The Atari interview discussion thread

[Savetz]

Douglas Crockford: Galahad And The Holy Grail, Burgers!

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-240-douglas-crockford-galahad-and-the-holy-grail-burgers

Douglas Crockford worked in Atari's Game Research Group under Chris Crawford. There he created a variety of demos -- including Ballsong and Crockford's Trench -- and games. He created Galahad And The Holy Grail, which was published by Atari Program Exchange in summer 1982; and Burgers!, which was published by APX in winter 1983. After Atari, he worked at LucasFilm where he worked on Atari games including Rescue on Fractalus! and Koronis Rift.

This interview took place on July 16, 2016.

Teaser quotes:

"For most of what we wanted to accomplish it was not possible to do things correctly. So it was all about cheating."

"If they hired an executive and he wasn't working out, it was too much trouble to fire him, so they would assign him to special projects."

[Savetz]

Elizabeth MacRae, APX Mankala

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-241-elizabeth-macrae-apx-mankala

Elizabeth MacRae published one program for the Atari 8-bit computers: Mankala, which was published by Atari Program Exchange. It first appeared in the fall 1982 APX catalog, where it won second prize in the entertainment category.

This interview took place on September 13, 2016. After the interview, Elizabeth sent me a scan of the Mankala manual, which is now available at the Internet Archive.

"They didn't think personal computers on everyone's desk was the way to go, because everything worked fine the way it was, with the mainframe handling all of the applications, and that was it."

[Bryan]

I wonder how many of the interviewees have signed up or posted here as a result of being interviewed. I'd love to suck as many as possible back into the Atari vortex.

[Savetz]

I wonder how many of the interviewees have signed up or posted here as a result of being interviewed. I'd love to suck as many as possible back into the Atari vortex.

 

 

A couple. Most of them don't care anymore, they've moved on. Consider it enough to get the interview, the story, sometimes the disks and source code.

 

—Kevin

[+therealbountybob]

 

 

A couple. Most of them don't care anymore, they've moved on. Consider it enough to get the interview, the story, sometimes the disks and source code.

 

—Kevin

Maybe a general email with some links to atariage, telling them about the new magazines, storage devices, emulation, abbuc contests, pod casts and high score club of course, would encourage a few more?!

 

Just listened to the John Harris interview, was really nice. I've got a few to catch up on.

 

I spent an hour or so speaking with the guy who created the Rambit high speed cassette system at the weekend. I'm going to use this for an article for Pro© Magazine but I have borrowed his original documents and manuals, so when I get them scanned I'll send them to you.

 

Keep up the good work

[Savetz]

Monty Webb, APX Seven Card Stud

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-242-monty-webb-apx-seven-card-stud

Monty Webb published one program through Atari Program Exchange: Seven Card Stud. The program first appeared in the summer 1982 APX catalog, where it won second prize in the entertainment category. He also self-published the program as Real Poker I, his publishing company was called Real Software.

This interview took place on September 14, 2016.

Teaser quotes:

"And then I could call up a certain sector on a track...and then WHAM, I'd knock a hole in the disk."

"There were shortcuts to try to get that to fit in 16K. ... Somebody was really hot because he has a straight flush that's higher than someone else's straight flush, and the pot split. So he goes crazy and writes me a nastygram..."

[Savetz]

Russ Walter, Secret Guide to Computers

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-243-russ-walter-secret-guide-to-computers

Russ Walter is the author of Secret Guide to Computers & Tricky Living, a book that he has been publishing and updating since 1972. It is currently in its 32nd edition; he's working on the 33rd now. The book has evolved with technology and time — the current versions cover modern machines like Windows, Android, and iOS. The early editions covered then-modern machines like the Atari 800, TRS-80, Commodore 64, and Apple //.

In addition to the book, Russ provides a free technical support phone number, which he invites people to call at any time, day or night. (My copy of the book, from 1987, says right on the cover: "Call 24 hours: he's usually in and sleeps only lightly.") Though the phone number has changed, some 30 years later, that is still a feature that he offers.

This interview took place on September 15, 2016.

"The craziest call that I got was a girl, sounded like she was 7th or 8th grade or something ... wanted to know how to attract her boyfriend to her."

[Savetz]

Ed Stewart and Ray Lyons, APX Letterman

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-244-ed-stewart-and-ray-lyons-apx-letterman

Ed Stewart and Ray Lyons co-wrote Letterman, an educational word game that was first available in the winter 1982-1983 Atari Program Exchange catalog. Ed also wrote two articles for Antic magazine: "Hokey Pokey Interrupts" - on using POKEY timers in assembly language - and "Talk Is Cheap", a 1-bit audio digitizer. Ed also had two articles in Compute!'s Second Book of Atari: Memory Test and Back Up Your Machine Language Programs With BASIC.

