ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

On this episode of ANTIC the atari 8-bit podcast: We offer a library’s worth of geeky reading material, and - - did we just start a book club? Randy delves into another programming language We talk about a couple of competitions that will give you something to do through these summer months Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast AtariArchives.org AtariMagazines.com Kevins Book “Terrible Nerd” New Atari books scans at archive.org ANTIC feedback at AtariAge What we’ve been up to Ready Player One Southern Fried Gameroom Expo Dorsett digitizing Wayne Green FOIA Request Response Stuff Kevin has scanned Interview Discussion Atari interview discussion thread on AtariAge News Ancient Atari classics to be reworked as 'graphic novels' ATARI GAMER Limited Printed Edition OUT NOW New book from Evan Koblentz - "Abacus to Smartphone, The evolution of mobile and portable computers" Pixels Movie AspeQt ported to Android - greblus on AtariAge AspeQt forked as "RespeQt" posted by electrotrains on AtariAge - In development - SD card based Multicart ABBUC Software Competition 2015 Video Series WUDSN IDE Peter Dell on ANTIC, Interview 27 Atari making money again! RetroChallenge 2015/07 New game Ramp Rage Classic Gamefest - July 25, 26 Austin, TX VCF Midwest 10 - August 29-30, 2015, Elk Grove Village, IL Portland Retro Gaming Expo October 17-18 in Portland OR New at Archive.org Official Hint Book for Scott Adams adventures 1-12 GDC 2015: Howard Scott Warshaw - "Classic Game Postmortem: Yars' Revenge" 3 Centro Atari newsletters in Portuguese from Chile Atari 822 Operators Manual Atari 400 Home Computer 48K RAM Expansion Kit Installation Instructions Atari 820 Printer Field Service Manual Atari CX 5200 Retail Demonstrator Field Service Manual Feature - Turbo BASIC XL Wikipedia Atari 8-bit Pages with original Turbo BASIC articles (German) Page 6 - DS#20 - Turbo Basic Support Page 6 - DS#105 - Turbo BASIC Programmer’s Kit Page 6 - DS#6 - Turbo BASIC/Turbo Compiler AtariAge discussion of Turbo BASIC Turbo BASIC Expanded Documentation by Ron Fetzer How to Compile Turbo BASIC Programs Video (English/Polish) by Bronislav Tyf Haluza ATR image of Turbo-Basic 1.5 and 1.4 Extended TBXL (download) Bill’s Modern Segment Wikipedia article on 1986 "The Great Escape" video game Atari 8-bit port of “The Great Escape” - thread at AtariAge forums cc65 homepage Poker Solitaire CC65 Original Action! “Gem Drop” game for Atari C port for Windows, Mac, Linux ("Gem Drop X") Floppy Days #41, Jason Scott, "Every Computer in Your Browser" Hardware of the Month Edladdin controllers Website of the Month Atari 8-bit Forever End of Show Music Boulder Dash Theme

Rebecca Heineman, Racing Destruction Set and Mindshadow Rebecca Heineman was the keynote speaker at Kansasfest 2015, where she told all sorts of amazing stories about her Apple II development work. She developed Tass Times in Tonetown, Bard's Tale III, Borrowed Time, Battle Chess, Crystal Quest, and many other games for many platforms. She ported Racing Destruction Set and Mindshadow to the Atari 8-bit machines. She won the National Space Invaders Championship, sponsored by Atari, in November, 1980. I also recommend listening to her KansasFest 2015 keynote, link below. This interview was recorded July 17, 2015 at KansasFest. Links KansasFest 2015 - Burger Becky Keynote Rebecca Heineman's twitter Rebecca Heineman web site KansasFest web site

Bill Bartlett, Product Support Manager Bill Bartlett worked at Atari from 1981 through 1984, where he was a product support manager for the Atari home computer division, also did user group support. He also wrote the Diskette Mailing List program which was sold by Atari Program Exchange. This interview took place on April 16 2015, in person at a supermarket deli in the Portland Oregon area. I apologize for the background noise; recording in this situation is not a mistake I will make again. Links: "Stonewall Bartlett" article Diskette Mailing List Atari Christmas Video Teaser quote: “Alan Alda became the spokesman for Atari, and was doing all the TV commercials. He was actually interested in the product set. They sent him all the products. So I was his contact for tech support, me personally. I never talked to him but I talked to his assistants. . . ‘Mr. Alda is on line one!’"

Bill Crooks, Atari Video Production Lab Bill Crooks worked in the coin-op division of Atari, where he facilitated the production of Atari games’ multi-million dollar television production facility, and worked on the FireFox laserdisc arcade game. In this interview we talk briefly about Cassie Maas whom I have previously interviewed. This interview took place on April 17 2015. “We had Clint Eastwood’s Lear jet standing by to get us there at the last minute, and we just kept telling them, ‘It will be ready for the show.’ And meanwhile we’re thinking ‘How will this ever be ready for the show? It doesn’t even work in the shop.”

