software-preservation-initiative


Two interviews with the same person, recorded more than four years apart. Dan Noguerol is better known to the Atari community as Farb. He is the mastermind behind the Atari 8-bit Software Preservation Initiative, and years ago created SIO2Arduino, an Arduino-based disk drive emulator.

I interviewed Farb on August 29, 2019, where we talked primarily about the Atari 8-bit Software Preservation Initiative. That interview took place at the Fujiama Atari event in Lengenfeld, Germany. Our friend Roland Wassenberg sat in on the interview. Shortly after doing that interview, I learned that Randy Kindig had also interviewed Farb, on April 20, 2015, but got busy and hadn't published the interview.

So in this episode, two interviews with Farb: my more recent interview first, then we'll go back to 2015 to hear Randy's interview.
...

Next, Randy's 2015 interview. In it, they discuss the Software Preservation Initiative, which was at a much earlier stage at that point, and SIO2Arduino. SIO2Arduino is an Atari 8-bit device emulator that runs on the Arduino platform. It connects to Atari 8-bit hardware and emulates a single Atari 1050 disk drive. In the years since this interview was recorded, the project has largely been made obsolete by projects like the S-Drive-MAX and FujiNet. But Farb's work on SIO2Arduino, and making it open-source, absolutely laid the groundwork for those newer hardware projects.

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Jim Tittsler, Atari 1600 prototype
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-399-jim-tittsler-atari-1600-prototype


Jim Tittsler got my attention with a tweet, an old photo of a computer in a PC-style case, connected to Atari joysticks and disk drive. In the tweet, Jim wrote: "A prototype of what we hoped would become the #atari 1600: an Atari 800 grafted on to an IBM PC compatible. A Jekyll/Hyde mashup allowing you to plug in cartridges, SIO drives, and  PC expansion cards. It seemed a good idea at the time."

So I reached out to Jim to learn more about that computer, and his time at Atari.

Jim worked in Atari's Special Projects Group, where he worked on several pie-in-the-sky, unreleased, home computer projects including the Atari 1600. When Atari was sold to Jack Tramiel, he was re-hired, where he worked on the Atari ST, the Atari PC-1 IBM compatible, and other projects. He worked at Atari for more than a decade.

This interview took place on September 9, 2020.

Video version of this interview at YouTube
Jim's Atari 1600 tweet

Atari Museum on the Atari 1600

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21 hours ago, Savetz said:

Jim Tittsler, Atari 1600 prototype

 

Good interview; definitely enjoyed it.  Interesting that there was more than one 1600 project going on at the same time, with the left hand not knowing what the right hand was up to.

 

Also, thank you for posting this to YouTube.  For various reasons, that is the one common-denominator platform that works across all of our devices for podcasts, so being able to access the interview there was a huge plus.

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On 4/14/2020 at 5:54 AM, www.atarimania.com said:

Thanks to some incredible work by Fandal (once again!), here's a playable prototype of Bankster assembled from the code on John Harris' disks: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-bankster_35883.html

Wow, I missed this, and the other posts about John Harris' disks. Nice looking Bagman-type clone. Too bad it wasn't finished. I wonder if Fandal plans to work on it more?

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Suzanne Ciani, pioneer in electronic music

Suzanne Ciani is a pioneer in electronic music, Grammy-nominated composer, and recording artist. In the 1980's, she created music for television commercials, corporate tags, and audio logos for Atari as well as many other companies. She also created the soundtrack for the 1980 Bally pinball machine, Xenon. In addition to being an early adopter of electronic music, she educated the world about it, demonstrating sound design techniques on The David Letterman Show, 3-2-1 Contact, and other popular media.

This interview took place on November 5, 2020.
 

Audio version: https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-400-suzanne-ciani-pioneer-in-electronic-music

Youtube version: 

 

 

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Really really enjoyed that Kay...

 

She said that she worked on the Disco Star Wars which I presume (much check my CD) was the Meco Monardo version that was incredibly popular back then and still something I listen to..

 

A strong woman in the industry back then, great to hear...Also her love of digital space / surround is just great, the gaming / film enhancement is simply massive but to hear they initially didn't even use stereo was shocking.

 

Edit: And yes she worked on The Meco Star Wars, all the synth work.

