XM has shipped!

[+Atarius Maximus]

I had to process this for a little while. Curt was a truly selfless person who gave so much to this community, and he was so kind to me when we corresponded over the years. It’s an immeasurable loss to the Atari community, and of course to his family and friends. My deepest sympathy to his family and everyone who loved him. You will be greatly missed, Curt. Rest In Peace.

[8th lutz]

Curt's death stunned me.

 

I never met him in person, but I viewed him as a Atari historian when I first found out found Curt was the owner of the Atari Museum website. 

 

 He was one of the most important people in the Atari community. I remembered him having stuff that helped homebrew programmers back in the 2000s with the documentation he has. I remembered having sales figures, actually code for some games, and a bunch of other stuff.

 

I first visited Curt's website back in the late 1990s and that is where I discovered the information Curt had on Atari. I later did find out Curt did work out hardware beside me owning the book that him and Marty worked on.

 

RIP Curt and condolences to his family.

Edited September 1, 2020 by 8th lutz

[+MattelAquarius]

Thank you Curt, for every moment of fun and nostalgia you gave us with your stories and projects.

[legeek]

This is awful, 2020 continues to take and take.   Thank you Curt, for all you've done for Classic Gaming. Rest in peace.

[gambler172]

Sh... 

RIP

[abaudrand]

Quelle triste nouvelle. Mes sincères condoléances à la famille et ses proches. 

[romeoteknik]

Too young, way too young. Deepest condolences to Curt's family. ?

Edited September 2, 2020 by romeoteknik

[Retro Rogue]

Reposting here. I am the one who had the unfortunate responsibility of breaking the news to the public after hearing it from his wife. I am still in shock at the loss of my friend. Yes it was his heart though an autopsy is not going to be done because of Covid restrictions.I’ve posted about the funeral arrangements on the Atari Museum Facebook group. I’m going to be working with his wife at some point in the near future to bring some order into the sad chaos that has arisen from his sudden departure. That includes going through the voluminous Atari museum archive, all the projects he was working on for people, any business related things, and so on. It’s quite the undertaking but it has to be done. And I want to make sure I do everything possible to preserve his legacy and what he was trying to accomplish, and what I was fortunate enough to be a part of for sometime now.
 

Regarding the XM, I was not involved directly with that but I will be including that in the list of things I have to be going through and seeing what I could do to keep moving it forward. I do know that any and all money went towards the tooling for the cases early on, so he anybody else brought in was basically doing their work for nothing all this time out of the pure love for it and to see it finished. So anybody I can try and work with to finish this up would have to be working on it out of that same respect, and possible future sales. But none of this is my expertise, my work on Curt’s projects has always been in software, waiting,  graphic arts and marketing.

 

Right now everything is just under lockdown and completely in stasis and safe, while the family deals with his upcoming funeral and immediate aftermath of his sudden death.

[TrekMD]

Curt had talked to me about all the surgeries he had had when I met him at CGE in 2014, so I suspected that a cardiac issue was what led to his untimely death.  It really is very sad.  Thank you for your efforts to help keep his memory alive, Marty.  For now, though, the XM and any other projects need to wait.  Condolences.

[128Kgames]

Marty thank you for keeping us and everyone else in the loop, I am truly sorry for the loss of your friend.  Many of us have been in your shoes, especially this year, so I say that with all due respect.  

 

I agree with TrekMD that the XM and other projects can wait, its good of you to have acknowledged it but I'm sure we all would have waited until an announcement down the road out of respect.  

 

When it comes time to revisit the XM I'm sure you'll find many of us willing to volunteer to help get Curt's project done in any way we can, myself included.  I may be an engineer now but I cut my teeth building computers back in the day just cause it was fun to take things apart and see how they work.  So I'd be happy to lend a screwdriver or whatnot, when and if the time comes, if anything but to help put things together and get them out to people.  

 

Please give his wife and family our condolences from his AtariAge family. 

 

-Michael

[Lord Thag]

I'll chime in with my sadness and condolences as well. Curt was a great guy, and his contributions to preserving untold numbers of documents, protos, software, etc from Atari will live on long after we all go to that big console in the sky.

Not only was he a great guy, and a huge Atari fan, he was absolutely critical to preserving early video game history.

He will indeed be missed. RIP.

[Zonie]

Wow, so sad to hear. Rest in Peace, Curt.

[RevEng]

Raising a glass to Curt tonight, and listening with amusement to him ranting about modern Atari shenanigans, and talk about his various projects including XM. Rest well, Curt. ?

[bradhig1]

Is this the end of the XM?

[jaybird3rd]

2 hours ago, bradhig1 said:

Is this the end of the XM?

 

On 9/2/2020 at 3:24 PM, Retro Rogue said:

Regarding the XM, I was not involved directly with that but I will be including that in the list of things I have to be going through and seeing what I could do to keep moving it forward. I do know that any and all money went towards the tooling for the cases early on, so he anybody else brought in was basically doing their work for nothing all this time out of the pure love for it and to see it finished. So anybody I can try and work with to finish this up would have to be working on it out of that same respect, and possible future sales. But none of this is my expertise, my work on Curt’s projects has always been in software, waiting,  graphic arts and marketing.