Ron and Lynn Marcuse, productivity applications Ron and Lynn Marcuse, also known as RLM Microsystems, are the husband-and-wife team who created many applications for the Atari 8-bit computers, including Weekly Planner, Home Inventory, Data Management System, Diskette Librarian, and Utility Diskette II, which were all released by Atari Program Exchange. Weekly Planner was later reworked and became Timewise, which was released as an Atari product. They also created medical and dental office software for MMG Micro Software. Thanks to Wade of Inverse ATASCII for his help in research and writing questions for this interview. Wade has reviewed several of the Marcuse applications on his podcast - visitwww.inverseATASII.info for those. This interview took place on May 14, 2015. LINKS Compute! magazine articles by Ron and Lynn Teaser quotes: “When what’s his name, the guy who started Atari [Nolan Bushnell] it was more open. In other words, the people there were friendly, it was fun working with them, it was fun writing stuff for them. It was fun flying out there, you know? It was fun. But eventually, it became a business, I think. And then the fun stops.” “Hey, the damn thing paid for a Porsche and a BMW.”

Albert Yarusso, Owner AtariAge This is Antic, the Atari 8-bit podcast, and I’m Randy Kindig. This interview-only episode features someone that many current Atari, vintage gaming, and vintage computer enthusiasts are probably familiar with by the service that he provides to the community, the AtariAge Website. Albert (or Al) Yarusso is one of the founders and is the current owner of AtariAge. The Atari 8-bit forum on AtariAge is probably the largest and busiest such forum in existence today, and forums for other Atari machines and for other platforms are popular and continually growing. Al was kind enough to sit down and give me an hour of his time to discuss a little about himself, how AtariAge came about, his love for Atari computers, and various other topics. Enjoy! AtariAge is a website devoted to all things Atari. It was founded in 1998 by Alex Bilstein and Albert Yarusso and is well known for selling homebrew software for Atari video game systems, some of which have been included in official video game compilations such as Activision Anthology. The site also houses a discussion forum and a comprehensive, searchable database of Atari video games, including manuals, packaging art, estimated rarity, screenshots, reviews, and other details, as well as an Atari Age magazine archive. Links Deus Ex Atari 8-bit Discussion Forum on AtariAge AtariAge Store (homebrews) Carina II BBS Software Star Raiders (Atari 8-bit) Label Design Contests on AtariAge Atari Age Magazine Archive Hardware Hacking Book Game Console Hacking Book Setting up an AtariAge BBS discussion Picture of Ultima I running on 30" monitor Framemeister XRGB Classic Game Fest - July 25-26, 2015 Portland Retro Gaming Expo, October 17-18, 2015 Vintage Computer Fest Alternate Reality Midi Maze Melody Board

Jon Greer, Business Reporter In this interview, we’ll hear the perspective of an Atari outsider — a newspaper reporter who covered Atari. Jon Greer was a business reporter for the San Jose Mercury News newspaper from 1981 to 1986, and business reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1986 to 1988. As part of his beat, he covered Atari; Chuck E. Cheese; and Catalyst Technologies, Nolan Bushnell’s incubator. This interview took place April 17, 2015. Teaser quotes: “Atari was transforming the valley from Dull Engineer Valley to exciting consumer electronics valley.” “I think Jack [Tramiel] had...a very undeserved bad reputation...He was one of the few guys — if anybody, maybe the only one - who knew how to take over this business.”

Jess Jessop Jess Jessop was a software engineer at Commodore, writing diagnostics for the Commodore 64. Then at Atari, he started in the test and repair group for the Atari 400 and 800 SALT diagnostic cartridge, then moved to corporate research, Atari's R&D department under Alan Kay, where he was hardware team leader for the Sierra Project, Atari's unfinished laptop product. This interview occurred April 15, 2015. Teaser quotes: "We brought up an APRANET node there in my cubicle. We played with e-mail at a time when you could send it and it would maybe get there today, maybe weeks from now." "I spec'd out, for two guys, a 600 line a minute band printer with a quietized cover that cost $30,000 in 1980. It went right through. It was delivered next week."

