Sheldon Leemon: Instedit, Circuit Lab, Mapping the Commodore 64

Sheldon Leemon was the creator of Instedit, a character set editor; and Circuit Lab, an electronics learning program that he co-created with with Mark Davids. Both programs were published by Atari Program Exchange. He wrote for several computer magazines, including Softside — where he wrote many reviews, and a game called Outer Space Attack; Compute!, and Creative Computing. He also wrote several computer books, including Mapping the Commodore 64, Compute's AmigaDOS Reference Guide, and Inside Amiga Graphics.

This interview took place on January 9, 2017. In it, we discuss Arlan Levitan, Jerry White, and several other people that I've previously interviewed. There are links to those interviews, and Sheldon's programs and articles, in the show notes at AtariPodcast.com.

Teaser quotes:

"They're having so much fun that they don't want to take time to stop. Having a meal? It could take half an hour or an hour! You could be doing really cool stuff with that half an hour or an hour."

"We looked at people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as the really bad guys. ... He wants to charge money for something that everybody else is giving away for free."

Video version of this interview: https://youtu.be/PnaFEyaJm_E

Instedit in the winter 1982-1983 APX catalog

Circuit Lab in the summer 1983 APX catalog

Outer Space Attack in SoftSide magazine

Some of Sheldon's articles in Compute! magazine: http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/index/index.php?author=Sheldon+Leemon

Some of Sheldon's articles in Creative Computing magazine: http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/index/index.php?author=Sheldon+Leemon

Arlan Levitan interview

Jerry White interview