Edited by Mclaneinc
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On 8/16/2020 at 7:54 AM, Savetz said:

Charles Marslett, MYDOS and FastChip
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-393-charles-marslett-mydos-and-fastchip


Charles Marslett wrote floppy disk and hard drive drivers for Percom, and was the creator of MYDOS, a disk operating system for the Atari 8-bit computers that offered support for double density sectors, subdirectories, and hard drives. He also created FastChip, a hardware add-on for the Atari, sold by Newell Industries, that claimed to speed up floating point routines by 300%. He also created the A65 Assembler, a macro assembler. He has released the source code for MYDOS and FastChip.

This interview took place on July 13, 2020.

 

One of the books quoted in this interview, Zen of Assembly Language by Michael Abrash, is available on GitHub as an EPUB/MOBI eBook, the conversion was performed with the blessings of the original author.

 

GitHub project: https://github.com/jagregory/abrash-zen-of-asm

EPUB/Mobi versions of the book here: https://github.com/jagregory/abrash-zen-of-asm/releases

- Click on the "Assets" dropdown on the above page to see the files available for downloading.

 

@Savetz, I don't know if you update the notes for past shows or not, but pasting this project into the show notes could save someone the cost of buying the (no longer published and quite rare) book on Amazon.  It would definitely allow people to scratch their itch to see what the book was all about.

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14 hours ago, spicyjack said:

 

@Savetz, I don't know if you update the notes for past shows or not, but pasting this project into the show notes could save someone the cost of buying the (no longer published and quite rare) book on Amazon.  It would definitely allow people to scratch their itch to see what the book was all about.

 

will do - thanks.

 

K

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John F. White is author of the book Writing Strategy Games On Your Atari Computer and the creator of Superquerg and Negaquerg, computer chess programs that were distributed in New Atari User magazine.

He was also a contributor to the UK computer magazines Popular Computing Weekly, Personal Computing, Practical Computing, and Computer Weekly, often writing about computer chess and game strategy.

His book Writing Strategy Games On Your Atari Computer, published in 1983, offers “techniques for intelligent games,” with advice and BASIC code for programming tic-tac-toe, checkers, chess, and other board games.

New Atari User’s description of SuperQuerg — it was a “disk bonus,” not a type- in program — was: “SuperQuerg Chess is a third generation program with alpha-beta pruning and iterative deepening. An alpha-beta window is also employed. Uses Shannon A and B strategies, killer heuristic and chopper functions, new methods for searching to deep levels and for other game strategies. ... Querg Chess is unusual among chess programs in that it relies more on the strength of its positional strategy than on its tactical play. Artificial Intelligence methods are used to switch between strategic and tactical searching, as the program considers appropriate.”

John organized the 1982 Chess Computer Symposium, the first major tournament to assign gradings to chess computers by their play against human opponents. He is co-creator of Blitz Latin, Latin-to-English language translation software.

This interview took place via email from July 13 through 16, 2020. You will be hearing John’s words but not his voice. John preferred not to do a voice interview, so for this audio podcast, his emailed responses will be read by Victor Marland.
 
 
Writing Strategy Games on Your Atari Computer: UK versionUS version
 
 
Weather Center adventure game articles: Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4
 
 
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On 12/13/2020 at 11:09 PM, Allan said:

A couple of the links are broken including the Atarimania one and the UK Writing Strategy games book.

Thanks.

 

 

John F. White at AtariMania

 
 
 
 
Writing Strategy Games on Your Atari Computer: UK versionUS version
 
Weather Center adventure game articles: Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4
 
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The Famous Computer Cafe
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-402-the-famous-computer-cafe


This is a podcast episode featuring three interviews with people who created a radio show that did hundreds of interviews.

The Famous Computer Cafe was -- not a restaurant -- but a radio program that aired from 1983 through the first quarter of 1986. The program included computer news, product reviews, and interviews.

The program was created by three people — who were not only the on-air voices, but did all the work around the program: getting advertisers, buying air time, researching each day's computer news, booking interviews -- everything. Those three people were Andrew Velcoff, Michael Walker (now Michael FireWalker), and Ellen Lubin (later Ellen Walker, now Ellen Fields.) For this episode of Antic, I got to talk with all three of The Famous Computer Cafe's proprietors.

There were several versions of the show, which aired on several radio stations, primarily in California. A live, daily half-hour version allowed phone calls from listeners. Taped versions (running a half-hour and up to two hours) also aired daily. The show started in 1983 on two stations in the Los Angeles area: KFOX 93.5 FM and KIEV 870 AM. In 1985 it began airing in the California Bay Area: on KXLR 1260 AM in San Francisco and KCSM 91.1 FM in San Matro, and KSDO 1130 AM in San Diego.

