ANTIC Interview 214 - Ron Hartman, K-Byte Software

Ron Hartman, K-Byte Software

Ron Hartman was systems coordinator at K-Byte Software, a company that produced four games for the Atari 8-bit computers: Krazy Shootout, Krazy Kriters, Krazy Antics, and K-Star Patrol, as well as K-DOS, an alternative disk operating system. The company also programmed games for CBS Software.

K-Byte Software was a division of Koltanbar Engineering, an engineering company that did CAD/CAM, engineering, and design work. It was founded in 1960 to supply the auto industry with electronic test equipment.

This interview took place on April 12, 2016. There's some slight glitchiness at the start of this interview, but it clears up quickly.

After the interview, Ron sent me his KDOS cartridge, which I dumped as is now available on the Internet Archive. He also send a few photos of K-Byte ephemera - check the show notes at AtariPodcast.com to see those.

"And the production of the cartridges was not one of these enormous production lines that you might see sometimes. It was three or four high school students putting parts in a cartridge."

KDOS discussion: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/252299-k-dos-cart-help/

KDOS cartridge dump: https://archive.org/details/Kbyte_KDOS

Photos from Ron: http://imgur.com/gallery/78ZAS