ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

On this episode of Antic the Atari 8-bit podcast, we venture out into the big scary world — both Randy and I went to VCF SouthEast, and Kevin went to the museum. The winners of the 2016 10-line BASIC programming contest are announced, and Bill Kendrick drops knowledge about the demo scene. 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 What we've been up to Hacking Jumpman: Finished GP III video Kevin's a winner! Game Masters special exhibit at OMSI - https://www.omsi.edu/gamemasters SpartaDOS X Super Cart Edladdin Controllers - http://edladdin.com/ Podcaster's Roundtable at VCFSE Steve DeFrisco - Antic Interview 123 Steve DeFrisco Wing War breakout PCB - https://www.bitsofthepast.com/?p=833 Interview Discussion Bruce Poehlman game "The Last Starfighter", orginally "Orbiter" The Last Starfighter cabinet Transcription of David Heller (Dr. Wacko) interview (thanks to Kevin Chase) News Atariada 2016 FLOP - Diskette electronic "magazine" for Atari XE / XL (Czech) - http://flop.atariportal.cz/ 10-line contest youtube vidoes in which Kevin tests all the 10-line Atari games Atari 65XE USB Keyboard by Tynemouth Software on Etsy Atari 65XE USB Keyboard complete with Raspberry Pi and USB hub Atari 65XE USB Keyboard with USB joystick controller where the original joystick ports are Insert coin to tour the new National Videogame Museum National Videogame Museum A Look At Video Game History: 'The Art Of Atari' Due For October Release "The Art of Atari" preview Upcoming Shows: Last Chicago CocoFest - http://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/ April 23 & 24, 2016, Heron Point Convention Center, Lombard, IL Southern Fried GameRoom Expo June 10-12 KansasFest - July 19-24, 2016 - https://www.kansasfest.org Atari Party - Saturday, July 30, at 12 PM - 5 PM in PDT, Mary L. Stephens Davis Branch Library, 315 E 14th St, Davis, California 95616 VCF west - Aug 6-7 VCF midwest — Sep 10-11, Elk Grove Village, IL PRGE Oct 21-23 http://www.retrogamingexpo.com Colo. Lottery Launches Atari Scratch-Off Upgraded internal replacement Mylars for the Atari 1200XL keyboard Widely used repair tips - 1200XL Keyboard Tune-up Atari800 handheld console emulator for Nintendo 3DS New at Archive.org APX manuals https://archive.org/details/@allan52 https://archive.org/details/XLXEPowerSupplies - modern electronics magazine 1986 https://archive.org/details/ICDRamboXL256KBManual https://archive.org/details/AxiomAT846PrinterInterfaceManual https://archive.org/details/HebrewAtariClubJuly89 https://archive.org/details/AtariEnvisionSourceCode Bill's Modern Segment "Control" demo, by LaResistance, 2010 Pouet entry: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=56481 DemoZoo entry: http://demozoo.org/productions/56527/ YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OsK4eC6rpg LaResistance website: http://laresistance.pigwa.net/ Based on "Control" demo for Amiga, by Oxygene, 1995 Pouet entry: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=3031 Amiga Demoscene Archive entry: http://ada.untergrund.net/?p=demo&i=299 YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzOp3ngc1MA Definitions: "Demoescene" Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene "Demake" TV Tropes entry "Demakes" section of "Video game remake" article at Wikipedia Of the Month Bit 3 Full-View 80 - 80 column card for the Atari 800 - ebay auction Dave and Sandy Small wrote an article in Antic There's a few lines of BASIC code that will kick on the Bit-3. You'll find them at - http://www.cchaven.com/BIT3FV80.HTML

Yakov Epelboim: Pushky and Devilator Yakov Epelboim is a Russian immigrant who published two programs for the Atari 8-bit computers. Pushky (which I learned is the Russian word for "cannons") was published by Atari Program Exchange, and first appeared in the Winter 1982-1983 APX catalog for $22.95. He also wrote Devilator, which he self-published as Zebra Company. Both programs were written in machine language, and both are unusual games, a little off the beaten track from other games of the era. The APX catalog said: "Pushky is in a class by itself in terms of game format. At least, we have nothing else like it at APX." Yakov is joined in this interview by his wife Olga, who added color commentary and translation help. This interview took place February 5, 2016. Teaser quote: "Then I did couple more programs, games, and send them to Atari. And they wrote me, 'Everything fine. We will take them, but you should change this and this, add music.' I did everything, send them, but in this time they were bankrupt." AtariMania

John Palevich: Dandy and Deep Blue C Compiler John Palevich wrote several programs which were published by Atari Program Exchange: the Chameleon CRT Terminal Emulator; Mantis Boot Tape Development System; Deep Blue C Compiler and its source code on a product called Deep Blue Secrets; and Dandy, a graphical dungeon crawl game that is famously the inspiration for the arcade classic, Gauntlet. He later worked in the advanced projects division at Atari, working on Atari's unfinished Eva computer project, as well as the unfinished AMY music chip and RAINBOW graphics chip. In this interview we discuss Joel Gluck, whose interview is forthcoming. This interview took place on November 20, 2015. "It was a situation where whether you made a good business decision or a bad business decision, more money came in the next quarter." "Any time a dignitary, any time a rock star came by to tour Atari, they would come and try out the AMY chip." AtariMania's list of John's software

