ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

By Randy Kindig, Kay Savetz, Brad ArnoldNews Technology Tech News

ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast episodes

June 29, 2020 ANTIC Interview 389 - Brad Stewart, Covox
Brad Stewart, Covox Brad Stewart was the co-founder and chief designer of Covox, the company that created Covox VoiceMaster. VoiceMaster was speech digitizer and voice recognition hardware for the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit, and Apple II computers. Covox's own demonstration audio tape describes it well, although the demo tape that I found doesn't mention the Atari. This interview took place on May 21, 2020. Aerosynth Brad's blog post about Covox Voice Master Kay plays with VoiceMaster in 2014 Covox Voicemaster Demo cassette A Bionic Approach to Speech Processing Escape from Planet X at AtariMania
41 min
June 22, 2020 ANTIC Interview 388 - Henry and Nancy Taitt, Creative Learning Association
Henry and Nancy Taitt, Creative Learning Association Henry Taitt was founder of the Creative Learning Association, which created books and classes about how to program computers in BASIC. Henry, along with his wife Nancy Taitt, ran the company from 1982-1988. The book series, TLC For Growing Minds — TLC means Thinking, Learning, Creating — delivered self-paced lessons about the BASIC programming language. Versions of the series were available for Atari 8-bit, Apple II, IBM PC, TRS-80, and other platforms. Each platform series had seven books with color-coded covers: the red cover was level 1, orange for level 2, yellow for level 3, and so on down the rainbow. Another series offered platform-agnostic microcomputer projects. The material was used as the bases for in-person classes at computer labs around the United States. Creative Learning Association also published a newsletter and a "national registry of computer programers" highlighting students who had progressed in the book series. I have been able to find and scan some of Creative Learning Association materials and upload them to The Internet Archive. This interview took place on April 14, 2020. TLC for Growing Minds book scans
Nancy Taitt died in 2022. Her obituary.
43 min
June 16, 2020 ANTIC Interview 387 - Claudia Cohl, Editor-in-Chief of Family Computing and K-Power Magazine
Claudia Cohl, Editor-in-Chief of Family Computing and K-Power Magazine Claudia Cohl was the editor-in-chief of Family Computing Magazine for its entire run. Published by Scholastic, the magazine ran for 49 issues, from September 1983 through September 1987. Then it published 11 more issues, though August 1988, as "Family and Home Office Computing." Finally, it was rebranded "Home Office Computing". Claudia remained editor there until a new division was formed, and she moved to the Professional Publishing department to focus on magazines for teachers. In a 1983 New York Times article "Children's Magazine for a Computer Age," Claudia is quoted: "Our magazine is primarily for parents. Parents feel confused about computers and software and they feel they have no place to turn. We think parents will be using our magazine themselves or with their kids. Children will be picking up the magazine too." Claudia was also editor-in-chief of K-Power magazine, a computer magazine for kids. Only eight issues of K-Power were published, running from February 1984 to November/December 1984, after which it was merged with Family Computing. Our interview took place in two portions, on June 29, 2018 and December 11, 2019. Read Family Computing at Internet Archive Read K Power at Internet Archive Wikipedia on Family Computing New York Times article "Children's Magazine for a Computer Age"
50 min
June 14, 2020ANTIC Episode 68 - What SIDE Are You On? With Jonathan Halliday
ANTIC Episode 68

In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Computer Podcast… Jonathan Halliday joins as we discuss his amazing work on the SIDE loaders for the Incognito and Ultimate 1MB and the work going on for the SIDE3 cart.

READY!

