ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Robert Waldman, Financial Asset Managment System Robert Waldman wrote Financial Asset Managment System, which was published by Atari Program Exchange. It first appeared in the Fall 1981 APX catalog, where it won second prize in the personal finance and record keeping category. As explained in my interview, Robert submitted a program called Atari 800 Olympic Gamebook System to Atari Program Exchange but it was not accepted or released. Robert sent me his only copy of the never-before-published Olympic Game Book System software, which was lost in the mail. He scanned the manual and a small part of the program listing, which I've uploaded to archive.org (you'll find a link in the show notes at AtariPodcast.com). But it appears that the complete program is gone forever. This interview took place on February 8, 2016. Teaser quote: "I remember writing long BASIC programs. I would come home from work and then stay up all night coding." Atari 800 Olympic Gamebook System manual Financial Asset Managment System catalog entry

Tod Frye, Asteroids Hi, there! Welcome to the next in the series of Atari-related interviews being produced by Antic, the Atari 8-bit computer podcast. My name is Randy Kindig and I'll be leading this interview. Most notably, while working at Atari, Tod Frye developed the 400/800 version of Asteroids and the 2600 version of Pac-Man, converting them from the coin-op version. He has many other games to his credit. He later worked for Axlon, Nolan Bushnell's company. This interview was conducted on January 3, 2016. Teaser Quotes "While I was at Atari, it went from a pretty big company, to a huge company, to a complete flop." "I didn't work at Atari; I LIVED at Atari; and I loved it." "Because of the CTIA and GTIA and Antic, the sprite hardware was WAY better than the sprite hardware on the Commodore." "The hard parts were: writing code that was fast enough, writing code that was small enough to fit in the cartridge, and writing code that would fit in the RAM. Basically everything was hard." Links Tod Frye at Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tod_Frye Tod Frye at PRGE 2015 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLoJ5jcccPU

Ursula Wolz, early computing and education Ursula Wolz was thinking about computers and education in the early days of personal computing. She worked on Apple ][ games for Children's Television Workshop, consulted for Atari Research on their endeavors in educational software, and taught Logo to some of the first students who learned it. This interview took place on February 12, 2016 Teaser quote: "It was one of the first games that was completely graphical ... Because the kids using it might not be able to read the text, we did everything through gestures." Ursula's site: https://sites.google.com/site/theimpatientcoder/

Owen Rubin: Major Havoc, Space Duel Owen Rubin worked in Atari's coin-op division from 1976 to 1984 — he is best known for his programming work there on Major Havoc, Space Duel, and Battlezone. He also served as a go-between between the arcade division and the consumer division, where the Atari home computers were created. After that, he was a game designer at Nolan Bushnell's Bally Sente. In this interview, we discuss Ed Rotberg, whom I previously interviewed. This interview contains some coarse language. It took place on February 12, 2016. Teaser quotes: "And I lost it. I just completely lost it with him ... and I slammed the listings down on his desk, basically clearing his desk of just about everything else, and I said, 'Do it yourself, I quit.'" "I find MAME both very cool that you can see it, and very sad that you don't get the right feel." "We really wanted coin-op games to be about a 90-second experience. Up to a couple minutes if you got good at it." Owen's web site: http://www.orubin.com Owen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/orubin Ed Rotberg interview: http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-72-ed-rotberg-rotberg-synthesizer

Randy Glover, Jumpman Randy Glover is the creator of one of the best games for the Atari computers, Jumpman, which was published by EPYX. He also created the sequel, Jumpman Junior, and programmed the swimming competition portion of Summer Games. Randy ported Jumpman to the Commodore 64 and created another C64 game, Lunar Outpost. This interview took place on May 7, 2016. I am joined on this interview by Rob McMullen, host of the Player/Missile Podcast, who has been working to reverse engineer Jumpman using the Omnivore binary editor that he created. For more background on EPYX, you might enjoy Antic's interviews with Jon Freeman, co-founder of EPYX; and Michael Katz, the CEO of EPYX — he oversaw the development of Jumpman, Pitstop, and Summer Games. Teaser quote: "My guy ran around in this environment purely based on his collision with the environment. I like to think that made him more interesting, more spontaneous. He wasn't pretty -- he was just a little stick man -- but he ran around with a certain flair and he reacted to the environment." The Digital Antiquarian - From Automated Simulations to Epyx: http://www.filfre.net/2013/08/from-automated-simulations-to-epyx/ Jon Freeman interview: http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-70-jon-freeman-freefall-associates Michael Katz interview: http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-24-the-atari-8-bit-podcast-michael-katz Player/Missile podcast: http://www.playermissile.com Omnivore, the Atari 8-bit Binary Editor: http://playermissile.com/omnivore/ AtariMania's list of Randy's games: http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-glover-randy_team_472_8_G.html Jumpman hacking thread on AtariAge: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/252267-jumpman-hacking/

