ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Cathryn Mataga: Shamus, Zeppelin, Mindwheel Cathryn Mataga wrote several games that were published by Synapse software: Shamus, Shamus Case II, and Zeppelin, then three electronic novels: Brimstone, Essex, and Mindwheel. In this interview we discuss Ihor Wolosenko, whom I previously interviewed for this podcast. This interview took place on May 17, 2015. Teaser quotes: “These games were pretty hard. It was quite a bit of work, actually, to make a game by yourself. And it was all assembly language. And I was doing all the art and all the stuff. They were pretty involved projects for me, personally.” “There was a tragic bug in the music driver in all of the Synapse 8-bit titles ... When they went to the new Atari XLs, when they upgraded the operating system, all these games crashed. And they all came back.” Link: Software at AtariMania

David Burling, Atari in-house counsel I like interviewing the lawyers, they always know what’s really going on. David Burling was in-house counsel for Atari from 1980 through 1984. His job included distribution contracts, licensing, and manufacturing. He supervised the customs department, intellectual property, and international business transactions. His stint included being general council of the international division, and council for the AtariTel telecommunications products. This interview took place on May 22, 2015. Teaser quote: “Try and dress like I was in the coin-op industry. I wore sort of an open-throated shirt with two buttons undone at the top and an old, wide lapel jacket and jeans, trying to look sort of hip slick, and cool ... and went down to Los Angeles. They sent me to a major coin-operated games retail ... outlet to see if I could buy one of the Asteroids copies that was coming from Japan.”

Marty Payson, Warner, Office of the President Hi, everyone, and welcome to another in the long-standing series of interviews being published for Antic, the Atari 8-bit Computer Podcast. I’m Randy Kindig and this interview is a follow-up to the recent interview that we published with Manny Gerard of Warner Communications, the company that bought Atari in 1976. This time the interview is with Marty Payson, also of Warner Communications. Marty began with Warner in 1970, became executive vice president and general counsel in 1982, and in 1987 became a member of the Office of the President for Warner. He was with Warner during the Atari days, up to 1984 when it was sold to the Tramiels, and was still involved with Atari for some time after that, as you will hear. Marty was not as intimately involved with Atari as was Manny Gerard, but nonetheless I hope you find his perspective from the Warner side interesting. This interview was conducted on August 17, 2015. Teaser Quotes “The problem with it was, it was uncontrolled growth. And, I’m not pointing a finger at either Atari or Warner. I think it was a combination of both.” “It began a point that Warner was going to have to take control of Atari. It was out of control.” Links 1987 Los Angeles Times Article on the Appointment of Marty to the Warner Office of the President 1992 Los Angeles Times Article on the Resignation of Marty

John Constantine, General Accounting Manager John Constantine was General Accounting Manager in Atari's Consumer Division from 1978-1981, then became Executive Director until he left the company in 1984. This interview took place May 14, 2015. Teaser quote: "One of your clerks sent a package Federal Express — across the street — in the headquarters in Sunnyvale"

Manny Gerard, The Man Who Fired Nolan For this interview, we’re getting a different perspective of the Atari/Warner relationship, this time from the Warner side. (Emanual) Manny Gerard was a member of the Office of the President for Warner during the Atari days from 1976, when they acquired Atari, to 1984 when it was sold to the Tramiels. He in fact was the key person in the decision for Warner to acquire Atari. As you will hear in the interview, he was also the man who ousted Nolan Bushnell from Atari. We get Manny’s perspective on Atari from Warner’s view, on the decision to bring out the computer line, and much more. I think you’ll appreciate Manny’s honesty and his sense of humor. This interview took place on August 9, 2015. Teaser Quotes “I can remember saying this to Nolan, over and over again: You cannot run the company by divine right of kings, Nolan” It feels to me like the computer’s problem at Atari was that it was; it lived in the shadow of the game systems, because they were so bloody successful.” “I mean I think the early Apples were good computers but I don’t think they were better than the Atari computers by any considerable margin and they may not even been as good, but we sure got out-marketed.” “Manny Gerard, the guy who fired me at Atari! Everybody looks up; who is this guy? And I said, yeah, Nolan, and the guy who made you a millionaire.” Links New York Times 1984 article on Manny leaving Warner HI-RES Vol. 1, No. 1 / November 1983 Article on Atari History Manny Gerard - Thoughts on E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial - YouTube

