ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Mitchell Waite, computer book author and publisher Mitchell Waite is a prolific computer book author and publisher. His first book "Projects in Sight, Sound and Sensation" was published in 1974. He founded the Waite Group in 1977, which published more than 80 titles in the computer programming field. He co-authored Computer Animation Primer (with David Fox) and Your Own Computer (with Michael Pardee), the 8086/8088 Microprocessor Primer with Christopher Morgan, CP/M Bible, and wrote, co-wrote, or published dozens of other computer books. This interview took place on June 16, 2016. Teaser quote: "'I don't even have an office yet,' you know? And he said 'Well you better get one.' And I said, 'But I don't even have a corporation.' He said, 'You better start one.'" Video version of this interview: https://youtu.be/x1dU7b4ZkHA Mitch's web site: http://www.mitchwaite.com Mitch on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Waite Full text of Computer Graphics Primer: http://www.atariarchives.org/cgp/ Full text of Computer Animation Primer: http://www.atariarchives.org/cap/ Mitch on Triangulation: https://twit.tv/shows/triangulation/episodes/252 Apple ad featuring ibird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0zhotBPx1E Antic podcast interview with David Fox

David Duberman, Antic magazine editor David Duberman was an editor at Antic magazine (one of the two major Atari magazines in the United States). Later he was in customer support at Synapse software, then user group coordinator at Atari during the Tramiel era. This interview took place on June 17, 2016. In it, we discuss Jim Capparell, whom I previously interviewed. Teaser quotes: "We were now in the computer age, so we had to print these weird [ATASCII] characters that were probably never printed in a magazine before." "They [the Tramiels] would not spend a single penny that didn't absolutely have to be spent." David's articles in Antic Jim Capparell interview

Michael Boucher, MECC Michael Boucher was a programmer at MECC — Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium — from September 1980 through August 1984, where he worked on educational software for the Apple // and Atari 8-bit computers. His projects included Oregon Trail and Odell Lake. This interview took place on June 14, 2016. Video of this interview: https://youtu.be/heuR8_eFFJI Teaser quotes: "I had the honor of working with the finest group of dropouts I have ever had the pleasure of associating with." "...Fairly sophisticated bit of code. And happily, nobody told us that it was hard, and being high school students, we didn't have the experience to know it was difficult. So we just did it."

Hung Pham, APX Game Show Hung Pham wrote one program for Atari Program Exchange: Game Show, a game based on the Family Feud TV program (although the catalog never says that explicitly.) Game Show was first available in the Winter 1982-1983 APX catalog. This interview took place on June 10, 2016. "The reviewer was playing, and pretty soon he turned around -- a crowd of people was standing behind him, looking over his shoulder, trying to play. So, hey! This might have some potential." Game Show in the Winter 1982-1983 APX catalog Game show at Atarimania

Steve Stone, POKEY and ANTIC layout design Steve Stone worked at Atari from 1977 through 1980, where he was a chip layout designer and engineer. He worked on the layout design for the POKEY and ANTIC chips. After Atari, he founded Macro Dienamics, Inc., a chip design firm that worked on custom chips for the Amiga computer. This interview took place on August 29, 2016. Video of this interview: https://youtu.be/JhGPasK_RmE "The concept of someone flying in from Manhattan for the week, wearing thousand-dollar suits, being chauffeured around the valley and then flying out on the weekends -- was quite a contrast..." Steve sent me a follow-up email after our interview: "It was a pleasure speaking with you yesterday. The conversation jarred my memory. There is a few more comments, and some clarification that I would like to add. I believe I stated that the disk capacity we used for the chip layout was 25-80KB. While it was literally as big as a washing machine, it was 25-80MB. Also, I may have left out Warren questioning me about what I would put in that secret room. I told him that it should announce that the player had won a prize, and give them a phone number to call to collect. I gave you a brief overview of the chip layout procedure used at that time. Our workload was driven by the schedule of displaying products at the CES. Our work-load had peaks and valleys. In the off-time (the valleys), I was allowed to do whatever I wanted, or do nothing at all. With some tutoring from Warren, and an APL programing book borrowed from Jim Huether, I spent my off-time writing programs to simplify the layout task. My code eliminated the drawing and digitizing phase, as the group became "on-line designers." My programs, then called "gate generators," were close to what is commonly used in chip design today, now called pcells. This is probably more information than you ever wanted to know about chip layout, but I thought it worthy of mentioning. The bottom-line is that, with these programs, we had a distinct edge over most companies that designed chips. I'm really glad that we used Skype for our conversation rather than a phone call. Although, one could argue that if ever there was a FACE best-suited for a phone conversation, I may be it. But watching your expression, at the moment of epiphany, connecting the very old Star Trek game to Star Raiders, was enjoyable to see. I'm pretty sure Doug Neubauer would have got a kick out of that as well."