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

Interview index: here

ANTIC Facebook Page

AHCS

Eaten By a Grue

What We've Been Up To

plotter ink https://twitter.com/KaySavetz/status/1258830441320079360 But steve bowsell @A8bit working on 3-D printable solution

Kay's old Atari games https://twitter.com/KaySavetz/status/1259569122364407808 ; https://github.com/savetz (Scavange, boggler, rats, testtube, hubcap of fortune, Komix Creator)

Carrington and Kay play Scavange at Eaten By A Grue http://monsterfeet.com/grue/notes/35 play it at https://archive.org/details/Scavange

Catalina broke Altirra under WINE and Xformer, Kay got them both fixed https://atariage.com/forums/topic/286036-altirra-on-macos-update-thread/page/2/#comments and https://atariage.com/forums/topic/289510-xformer-emulator-running-on-macos/?do=findComment&comment=4544143

Updated firmware to Jonathan Halliday's for Incognito in 800 - https://atari8.co.uk/firmware/incognito/

RetroPie on Pi4 - https://retropie.org.uk/

8Bit Classics - https://www.8bitclassics.com/

News

Retro Format is a physical print magazine covering computers and game consoles from the 1970s to the early 2000s; including Atari - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/8bitmagazine/retro-format-magazine-issues-1-to-12

PaperCraft - Rocky Bergen: "I've been working on an entire Atari 8-bit tradeshow display. But it may be some time before I can finish. I have an 800XL at home so that may actually show up before I finish this display." - http://rockybergen.com/ ; https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10158054518491047&set=p.10158054518491047&type=3&theater

MicroProse is back. Seems that one of the original founders, Bill Stealy, and a new partner have purchased the company back from whoever had it last (Infogrammes/Atari?) https://www.microprose.com/#; Kay's 2017 interview with Bill Stealy - https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-263-bill-stealey-co-founder-of-microprose-software

Compute magazine disk image depository - Allan Bushman - https://atariage.com/forums/topic/307591-compute-magazine-disk-image-depository/

Break Into Chat, Josh Renaud's blog about BBS history, retro computing post "Unearthed: My Atari 8-bit cassette tape" - https://breakintochat.com/blog/2020/05/30/unearthed-my-atari-8-bit-cassette-tape/

Atari Portable Project - https://atariage.com/forums/topic/306569-atari-portable-project/

Kickstarter: The 8-BIT WARS - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andyremic/the-8-bit-wars

New version of Atari800MacX - makes it compatible with Catalina - https://github.com/atarimacosx/Atari800MacX/releases

also fixed plotter support for Renderrific - https://github.com/atarimacosx/Atari800MacX/issues/10

Shows

Upcoming Shows where you might see Atari computers (or Atari people):

July 10 - 12, VCF Southeast, in conjunction with Southern Fried Gaming Expo in Atlanta, GA - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/otherevents/vintage-computer-festival-southeast/ CANCELLED

July 24-25, KansasFest - https://www.kansasfest.org/ (virtual) cost $20, opened registration on April 30th

August 1, VCF West, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA - http://vcfed.org/wp/2020/05/24/vcf-west-2020-will-be-a-virtual-event/ GONE VIRTUAL - The entire event will be scheduled for 6-8 hours on Saturday August 1st; call for exhibitors and keynote speakers

Aug. 20 - Aug. 23, 2020, Fujiama, Lengenfeld, Germany - http://abbuc.de/~atarixle/fuji/2020/

September 12-13, VCF Midwest, Elmhurst, IL - http://vcfmw.org/

October 10 - 12, VCF East, InfoAge Science Center, Wall, NJ - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/ NOTE: You can order a t-shirt to support the VCF events at http://vcfed.org/wp/t-shirts/ for $20 + shipping

Event page created by Chicago Classic Computing - http://chiclassiccomp.org/events.html?fbclid=IwAR3Fm5hf7PCQj0yXBxXvj9J8Mp8GDwD2w1bfD_qktpPOnNYNoQUmN_EpgB8

Event page created by Floppy Days - https://www.facebook.com/VintageComputerShows/

Event page on Vintage Is The New Old - https://vintageisthenewold.com/vintage-is-the-new-old-releases-new-events-calendar/

YouTube videos this month

Games That Push the Limits of the Atari 8-Bit Family - Sharopolis - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTUmiot6vyM

ANALOG Computing Games on your Atari 8bit - The New Retro Show - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9xOpFnqo88

Several demos from Poland, including one called Windows 95 - American NTSC - demo for Atari XL/XE from Poland - Miesiu - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7qy3DwsIX4

The Atari 8bit and ST games by Jon Williams - Into the Vertical Blank - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-HJR2WpWTc A companion to the Into The Vertical Blank: Generation Atari Season 3 Episode 11 Episode interview with Jon.