 

Right now everything is just under lockdown and completely in stasis and safe, while the family deals with his upcoming funeral and immediate aftermath of his sudden death.

 

[CPUWIZ]

5 hours ago, bradhig1 said:

Is this the end of the XM?

 Aside from Jay's response, is this an insensitive question?

[Cobra Kai]

Not really, it is a question that would have to be asked at some point.

[+DrVenkman]

1 hour ago, Cobra Kai said:

Not really, it is a question that would have to be asked at some point.

Couldn’t that question be asked in a week or two, after the body is cold and in the ground and his wife and young daughter have had at least a week or two to grieve? 

[Jinks]

1 hour ago, Cobra Kai said:

Not really, it is a question that would have to be asked at some point.

So how are you willing to help? By keeping your yap closed and waiting until there is news on this possibly?  You think this atari junk is important to his family right now??  Like somehow it is the number one priority when they lost a father and husband not even one week ago?? It amazes me how inconsiderate people can be. But but but my internet online said blah blah I want answers now.. NO shut up!! Nobody has the right to ask for anything. 

[Greg2600]

12 hours ago, RevEng said:

Raising a glass to Curt tonight, and listening with amusement to him ranting about modern Atari shenanigans, and talk about his various projects including XM. Rest well, Curt. ?

Thanks for posting.  I found it funny and quite insightful in many ways, the man totally lived for Atari.  Obviously it was very sad too, as Curt was super pumped for the project.  We must give the family all the time they need, however, just going by Curt's name dropping (in interview) there are several AA stalwarts who I'm sure will get this item delivered.  If nothing else, because it meant the world to him.

[+cvga]

The original poster didn't mean anything by it. Sometimes you have to take a look at the person. It was an innocent question. Let it go. Anything else just adds unneeded clutter.

 

Edited to clarify that I was referring to the "end of the XM" question. Greg2600 squeezed in a response to a different post in the meantime

Edited September 5, 2020 by cvga

[RevEng]

38 minutes ago, Greg2600 said:

Thanks for posting.  I found it funny and quite insightful in many ways, the man totally lived for Atari.  Obviously it was very sad too, as Curt was super pumped for the project.  We must give the family all the time they need, however, just going by Curt's name dropping (in interview) there are several AA stalwarts who I'm sure will get this item delivered.  If nothing else, because it meant the world to him.

You're totally welcome. I was about a third of the way into the podcast when I posted here. It was a while later that Curt started calling out AA names, and was I surprised to hear my own name mentioned a couple times. Really I'm a late-comer to the XM effort, and have only invested time for creation of developer tools and code, but Curt was generous when it came to praise, recognition, and enthusiasm.

 

Completely agreed that we need to give family and friends time to grieve, before anyone even takes stock of the project. With Marty's eventual involvement, there's certainly some reason for hope. But there's no point to anybody here asking for project status, because nobody knows.

[Cobra Kai]

2 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

Couldn’t that question be asked in a week or two, after the body is cold and in the ground and his wife and young daughter have had at least a week or two to grieve? 

Yes, absolutely. I'm not going to lambast a guy for asking something that would eventually be asked though. Inevitably, the first person to ask the question is going to be attacked as insensitive, I don't think that's fair.

1 hour ago, Jinks said:

So how are you willing to help? By keeping your yap closed and waiting until there is news on this possibly?  You think this atari junk is important to his family right now??  Like somehow it is the number one priority when they lost a father and husband not even one week ago?? It amazes me how inconsiderate people can be. But but but my internet online said blah blah I want answers now.. NO shut up!! Nobody has the right to ask for anything. 

I didn't ask about the status of the XM. I expect nothing further from this project. If you're that upset, at least direct your angry post at the correct person.

[+jeremiahjt]

As somebody who planned on buying an XM when it was finished but did not keep up with it closely, what is the status of the XM?

[jaybird3rd]

1 minute ago, jeremiahjt said:

As somebody who planned on buying an XM when it was finished but did not keep up with it closely, what is the status of the XM?

 

On 9/2/2020 at 3:24 PM, Retro Rogue said:

Regarding the XM, I was not involved directly with that but I will be including that in the list of things I have to be going through and seeing what I could do to keep moving it forward. I do know that any and all money went towards the tooling for the cases early on, so he anybody else brought in was basically doing their work for nothing all this time out of the pure love for it and to see it finished. So anybody I can try and work with to finish this up would have to be working on it out of that same respect, and possible future sales. But none of this is my expertise, my work on Curt’s projects has always been in software, waiting,  graphic arts and marketing.

 

Right now everything is just under lockdown and completely in stasis and safe, while the family deals with his upcoming funeral and immediate aftermath of his sudden death.