Gary Furr, AtariWriter Product Manager, Printer Drivers Gary Furr was Product Manager for productivity software for the Atari home computer division, where his claim to fame was being the manager for the AtariWriter word processor. He also published a set of AtariWriter printer drivers, which were first published through Atari Program Exchange — the product first appeared in the fall 1983 APX catalog, with support for 10 printers — then was sold directly by Gary, and eventually grew to support about 150 printers. After Atari, he worked at Datasoft. This interview took place on August 29, 2016. "I left the meeting, went directly back to my cubicle, called the programmer, and said 'There's been a little hiccup.'" AtariWriter Designer Sells All (1997) AtariWriter Printer Drivers in the fall 1983 APX catalog AtariWriter Printer Drivers at AtariMania Inverse ATASCII on AtariWriter

Bob Frankston, co-developer of Visicalc Bob Frankston was co-developer of Visicalc, with Dan Bricklin, and co-founder of Software Arts, the company that first published Visicalc. Bob was also involved with the Atari 800 port of the program. If you're like to see our talking heads, a video version of this interview is available at the Internet Archive and YouTube, at the links below. This interview took place on August 22, 2016. "So we were really lucky there. But the important thing is to appreciate the luck factor ... A lot of people, especially in the .com boom days and everything, thought they were geniuses because the first thing they did worked. Well, no. They were lucky." Video of this interview at YouTube: https://youtu.be/X2ksQXoump4 Bob and Dan wrote about the history of Visicalc for Creative Computing magazine: http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v10n11/122_Visicalc79.php Bob's web site: http://bob.ma/public/?name=ImplementingVisiCalc InfoWorld magazine article Inverse ATASCII podcast on VisiCalc: https://inverseatascii.info/2015/01/13/s1e8-visicalc/ Wikipedia on VisiCalc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc Wikipedia on Bob Frankston: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Frankston

Brian Johnston: Manager, Atari Home Computer System Software Group Brian Johnston was Manager of Atari's Home Computer System Software Group, where he worked on projects including DOS 3. He worked at Atari from 1978 through 1982, then moved to Fox Video Games where he programmed Atari 2600 games. This interview took place on August 4, 2016. Teaser quote: "But Atari was poisoned by money, And in death throes was free-falling up, Lining pockets of sycophant beggars Whose main talent, the art of the cup!" Poem by Brian Johnston: Remembering Atari: Part 1 Video version of this interview: https://youtu.be/WT5MRiQN9Z0

Bard Ermentrout, RAMbrandt 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." Video of this interview at Internet Archive: http://archive.org/details/BardErmentroutRAMbrandt Video of this interview at YouTube: https://youtu.be/YFU4LaVUrXA AtariMania's list of Bard's software Bard's page at University of Pittsburgh: http://www.mathematics.pitt.edu/person/g-bard-ermentrout Caramel Knowledge film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VgU6vgi8dQ Antic magazine review of Rambrandt: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v7n7/ProductReviews.html Bard's disks, archived

In this episode of Antic the Atari 8-bit podcast, we reminisce about Atari Party and KansasFest, we bemoan the fate of the Atari 1200XL, and talk about Nir Dary's one-man traveling Atari show. Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast AtariArchives.org AtariMagazines.com Kevin's Book "Terrible Nerd" New Atari books scans at archive.org ANTIC feedback at AtariAge Atari interview discussion thread on AtariAge ANTIC Facebook Page AHCS What we've been up to Suburban Chicago Atarians (SCAT) - http://www.scatarians.org/ Compute's Atari Collection Volume 2 Edladdin controllers - http://www.edladdin.com/ Paul Westphal at Eight Bit Fix - http://www.eightbitfix.com Excel Magazine - Robert Stuart - http://excel-retro-mag.co.uk KansasFest - https://www.kansasfest.org Apple II Crack Screens twitter bot - https://twitter.com/appleIIcracks [141 followers] Atari 800 Screenshots bot - http://twitter.com/atari800screens [49 followers] Mega Podcast "Chicken Missile" recorded, aired on Open Apple podcast Kaverns of Kfest download - https://github.com/savetz/Kaverns Kaverns of Kfest play in browser - https://archive.org/details/Kaverns_of_Kfest_1.1 WUDSN IDE - http://www.wudsn.com Ken Gagne and Kevin's presentation on how to do interviews All the kfest presentations Annual Atari Party in Davis, CA - http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/atariparty/2016/ Bill Interviewed by Ferg on 2600 Game by Game podcast (about Atari Party & more) News New Atari 5200 Podcast (David Protestari) - https://www.facebook.com/TheAtari5200Podcast/ Original "Superpodcast" archived over at Internet Archive 1632 Atari podcaST (Wade Ripkowski) - https://1632podcast.info ABBUC Software competition 2016 (AtariAge) , ABBUC Software Competition 2016 (ABBUC), ABBUC Hardware Competition 2016 "Easy to Learn, Hard to Master - The Fate of Atari" Jumpman Reverse Engineering Notes - http://www.playermissile.com/jumpman/ Level Editor in Omnivore - http://playermissile.com/omnivore Jumpman Level Design contest Deadline: Oct 22, 2016 (Portland Retro Gaming expo!) Video demoing how to use the level editor SIO2OSX now free - AtariMac on AtariAge New (alt) BIOS for Ultimate 1MB/Incognito - Flashjazzcat PRO(C) Atari magazine up to issue #10 - https://proc-atari.de/ What so-called "Atari" is up to New at Archive.org Joe Decuir Engineering Notebook 1978 On Parade - 1982 video games zine - https://archive.org/details/OnParade MPP Smart Terminal Source code - https://archive.org/details/MPPSmartTerminal Databar Magazine Atari Edition https://archive.org/details/StockAnalysisAtari https://archive.org/details/ValFORTHReferenceCard https://archive.org/details/ValFORTHDocumentation https://archive.org/details/MPP_Supra_pictures Of the Month (Atari 1064 Memory Module for the 600XL) 1064 Memory Module at Atari Museum