Tandy Trower, Atari product manager Tandy Trower started at Atari evaluating software titles, then moved on to the position of product manager, managing new titles including Missile Command, Asteroids, and the port of Microsoft BASIC for the Atari. Then, he left Atari for Microsoft, where — once again, he managed Microsoft BASIC for the Atari. Tandy also wrote the Character Set Editor program which was sold by Atari Program Exchange. This interview took place May 13, 2015. Teaser quotes: “The Atari executives were so impressed with Bill [Gates] at the time that they flew up in their corporate jet to Seattle and offered to try to acquire Microsoft. But Bill and Paul [Allen] were not interested in selling at all at that time.” “If you had a title, you had to make sure there was an engineer who was available and interested in doing it. So if you couldn’t talk an engineer into writing it — unless you were going to write it yourself. Except for me, there were very few people in the marketing department that could write their own code.”

Tim McGuinness, Atari Senior Research Engineer and Founder of ROMOX Tim McGuinness was a Hardware Design Engineer in Atari’s Personal Computer Division in 1980 and 1981, then moved to become Senior Research Engineer/Assistant Director of Corporate Research Engineering through 1982. Tim was co-developer of 400, 800, and 1200XL computers and peripherals. He was also the initial architect and designer of the first version of the Amiga computer. He left Atari in 1982 to co-found Romox, a software publisher that had a unique software distribution system where you could load new software onto cartridges using an in-store kiosk. This interview took place on May 23, 2015. Teaser quotes: “Personal computer division was a toxic environment ... I had a taken a prototype that we had been working on over to the research division, because I was going to show Alan Kay. And I come back with the unit and I’m being threatened with arrest.” “Michael Jackson spent a couple of days at our facility in Campbell to help us with the digitization of things like Beat It.” “Talking to the Tramiels. Sam was pretty rational, his brother was insane, and the old man was just an asshole.”

Steve Davis, Director of Advanced Research Steve Davis worked in Atari’s advanced research lab under Alan Kay, for 5 or 6 years, where he worked on several skunkworks projects including a laserdisc player controlled by an Atari 800, an Atari 800-based local area network, and artificial intelligence projects. This interview occurred May 11, 2015. Teaser quote: “I winded around the building, there was nobody there. ... I opened up this one door and there was, like, hundreds of people partying. With party hats on. I called the guy in New York and said ‘This doesn’t look good.’”

This is an interview episode of Antic, the Atari 8-bit podcast. I’m Randy Kindig and in this interview I sat down with one of the members of the core design team at Cyan Engineering for such projects as the Atari 2600 and the 8-bit computers, Mr. Ron Milner. Ron is currently President of Applied Design Laboratories, but from 1973-1984, as an employee of Atari Inc, he worked at the Grass Valley Think Tank (also known as Cyan Engineering) where they did some amazing stuff, as you’ll hear in this interview. Ron was involved in many pivotal technologies in video games and home computers and was co-inventor of the Atari 2600 video game system. This interview took place on May 16, 2015. Teaser Quotes “Our group worked on just a lot of other projects relating to the home computer line.” “You know, it didn’t have to work, but if it looked like it might we looked into it.” “This is Ron Milner and I was one of the early Atari engineers at Atari’s secret think tank in the mountains pioneering many of the projects with my associates and you’re listening to the Antic podcast.” Links Ron’s Web Site Atari's Cyan Engineering - Splendor in the Grass documentary

Joe Villalobos, Materials Planner for Atari Boxes! Your Atari computers and game cartridges came in boxes! Someone was responsible for producing those boxes. Joe was the guy. Joe Villalobos was materials planner at Atari in El Paso, Texas from 1980 – 1982. He was responsible for the planning and expediting of materials used in the production of video game cartridges. This interview took place on May 6, 2015.