New at Github

Bill Kendrick pointed to omc65 (Our Macro Crossassembler for 6502) at https://GitHub.com/pkali/omc65

Disassembling SynCalc - https://github.com/jduerstock/syncalc

Alternate Reality: The Dungeon for Atari 8-bits cartridge project - https://github.com/Wilheim1977/ARDungeonCartridge

New at Archive.org

Italian XL catalog - https://archive.org/details/1984-catalogo-atari-home-computer/mode/2up and advertisements https://archive.org/details/@philsan69

Possible side effects of listening to the Antic podcast include stuffy nose, sneezing, sore throat; drowsiness, dizziness, feeling nervous; mild nausea, upset stomach, constipation; increased appetite, weight changes; insomnia, decreased sex drive, impotence, or difficulty having an orgasm; dry mouth, intense hate of Commodore, and Amiga lust. Certain conditions apply. Offer good for those with approved credit. Member FDIC. An equal housing lender.
1 hr 27 min
June 08, 2020 ANTIC Interview 386 - Sherman Rosenfeld, Atari Institute for Education Action Research
Sherman Rosenfeld, Atari Institute for Education Action Research Dr. Sherman Rosenfeld is an internationally-known leader in informal learning and science education. He was a consultant to the Atari Institute for Education Action Research. Founded in June 1981 and led by Ted Kahn, the Institute provided equipment, advice, and financial support to non-profit educational organizations. It granted more than $1 million in hardware and software to schools, science museums, vocational and special education programs, even a prison. Ted Kahn, whom I have previously interviewed, recently dug through his files to uncover several documents about the Institute, including "Informal Learning and Computers," the working paper written by Sherman Rosenfeld for the Atari Institute for Education Action Research in September 1982. Ted also graciously scanned a 1981 Atari Institute brochure, a 1983 progress report, and "Atari in Action," the Institute's newsletter, dated fall 1982. This interview took place on May 25, 2020. Sherman talked to me from his office in Israel. A video version of the interview is also available. Informal Learning and Computers Atari Institute For Educational Action Research Brochure Atari in Action — Atari Institute Newsletter fall 1982 Atari Institute Report Feb. 1983 Caspi Towards Creative Self Education Synopsis ANTIC Interview 185 - Ted Kahn, Atari Institute for Educational Action Research ANTIC Interview 288 - David Thornburg, Koalapad inventor Antic magazine: Atari Institute—Grants support educational projects by Gary Yost Dr. Rosenfeld's web site
46 min
June 01, 2020 ANTIC Interview 385 - Software Automatic Mouth: Mark Barton
Software Automatic Mouth: Mark Barton Mark Barton was creator of SAM — Software Automatic Mouth. Released in 1982, SAM was the first software-only speech synthesizer for personal computers. It was available for the Apple II, Commodore 64, and Atari 8-bit computers. He later developed Macintalk, speech synthesis for the Macintosh computer; and narrator, the speech system for the Commodore Amiga. This interview took place on May 22, 2020. SAM Demo Disk Steve Jobs movie Steve Jobs introduces the Macintosh Peter Ladefoged at Wikipedia Peter Ladefoged at UCLA SAM in your browser Switched On Bach by Wendy Carlos Why Modern Digital Synthesis Is More Analog Than Analog by Mark Barton Mark's Soundcloud ANTIC Interview 124 - Jerry White, programmer of Poker SAM. and Chaterbee Bill Lange's deep dive into SAM ads and reviews
56 min
May 27, 2020 ANTIC Interview 384 - Fandal: Atari programer and archivist
Fandal: Atari programer and archivist Frantisek Houra is better known to the Atari community as Fandal. He's an Atari computer programmer and long-time archivist of European Atari software. He has created many original Atari games and conversions from other platforms: including Fruity Pete, Mashed Turtles, Crescent Solitaire, and Diamondz. This interview took place on August 28, 2019, during the Fujiama Atari conference in Lengenfeld, Germany. Roland Wassenberg sat in to assist with the interview. Shortly after, Fandal and I and several other attendees hooked up a multijoy and played some rounds of Mashed Turtles with six players (up to eight can play), and it was so. much. fun. Fandal's web site Mashed Turtles Xenophobe game for sale at Video61
44 min
May 21, 2020 ANTIC Interview 383 - Gregg Squires, Atari Manager of Hardware Engineering
Gregg Squires, Atari Manager of Hardware Engineering Gregg Squires was a Manager of Hardware Engineering at Atari from 1982 through 1984, working from their New York office. He was project manager for Val, a cost-reduced version of the Atari 2600; and project manager for the Atari XL computer series. He was co-designer of the 65816 microprocessor architecture. Greg sent me a scan of an Atari 600XL Product Status Meeting handout dated January 1983. It's an impressive 45 pages and paints a clear picture of the timeline, costs, and issues involved with creating that computer. This interview took place on February 13, 2019. Atari VAL photo Atari 600XL Product Status Meeting Handout The Working Clock-Timer by Joel Moskowitz ANTIC Interview 65 - Steve Mayer, 400/800 Designer
1 hr 53 min
May 13, 2020 ANTIC Interview 382 - Rik Dickinson, Encore Video Productions
Rik Dickinson, Encore Video Productions Rik Dickinson is founder of Encore Video Productions, a company that rented Atari 8-bit computers to hotels for use as character generators. The computers would show information about the hotel on channel 2 of guests' televisions. This was part of a service that Encore offered to provide in-room movies that ran off videotapes. The tape machines ran on a timer, and when the movie ended, the video feed switched back to the text information displayed by the Atari. This interview took place on April 20, 2020. Forum about Encore Video Productions Display System Encore Video Productions
23 min
May 10, 2020ANTIC Episode 67 - Still Socially Distant
ANTIC Episode 67 - Still Socially Distant