This interview took place on September 15, 2016. The first voice you'll hear is Ed's.

"They played that thing for days. They would love to try and stump each other by typing in their own word, primarily."

After the interview, Ray emailed me this update: "There's one fact I wished I had included--and I'll tell you just in case you find it useful: This would have probably been early in the 2nd year of the sale of Letterman via the APX. Atari contacted us and asked us to sign some legal documents giving them permission to port Letterman to a ROM for one of their game platforms. My recall is that it was for the 2600. But I'm wondering if they were announcing a new model. Or maybe it was an updated 2600 with a keyboard added? Sorry for this lapse. Anyway, they said they needed educational software to demo this on the new device at a trade show in New York City that year. The Toy Fair I think it was. We never did hear back from Atari about whether they actually carried through or not. If I run across any paperwork about this, I'll send it to you."

[Tempest]

After the interview, Ray emailed me this update: "There's one fact I wished I had included--and I'll tell you just in case you find it useful: This would have probably been early in the 2nd year of the sale of Letterman via the APX. Atari contacted us and asked us to sign some legal documents giving them permission to port Letterman to a ROM for one of their game platforms. My recall is that it was for the 2600. But I'm wondering if they were announcing a new model. Or maybe it was an updated 2600 with a keyboard added? Sorry for this lapse. Anyway, they said they needed educational software to demo this on the new device at a trade show in New York City that year. The Toy Fair I think it was. We never did hear back from Atari about whether they actually carried through or not. If I run across any paperwork about this, I'll send it to you."

 

Hmm... I wonder if they were talking about the Graduate?

[+Allan]

 

Hmm... I wonder if they were talking about the Graduate?

Most likely. They had planned a few of APX titles for the Graduate.

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/2600/graduate/pricing-june1983.PDF

 

Allan

[Tempest]

Wow Sport Goofy was planned? That's a new one to me.

[+therealbountybob]

Listened to about another 15 interviews this week including the latest Antic Podcast. So just when I had nearly caught up you release even more :thumbsup:

Looking forward to the Monty Webb one - that Seven Card Stud is a more than decent game

[Savetz]

Bruce Campbell, APX Character Fun

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-245-bruce-campbell-apx-character-fun

Bruce Campbell is the author of Character Fun, an educational game which was published by Atari Program Exchange. It appeared in the winter 1983 APX catalog — the final APX catalog.

This interview took place on September 22, 2016.

Shortly after we did this interview, Bruce sent me scans of the source code printout for Character Fun, it's now online at archive.org.

Character Fun source code: https://archive.org/details/AtariCharacterFunSourceCode

Edited October 23, 2016 by Savetz

[Savetz]

Harry McCracken, Technology Journalist

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-246-harry-mccracken-technology-journalist

Harry McCracken is a technology journalist — he's technology editor at Fast Company magazine. He cut his teeth on the TRS-80 and Atari 400 computers, including writing for Creative Computing magazine, and creating a game that he wanted to publish with Atari Program Exchange, but didn't finish.

This interview took place on September 27, 2016.

"...fact about the Atari 400 was that it had maybe the worst keyboard in the history of computing. ... Oddly enough I don't remember having trouble with the keyboard, maybe because when you're programming, it is, generally speaking, not about the speed at which you type."

[Savetz]

Brian Lee, Synapse and Broderbund

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-247-brian-lee-synapse-and-broderbund

Brian Lee started at clothing retailer The Gap, where he used Atari computers for expense control and store operations. He was Vice President of Product Development at Synapse Software from 1982 through 1985, where he managed the Syn line of business software, and programmed SynTrend. Next he was Director of Acquisition at Br0derbund from 1984 to 1985.

This interview took place on September 30, 2016. In it, we discuss Mike Silva, whom I previously interviewed.

"So he sat nervously with $30,000 in stacked, bound $100 bills in his jacket pockets, for the entire flight over from Japan."

[ilaskey]

 

Harry McCracken, Technology Journalist

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-246-harry-mccracken-technology-journalist

Harry McCracken is a technology journalist — he's technology editor at Fast Company magazine. He cut his teeth on the TRS-80 and Atari 400 computers, including writing for Creative Computing magazine, and creating a game that he wanted to publish with Atari Program Exchange, but didn't finish.

 

Is it me or does he talk like a speech synth or the Evil Computer from a 1970's SciFi film?

[Savetz]

Kris Meier, CompuTalk BBS sysop

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-248-kris-meier-computalk-bbs-sysop

Kris Meier was sysop of CompuTalk BBS, a popular six-line BBS based in Texas that ran off off six Atari 800 computers. In this interview, I read from the article "CompuTalk: Texas-Sized BBS" by Gregg Pearlman, which ran in the August 1987 issue of Antic magazine.