Also in 1985 a nationally syndicated, half-hour non-commercial version of The Famous Computer Cafe was available via satellite to National Public Radio stations around the United States, though it's not clear today which stations ran it.

To me, the most exciting thing about the show was the interviews. The list of people that the show interviewed is a who's-who of tech luminaries of the early 1980s.  But not just computer people: they interviewed anyone whose work was touched by personal computer technology. musicians, professors, publishers, philosophers, journalists, astrologers.

The cafe aired interviews with Philip Estridge, the IBM vice president who was responsible for developing the PC; Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates; Atari Chairman Jack Tramiel; Bill Atkinson, developer of MacPaint; Infocom's Joel Berez; Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek; musician Herbie Hancock; Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts; author Douglas Adams; Stewart Brand, editor of the Whole Earth Catalog; psychologist Timothy Leary; science fiction writer Ray Bradbury; synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog; and pop star Donny Osmond. The list goes on and on and on. By mid-1985, the show had run more than 300 half-hour interviews.

Here's the bad news. Those episodes, those interviews, are lost. Today, a recording of only one Cafe episode is known to exist. That show, which aired January 2, 1986, includes an interview with Rich Gold, creator of the Activision simulation Little Computer People; a call-in from tech journalist John Dvorak; and commercials for Elephant Floppy Disks and Microsoft Word. The entire 29-minute episode is available at Internet Archive, with the gracious permission of the show's creators. It's an amazing time capsule -- which survived because Rich Gold, interviewed on the program, saved a cassette of that show. Perhaps, somewhere, there are hundreds more episodes waiting to be re-discovered — if someone has the recordings. If you do, contact me at antic@ataripodcast.com.

The good news is that transcripts of six interviews do exist (and are now online): Timothy Leary, Donny Osmond, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky; Frank Herbert, author of the Dune series; Tom Mahon, author of Charged Bodies; and Jack Nilles, head of the University of Southern California Center for Futures Research.

You'll hear the interviews in the order in which I recorded them. First up is Michael FireWalker, then Ellen Fields, then Andrew Velcoff.

The interview with Michael FireWalker took place on May 27, 2020. The interview with Ellen Fields took place on June 1, 2020. The interview with Andrew Velcoff took place on July 3, 2020.

Special thanks to fellow researcher Devin Monnens, and the Department of Special Collections at Stanford University.

This podcast used excerpts from the one The Famous Computer Cafe episode that is known to exist. That episode, now available at Internet Archive, was digitized by Stanford University (the physical tape is in their special collections located in the Stanford Series 9 of the Rich Gold Collection (M1510), Box 2.)

If you have any other recordings of any Famous Computer Cafe episodes, please contact me at antic@ataripodcast.com.

The Famous Computer Cafe 1986-01-02 episode

The Famous Computer Cafe interview transcripts

The Famous Computer Cafe ads, photos, articles

 

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I have just listened to the John F. White interview which I was very interested in hearing as I read a couple of his books in the early 1990s.

 

One thing that I preferred was that he was well prepared for the question of having a message for having the current Atari community. Therefore he could think out what probably is quite a difficult question to answer (without giving the generic answer that most, including me would say).

 

If it isn't already (it just seemed that John's response was more in-depth than what most people say), could this be distributed to all interviewees beforehand?

 

If you are reading this John, I would like to say that I know why you are concerned about speaking straight out to the community, though I would say that I think that the vast, vast majority of the community would be supportive of you, for these reasons:

 

a) We're a bit older than the general YouTube community.

b) It's not like you've had to do anything controversial / political which required a decision.

c) We're generally in awe of those that worked with Atari's in the 80s. We're somewhat jealous. :)

 

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Dan Kramer, Atari Trak-Ball Controllers
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-403-dan-kramer-atari-trak-ball-controllers


Dan Kramer worked at Atari from 1980 to 1984 in the consumer engineering group where he created products for the home computers and home video games. He championed the creation of the Trak-Ball accessories for the Atari game consoles and computers, and received a patent for his digital-to-analog interface for the Atari 5200 trak-ball. He also worked on the French (SECAM) version of the Atari XL computers, the Atari 2700, and various other projects.

This interview took place on December 18, 2020.

Playing Catch-Up: Dan Kramer (2005 interview): https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/97175/Playing_CatchUp_Dan_Kramer.php

Patent: Digital-analog conversion for shaft encoders: https://patents.justia.com/patent/4496936

Video version of this interview at YouTube: https://youtu.be/l0E6BCrhka0

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