In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Computer Podcast...Randy forgets to call the artist, formerly known as Kevin, as Kay about 100 times, we continue discussion on AtariFests and World of Atari, we help you with your free time by telling you about papercraft computers and RetroPie, and help you navigate what's happening with vintage computer shows; plus a whole lot more Atari news!

READY!

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

Interview index: here

ANTIC Facebook Page

AHCS

Eaten By a Grue

What We've Been Up To

Carol Shaw's Colleen Calculator - View the pages or download the images - https://archive.org/details/ColleenCalculator9K/mode/2up

Carol also sent the printout of Rev. A of Atari VCS Checkers - https://archive.org/details/VCScheckersA/mode/2up

A community member has digitized the listing - https://github.com/white-flame/vcs-checkers

Kay's 10-line contest entries 2014-2020 on GitHub - https://github.com/savetz?tab=repositories

Bankster

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-bankster_35883.html

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/236768-the-atari-interview-discussion-thread/?do=findComment&comment=4506193

Video of Bankster - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0cAf8ydvQc

Kay's 10-line videos

256 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6Qh-JVKaBM

120 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2CmDYKIU6s

80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awNkk8yNkDU

2020 Atari 10-liners on one disk, by vitoco - https://atariage.com/forums/topic/301250-2020-basic-10liner-contest/?do=findComment&comment=4502763

AtariFest/World of Atari thread on AtariAge - https://atariage.com/forums/topic/304554-atarifest-and-world-of-atari

ABBUC (Atari Bit Byter User Club) - http://www.abbuc.de/

Recent Interviews

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-378-gabriel-baum-atari-conversational-french-and-spanish

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-380-atari-speed-reading-karlyn-kamm-and-brad-oltrogge