This interview took place on October 6, 2016. In it, we discuss Tom Hudson, whom I previously interviewed.

"What? An Atari computer did this? Yeah. An Atari computer did this."

[Mclaneinc]

 

Is it me or does he talk like a speech synth or the Evil Computer from a 1970's SciFi film?

 

Ha ha...Yes indeed..I fear he might be a real life SP0256 chip

[Savetz]

Tom Graziano, CompuClub

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-249-tom-graziano-compuclub

Tom Graziano was founder of CompuClub, an Atari mail-order company and retail store based in Massachusetts. The company began in 1983 and closed in 1986.

CompuClub ran full-page advertisements in the Atari magazines with the headline "The Greatest Atari of All Time." For a $5 annual membership, you could become a CompuClub member, which got you a subscription to their newsletter and access to their catalog of Atari software at "at least 25% below retail." The company only sold programs for the Atari computers — first, the 8-bits and later, the ST line.

This interview took place on October 13, 2016.

Teaser quote: "The Department of Defense was sending Atari software to schools all over the world ... I tried to be very up-front and very honest with them."

[ilaskey]

I've noticed a lot of recent interviewees seem amazed the 400/800 could do stuff other than games. Back in the day, most people I knew with Atari's were about 50/50 games and productivity - word processing, spreadsheets, simple databases, accessing BBSs, programming, drawing, music, all sorts. There was so much add on hardware from better floppy drives to things like the VersaWriter, interfaces, 80 columns etc. Was my circle of friends that different to the norm back then?

Edited November 2, 2016 by ilaskey

[FifthPlayer]

I wonder if some of it comes from the fact that peripherals for the Atari were relatively expensive, and you needed them - starting with a disk drive and moving on to a printer - to do real productivity work. On the other hand, any Atari computer fresh out of the box has a cartridge slot and is ready to play games.

Edited November 2, 2016 by FifthPlayer

[Savetz]

Rodnay Zaks, Founder of Sybex Books

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-250-rodnay-zaks-founder-of-sybex-books

Rodnay Zaks was the founder of computer book publisher Sybex Books, and is author of many classic computer programming books, including 6502 Applications (1979), Programming the 6502, Advanced 6502 Programming, and 6502 Games. He also wrote or co-wrote Programming the Z80, Programming the 6809, Your First Apple II Program, Programming the Apple II in Assembly Language, and other books.

This interview took place on October 14, 2016.

Teaser quotes:

"The first 5,000 books sold out, mail order, within a few days. So it was clear that there was more interest than we anticipated."

"She said, 'There is a computer in this machine?' I said 'Yes.' And she went out screaming and never returned."

[Savetz]

Followup: major success reading Bard's disks. Here they are: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/258707-rambrandt-source-code-more-from-bard-ermentrout/

 

 

Bard Ermentrout, RAMbrandt

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-224-bard-ermentrout-rambrandt

Video of this interview at YouTube:

Bard Ermentrout was the creator of the popular Atari graphics program RAMbrandt. Subtitled "The Atari Design Studio," RAMbrandt was released in 1985 by Antic software. Written in ValForth, it supported joystick, keyboard, Koala Pad, and Atari Touch Tablet for input. He also created an add-on Solid Object Module which allowed users to combine mode 9 geometric primitives to make what appeared to be 3D-shaded objects. The predecessor to RAMbrandt was a drawing program called "Paint 10" which was unreleased.

This interview took place on July 25, 2016.

After the interview, Bard sent me a box of floppy disks — which appears to contain the source code for RAMbrandt, some picture disks, and the object module — but so far I have not been able to read any of the disks. It doesn't look good, but I haven't given up hope yet.

If you would like to see this interview as well as hear it, a video from this Skype conversation is available on YouTube and Internet Archive.

"I had some crazy ideas with the Atari 800 to get more colors, one of them which worked but gave you a really bad headache."

 

[Savetz]

Carl Moser and JR Hall, Eastern House Software

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-251-carl-moser-and-jr-hall-eastern-house-software

Carl Moser and JR Hall were founders of Eastern House Software, the company that created several products for Atari 8-bit users, including Monkey Wrench and Monkey Wrench II, and the KISS word processor. They also created the MAE assembler/software development system, which was available for Commodore PET, Apple //, Atari 8-bit, and other computers.

This interview took place on October 17, 2016.

Teaser quote: (Carl) "JR and I would work — we was working at AT&T a regular day, then we'd probably work 'til 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, then get up, go to work the next morning."

[Savetz]

Paula Polley, Copywriter

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-252-paula-polley-copywriter

Paula Polley started at Atari in 1982, where she worked as a copywriter. She wrote marketing for product boxes and wrote for Atari Connection magazine.

This interview took place on August 14, 2016 at Vintage Computer Festival West XI.