ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Mike Potter: Protector II, Shadow World, Nautilus, Chicken Mike Potter ported several Apple II games to the Atari 8-bit computers for Crystalware, including Protector. He later developed five programs for Synapse Software: Protector, Protector II, Chicken, Nautilus and Shadow World — in a one year period, with the combined sales of 93,000 copies. In this interview we discuss Steve Hales and Ihor Wolosenko, both of whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place October 22, 2015. Teaser quote: "Let's see, I got married in '84, and my brother-in-law had every single one of my games pirated. And I was like, 'What? You have all my games!'" AtariMania's list of Mike's games - http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-potter-mike_team_1073_8_G.html Mike’s web site, includes history and videos of people playing the Atari titles - http://mikepotterhere.com

Arthur Leyenberger, Atari columnist Arthur Leyenberger wrote the "Outpost: Atari" column in Creative Computing magazine, the End User column in A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing, and the ST User column in ST-Log magazine. He was also editor of the Jersey Atari Computer Group newsletter. This interview took place on November 10, 2015. Teaser quote: "If I think about one thing that really captures that era, is that it was exciting. It was exciting, it was fun, it was something new, it was something you could share - you could join a user group, there were all these magazines. ... A lot of information out there, a lot of stuff to learn, a lot of stuff to have fun with and share." Outpost: Atari in Creative Computing beginning Nov 1983 http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/index/index.php?author=Arthur+Leyenberger The End User column in A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing http://www.atarimagazines.com/analog/index/index.php?author=Arthur+Leyenberger The ST User column in ST-LOG http://www.atarimagazines.com/st-log/index/index.php?author=Arthur+Leyenberger

Jeff Bell, Atari coin-op Jeff Bell worked for Atari Games for 31 years. He stated in 1973 as a Pong inspector, then moved to the engineering department, specifying requirements for parts. He worked in IT and system administration, and did other jobs in his more than three decades with the company. He also ran the Itsy Bitsy Bulletin Board System. This interview took place on November 7, 2015. In it, we discuss Bob Stahl, whom I previously interviewed. Teaser quote: "People say Atari died in — what? — 1983? Didn't happen. Didn't happen. We were in Milpitas making video games. We made great video games."

Stephen Lawrow, Mac/65 assembler Stephen Lawrow created the Mac/65 assembler, which was published by Optimized Systems Software. Stephen became an employee of OSS, where he also worked on the company’s enhanced BASIC products, BASIC XL and BASIC XE. This interview took place on November 1, 2015. In this interview we discuss Bill Wilkinson of OSS, whom I previously interviewed. Teaser quotes: “I got so frustrated, I couldn’t wait till I got Mac/65 mature enough where it could start assembling itself. So that’s why it has a lot of compatibilities syntactically with the Atari Assembler/Editor.” “A lot of us were not formally educated in software development. Because it just didn’t exist in the colleges at the time ... Algorithms, searching, and things like that — all that stuff happened after that.”

Bob Stahl, Atari receiving inspection and software quality Bob Stahl worked in the Atari home computer division, where he was the senior technician in the receiving inspection department, doing first article inspection. (He explains what that means in the interview.) He then moved to software quality engineering, testing produced software to make sure it looked right and worked correctly. Later, he was hired by Atari's coin-op division to do receiving inspection for that company. He also ran an Atari BBS called Modem Magazine. In this interview we discuss Cassie Maas, whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place on November 1, 2015. Teaser quotes: "Biggest problem we had, of course, was the cassette tapes in the early days losing data ... Huge dropouts in the data stream, looking at the status signal through an oscilloscope. But we never found out exactly why, and you know that technology went away really quick." "I took a 300 baud acoustic modem and a Mr. Microphone on one computer, and a stereo and a 300 baud acoustic modem on another, and we would send files from one corner of the garage to the other using FM frequencies over the airwaves." InfoWorld article featuring Bob and Cassie Modem Magazine BBS in Antic magazine: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v3n5/communications.html