Mike Silva, Syncalc Mike Silva worked at Synapse, where he wrote the Syncalc spreadsheet application. In this interview we talk about Ihor Woloseko, whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place on February 11, 2016. Teaser quotes: "If I had put out a game ... it would have sold a few thousand copies and that would been it. So I just got dumb lucky by being talked into writing a spreadsheet instead." "These guys, a lot of them, they were in the world - some of them - before they were ready for it. I remember a couple of young programmers, they were just freaked out about having to make decisions, and having to pay taxes. It was almost too much success too early for some of them." Atari Synapse Commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkpbIbFHDQU SynCalc at AtariMania: http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-syncalc_s12808.html Ihor Woloseko interview: http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-13-the-atari-8-bit-podcast-ihor-wolosenko Inverse ATASCII reviews SynCalc: https://inverseatascii.info/2016/02/23/s2e08-synapse-software-syncalc/

Richard Lindgren, APX financial software Richard Lindgren published two programs in Atari Program Exchange. Real Estate Cash Flow Analysis first appeared in the winter 1983 APX catalog, where it won first prize in the business and professional applications category. Strategic Financial Ratio Analysis was first available in the summer 1983 catalog, where it took second prize in the home management category. Richard also wrote the program Banjo Picker, "Program your Atari to make sounds like an automated five-string banjo," which appeared in the October 1985 issue of Antic magazine, and which provides intro tune for this episode. This interview took place on February 8, 2016. Teaser quote: "You know, the APX experience was an intersting experience ... I think it was a really interesting precursor of the models that we're seeing today." Richard's software at AtariMania Real Estate Cash Flow Analysis entry in APX catalog Strategic Financial Ratio Analysis entry in APX catalog Banjo Picker: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v4n6/banjo.html

Marcin Sochacki, SIO2BT Marcin Sochacki, also known as Montezuma on AtariAge, is originally from Poland and currently lives in Germany. In recent years he developed theSIO2BT, or SIO to Bluetooth for the Atari computer line. This hardware allows you to connect your Atari to your modern computer,tablet, or smartphone to share files. Mar-TEEN also developed the NVC (Next Valid Character) software, a tool for organizing files on SD cards for SIO2SD. And, if that weren't enough, he also developed the Megacart Studio PC software, a tool for the 512k and 4MB Flash MegaCart Module. The Megacart Studio generates a ROM and bootable ATR files that are used to flash the MegaCart modules. This interview was conducted onNovember 22, 2015. Links 1) "SIO2BT" project (1st place in the ABBUC Hardware Contest 2014) Google Play Google Drive Ordering Thread on AtariAge This project is still being developed (and got recently new TCP/IP networking functionality). 2) "NVC" PC software (in Java)for effectively working with SIO2SD Not spread out that much, but really usefully for all RETRO freaks (not only ATARI). 3) "Megacart Studio" PC software(in Java) for "Flash Megacart" cartridge project In a few episodes you mentionedRaspberry Pi and you wondered how could it be married with the8-bit ATARI: SIO2PI It was one of my small projects to use a Raspberry Pi as a floppy emulator (with AspeQt). The idea to use a RPI as anATARI emulator is nice, as well. Especially if you build your own(mini) Arcade Cabinet for it This is a nice manual about connecting a real joystick to the RPI And if do not have time, but have some free money, some guys are selling a ready RPI Arcadekit

Al Casper: Counter, My Spelling Easel, Equestrian Al Casper published three programs with Atari Program Exchange. His first, Counter, was first available in the fall 1982 APX catalog. It won first prize in the learning category in that catalog. Counter was also released in a French language version by Atari France. Next was My Spelling Easel, which was first available in the spring 1983 catalog, and won second prize in the learning category. His third program was Equestrian, which appeared in the winter 1983-1984 APX catalog (the very last APX catalog) and was the "APX Olympic contest winner." Al also wrote an article called Purge, a quicker and simpler method of housecleaning diskettes, for Compute! magazine, which was re-published in Compute!'s Third Book of Atari. This interview took place on February 7, 2016 Teaser quote: "I remember, we got a quarterly... royalty check. It seems to me the first one I got... several hundred dollars, I think. One of the next ones, it was like $10,000. ... I couldn't believe it, because this was basically just a hobby." Al's programs at AtariMania Counter in the fall 1982 APX catalog My Spelling Easel in the spring 1983 catalog Equestrian in the winter 1984 catalog Purge utility

Michael Crick, Frogmaster Michael Crick created the game Frogmaster, which was published for the Atari computers by Atari Program Exchange. It first appeared in the summer 1982 APX catalog, where it won first prize in the entertainment category. Michael later made a version of Frogmaster for the Commodore 64. He created two other C64 games: Break Street (a break dancing game), and Go For the Gold (an Olympics style game) as well as TERSE, a programming language for the C64. Frogmaster cost $22.95 and was APX catalog number 20131. A Spanish version of Frogmaster was also released by APX, Amansarranas - APX catalog number 20252. This interview took place on February 3, 2016. Teaser quote: "The truth was, it wasn't really a very fun game. I mean, it was an interesting scientific exercise." Michael's web site: http://crick.com/gamemaster.html