Ron Luks, Founder and manager of the Atari Forums on CompuServe Welcome to this interview-only episode of Antic, The Atari 8-bit computer podcast. My name is Randy Kindig. In this show, I’ll be talking with Mr. Ron Luks, a name that you’re probably familiar with if you used your Atari to access the Compuserve Information Service. Ron was founder and manager of the Atari Forums on CompuServe (SIG*Atari, 8-bit Forum, 16-bit Forum (ST), Atari Developers, Atari Vendors, and others.) He also wrote articles for some of the Atari magazines (like ANTIC). I hope you enjoy this interesting glimpse into the online world of Atari back in the 80’s. I also want to mention that Ron was kind enough to donate an Atari 130XE and a set of cartridges to the show. This interview was conducted November 18, 2015 Teaser Quotes: “And the owner of the store steered me over to the Atari 800 and it was running Star Raiders, ok, and that was all it took” “So that’s when I decided I’m going to give Compuserve a try and see what it’s like. I was instantly hooked with the whole online service idea.” “At one time the Atari 8-bit forum was the biggest money-making forum on CompuServe.” Links: “ANTIC Online”, ANTIC VOL. 4, NO. 9 / JANUARY 1986 - http://www.atarimagazines.com/v4n9/anticonline.html “THE #1 SYSOP“, ANTIC VOL. 4, NO. 2 / JUNE 1985 - http://www.atarimagazines.com/v4n2/SYSOP.html

John Powers, Atari Director of Software Development John Powers was co-founder of The Authorship Resource, the company that created all of the software for the CyberVision 2000 computer. From 1980 to 1982 he worked at Atari as Director of Software Development for personal computers. While he was there, he wrote three pieces of software for Atari Program Exchange: Newspaper Route Management Program, Computerized Card File, and Cosmatic Atari Development Package. He was later VP of Research and Development at educational software publisher The Learning Company. This interview took place on February 2, 2016. Teaser quotes: "Because of the Warner connection, coming from the movie business, I think they were under the impression that with a lot of money, we just hire a lot pf people, we can make this work. And it never quite happened." "My son had a newspaper route. So I said 'You know, there's a lot better way we can do this. I think we can use the Atari 800 to simplify some of this.'"

Edward Lehmann, Recipe Search 'N Save Edward Lehmann published one Atari program through Atari Program Exchange: Recipe Search 'N Save, which first appeared in the summer 1982 APX catalog. It won third prize in the Personal Finance & Record Keeping category in that catalog. It was APX catalog number 20114, available on diskette, required 32K, and cot $22.95 This interview took place on February 2, 2016. Teaser quote: "The thing is, it didn't work all the time, that's what bugged me. I was selling a defective product."

Chuck Mullally, Mastermatch Chuck Mullally published one game through Atari Program Exchange: Mastermatch, game similar to the Mastermind board game. Mastermatch was one of the last APX programs to be released: it was first available in the Winter 1983-1984 APX catalog — the final APX catalog. Chuck told me that the game won a $1000 prize from APX, but the catalog — a sparse 8 pages and much smaller than the previous APX catalogs — doesn’t even mention that. This interview took place on January 31, 2016. LINKS Chuck’s old web page about Mastermatch Mastermatch in the Winter 1983-1984 APX catalog: https://archive.org/details/APXCatalogWinter1983 Download Mastermatch from AtariArchives.org: http://www.atariarchives.org/APX/showinfo.php?cat=20259

Bryon Wilcox, Wilcox Company On December 12, 2015, I bought an unusual Atari computer on ebay: it appeared to be a typical 800XL, but where the Atari name would have been, there was a sticker that said "GRAPHICS 1 - The Wilcox Company." Another sticker on the bottom of the computer indicated that the company was based in Washougal, Washington. When I received the computer, I found that it included a hand-made cartridge that contains a message display program. You can enter a few lines of text, plus the time and date, which are then displayed in large letters on the screen. I wanted to know more about this computer and the company that created it, so I hunted down Bryon Wilcox. This interview took place on January 27, 2016. Pictures of the computer and binary dump of the cart: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/248826-dump-of-wilcox-message-display-cart/

John Crane, RPN Calculator Simulator John Crane published one Atari program, through Atari Program Exchange: RPN Calculator Simulator. The program first appeared in the Spring 1982 APX catalog, where it was awarded second prize in the business and professional applications category. John was also one of the founders of the Bay Area Atari Users Group, and did some software evaluation for Atari Program Exchange. This interview took place on January 31, 2016. Teaser quote: "He [Steve Wozniak] introduced all of us to his demonstration about his Apple -- what would become the Apple I. I saw his demonstration and I go, 'Oh, that is very cool.'" "I had what I used to call the bash and bang test. I'd load up the program on an Atari 800 or 1200 or whatever I happend to have at the time, and as the program was running I would just start pounding on the keys at random, just taking my fists and just banging on the keyboard."

Alan Newman: Domination, Tutti Frutti, Hotel Alien Alan Newman published several programs for the Atari 8-bit computers: Domination, a Hamurabi-style management game, was published by Atari Program Exchange. It first appeared in the Fall 1981 catalog, where it won first prize in the entertainment category. Next he created Tutti Frutti, an arcade-style game that was published by Adventure International. And Hotel Alien, a graphical adventure game published by Artworx. He also wrote Spy Vs. Spy — not the Mad Magazine game published by First Star Software; a word game that was to be published by PDI but didn't get wide release. Alan has sent me that program to archive, so it's now available online for the first time. This interview took place on February 2, 2016. Teaser quote: "I wanted to move to California. I wanted to do this full time. But when I realized how much copying was out there, it became a bad idea." Spy vs. Spy scans and downloads: https://archive.org/details/SpyVsSpyWordGameAtari AtariMania's list of Alan's games: http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-newman-alan-m_team_969_8_G.html