Clayton Walnum, A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing and ST-Log Clayton Walnum was writer and editor at A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing and ST-Log magazines. He started out as technical editor at A.N.A.L.O.G., and was eventually executive editor of both magazines. Clayton wrote the C-manship column - an ongoing tutorial on the C programming language - as well as many, many other articles. This interview took place on November 8, 2015. In the interview we talk about Lee Pappas, whom I previously interviewed. Teaser quotes: “The first day, he pointed out my desk and it was like a foot deep in submissions that they hadn’t gotten to yet. So my first job was to go through all of those submissions and find the stuff that looked interesting, and see what we might want to buy for the magazine.” “At that point on the masthead I was listed as executive editor. I was pretty much single-handedly producing both A.N.A.L.O.G. and ST-Log.” Clayton’s articles in A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing: http://www.atarimagazines.com/analog/index/index.php?author=Clayton+Walnum Clayton’s articles in Start magazine: http://www.atarimagazines.com/st-log/index/index.php?author=Clayton+Walnum AtariMania’s list of Clayton’s games: http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-walnum-clayton_team_1376_8_G.html

Bob Polin, Blue Max Bob Polin was the programmer of Blue Max and Blue Max 2001 — both published by Synapse Software, and co-creator of Puzzle Panic with Ken Uston. He also wrote the game "Maxter Mind" which was published by Antic magazine. This interview took place on February 15, 2016. In it, we discuss Ihor Wolosenko, whom I previously interviewed. After we did this interview, Bob sent me the floppy disks containing the source code for Blue Max, which I was able to recover. There's a link to the source code in the show notes. Teaser quote: "I literally — when I do a game it's very, very intense where I day in and day out do it. I just burnt out, did nothing for a few years." Blue Max source code: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/249933-blue-max-source-code-for-you/ AtariMania's list of Bob's games: http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-polin-bob_team_1070_8_G.html Maxter Mind: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v2n7/MaxterMind.html InfoWorld review of Blue Max: https://books.google.com/books?id=uy8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA71#v=onepage

Steve Hales: Slime, Dimension X, Fort Apocalypse Steve Hales published several games with Synapse Software: Slime, Dimension X, Fort Apocalypse, and Mindwheel. His first job was reverse engineering the Atari 2600 to create the Starpath Supercharger. His game for that platform was Suicide Mission, an Asteroids clone. This interview took place on October 21, 2015. In it we discuss Ihor Wolosenko and Cathryn Mataga, whom I previously interviewed; and Mike Potter and Bob Polin, whose interviews are forthcoming. Steve has released the source code for Fort Apocalypse. He and I talked about the possibility of also releasing the code for his other games. In March 2016 he emailed me, "I did a deep look into my archives, and didn’t find anything useful. I have one more place to look, but its not near me at all, so it will take a few months to look." However, he does have Mindwheel running on a web site at http://mindwheelgame.com and his more modern game, Squirrel Warz for iOS, is available at http://www.squirrelwarz.com. Check the show notes for those links as well as links to Steve's other projects. Our interview starts with us talking about the recovery and scanning of the Star Raiders source code. Although he didn't create Star Raiders, Steve is the person who found the source code printout for Star Raiders in his files, and lent it to me to scan. Teaser quote: "[Dimension X] didn't really come out that well. It was actually my first lesson in a failure of something that was fun." "Solo developers of the time, their games were sometimes pretty great but sometimes mostly not. Electronic Arts brought, because of what Trip Hawkins learned, he brought the Hollywood studio system to the games industry." Links: Steve's web site: http://www.igorlabs.com Steve's SquirrelWarz game for iOS: http://www.squirrelwarz.com Steve on Twitter: http://twitter.com/heyigor AtariMania's list of Steve's games: http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-hales-steve_team_530_8_G.html Halcyon Days interview with Steve: http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/HALES.HTM Fort Apocalypse Source Code: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/239792-fort-apocalypse-source-code-is-out/ Star Raiders source code: https://archive.org/details/AtariStarRaidersSourceCode

Glenn Faden, Microsailing Glenn Faden published one program for the Atari 8-bit computers: Microsailing, which was published by Atari Program Exchange. Microsailing first appeared in the Spring 1983 APX catalog. This interview took place on January 27, 2016. Teaser quote: “I got a lot of interesting feedback. One of the comments that I got back from people was that it was too difficult.”

Surfer Bob, Warez Sysop "Surfer Bob", real first name Carlos, ran The Pipeline BBS, an Atari bulletin board system that offered warez for download -- pirated software. This interview took place on January 28, 2016. Teaser quote: "He didn't have anybody to back him up but he had a stun gun ... he had that in his pocket, and he walked up to Shlomo and grabbed him ... took out the stun gun and just, like, sparked it in his face."