On this episode of ANTIC the atari 8-bit podcast: We discuss new atari archive sites. Randy tells us all about BASIC XL Kevin delves into the sordid history of DorsETT Educational Systems Bill Kendrick fills us in on a panoply of stuff, including a brain transplant for your 8-bit. Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast AtariArchives.org AtariMagazines.com Kevins Book “Terrible Nerd” New Atari books scans at archive.org ANTIC feedback at AtariAge What we’ve been up to Jewel-encrusted Atari XL Alan Watson’s Gold Mine game at AtariMania New Computing Pioneers Interview Transcript Site Bob Kahn digitized material at Archive.org Atari PILOT II "Inside Atari DOS" by Bill Wilkinson and Compute! Books "Atari Player/Missile Graphics in BASIC" by Philip C. Seyer “The VisiCalc Book, Atari Edition” by Donald H. Beil Podcast Episode of Inverse Atascii about VisiCalc for the Atari Floppy Days episode on the Atari 400/800, part 3 of 3 SIO2SD Interview Discussion Atari interview discussion thread on AtariAge News How To Turn Your Whole Car Into A Video Game Simulator by Jason Torchinsky Pix from Atari Party 2015 Classic Gamefest July 25, 26 Austin, TX VCF Midwest 10 August 29-30, 2015, Elk Grove Village, IL Portland Retro Gaming expo October 17-18 in Portland OR Maury Markowitz Wikipedia article on the Atari Sierra New issue of Pro(c) magazine - issue #6 Ft. Apocalypse on GitHub Ft. Apocalypse Twitter Steve Hales Twitter AtariAge Thread on Modified Version of Silent Service Download: SILENT SERVICE mod Delta Space Arena on cartridge More on Delta Space Arena Project to Port Prince of Persia to Atari Atari 8-bit software preservation project Atari XL Basic Listings - in german - collection of type-in listings from magazines and books New podcast on the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer - The CoCo Crew Podcast New at Archive.org Newsletters Compuserve Computer Room Operations Training Manual a javascript based Apple //GS emulator Stuff Kevin has uploaded from Bob Kahn and other sources Feature [K] Dorsett Educational Systems and Lloyd Dorsett Dorsett’s letter in Antic Dorsett’s letter in A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing Thomas Cherryhomes’ demonstration of his edutape creation tool Bill’s Modern Segment "Project Veronica" thread at AtariAge Forums Post at "Vintage is the New Old" (based on a post at the Spanish "Atariteca" blog), including a side-by-side demo of "rotator" Altirra website Lotharek's Lair: SIO2PC Atari Party 2015 "World 1-1" documentary film Sal "kjmann" Esquivel (ANTIC interview ep. 17) Mike Albaugh (ANTIC ep. 6) Dan Trak-ball man Kramer (5200 Super Podcast ep. 3) Jerry Jessop (ANTIC interview ep. 30) "Transform the Gotek Floppy Emulator into an Amiga Floppy emulator" "ACA 500 Accelerator" for Amiga 500 (Sal Esquivel) "Tank" in Action! atr2unix by Preston Crow Internet Archive's Software Library: Atari Computer atr_txt_dump extractor for Kevin Savetz / Internet Archive Rob McMullen's "ATRCopy" on github "Space Wall" Work-in-Progress video The Atari 5200 Super Podcast ep. 1: "The Pac(k) Ins!" Atari 2600 Game by Game podcast, ep. 100: "AX-018 Pitfall!" Hardware of the Month - IDE Plus 2, Rev.D HDD Interface for Atari XL/XE computers eBay listing Description at Atari8 ideplus manual Software/Website of the Month - SpartaDOS X SpartaDOS X Upgrade Project AtariAge thread Programming Languages - BASIC A+, BASIC XL & BASIC XE Wikipedia BASIC A+ at AtariMania BASIC XL at AtariMania BASIC XL Toolkit at AtariMania BASIC XE at AtariMania BASIC XE Extension Disk at AtariMania BASIC XE Article ANTIC VOL. 4, NO. 9 / JANUARY 1986 Feedback Ed Rotberg, wrote a magazine article YouTube video showing a demo program that Rotberg created

Thomas Cherryhomes Thomas Cherryhomes recently deciphered the Educational System Master Cartridge and decoded the “talk and teach” system used by Dorsett Educational Systems. He has created a C library called eduendcode which allows people to create new lessons using that format. Thomas and I are currently working to digitize and archive 46 sets of Dorsett courses. To hear some background about Dorsett Educational Systems and their educational cassettes, listen to my feature about that topic in episode 23 of ANTIC. This interview occurred on June 2, 2015. Links All About Cassette Tapes - Atari document Strong Bad Email #45, if he used an Atari 800 Complete set of archived Dorsett Educational Systems cassette tapes Teaser quotes: “I decided on a whim to approach Joe Decuir. Joe wrote me back about five minutes later. ‘Hello Tom. I am very impressed with your research and your findings.’” “If you want to make your own tape formats on the Atari, go right ahead. You can bit-bang the POKEY to do whatever the hell you want.”