News

Jason Moore - Atari Projects on HackaDay

https://hackaday.com/2020/04/29/classic-8-bit-computing-the-atari-way/

http://atariprojects.org/

PaperCraft models - http://rockybergen.com/ Atari 800, and NeXT Cube are on the short short list

MidiMax at Best Electronics - http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/laser_printers.htm#MidiMax

RetroPie 4.6 released with Raspberry Pi 4 support - https://retropie.org.uk/2020/04/retropie-4-6-released-with-raspberry-pi-4-support/

RetroMagazine - https://www.retromagazine.net/

Jonathan Halliday has updated his Incognito, Ultimate 1MB, etc. to 3.1 - https://atari8.co.uk/

Shows

Upcoming Shows where you might see Atari computers (or Atari people):

July 10 - 12, VCF Southeast, in conjunction with Southern Fried Gaming Expo in Atlanta, GA - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/otherevents/vintage-computer-festival-southeast/

July 24-25, KansasFest - https://www.kansasfest.org/ (virtual) cost $20, opened registration on April 30th

August 1-2, VCF West, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/

Fri, Aug 14, 2020 – Sun, Aug 16, 2020, Portland Retro Gaming Expo, Portland OR - https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/ CANCELLED

Aug. 20 - Aug. 23, 2020, Fujiama, Lengenfeld, Germany - http://abbuc.de/~atarixle/fuji/2020/

September 12-13, VCF Midwest, Elmhurst, IL - http://vcfmw.org/

October 10 - 12, VCF East, InfoAge Science Center, Wall, NJ - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/

Event page created by Chicago Classic Computing - http://chiclassiccomp.org/events.html?fbclid=IwAR3Fm5hf7PCQj0yXBxXvj9J8Mp8GDwD2w1bfD_qktpPOnNYNoQUmN_EpgB8

Event page created by Floppy Days - https://www.facebook.com/VintageComputerShows/

Event page on Vintage Is The New Old - https://vintageisthenewold.com/vintage-is-the-new-old-releases-new-events-calendar/

YouTube videos this month

20MHz Atari 800XL: Rapidus, U1MB, and Sophia DVI: Part Two - Flashjazzcat - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnfjxNqoZ7Y

800XL with Rapidus and Ultimate 1MB: What Have We Learned? - Flashjazzcat - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2go2VU7xyYU

How to flash Ultimate 1MB and SIDE/SIDE2 with new firmware - flashjazzcat - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SLyjhLba6c

New Games for your Atari 8 bit Part 12 - The New Retro Show - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIrZHksTKIM - Time Pilot (2018) and Runner Bear (2020)

SpartaDos X Cartridge - 8-bit and more - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkvIyj6-lMQ

Bits of the past - Super Sparta DOS PCB - https://www.bitsofthepast.com

iCore64 - Atari ICD R-Time 8 Cartridge Case, XL/XE cart extender - https://corei64.com/shop/index.php?route=product/product&path=62_87&product_id=67

New at Github

https://github.com/A-Fitz/Atari-8bit-Pac-Man-Port

https://github.com/jtsom/AnalogSourceCode

New at Archive.org

Current Notes Volume 10 Number 9 - https://archive.org/details/current-notes-volume-10-number-9-november-1990/mode/2up

Many issues of Atari Interface magazine: https://archive.org/details/@scottithgames

Steve Boswell many issues of Atari User: https://archive.org/details/@choccyhobnob

Feedback

Rare Atari software found: Atamon DXG 5724 V1.3 is an Atari Germany title - https://www.atarinside.com/blog/index.php/atamon-dxg-5724/

https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=ATA%20MON%20DXG%205724

German version of Sky Writer was the last puzzle of the series: Spielend lernen mit Atari-Programmen- https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Articles#section-Articles-GermanyAtariDeutschlandGmbH

From CSS, we have the BUG/65 manual Rev. 1.0 missing page - https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Bug65

Tanktics bits and piece to play this hybrid game. These are available at https://www.mobygames.com/game/tanktics_/cover-art/gameCoverId,349600/.

The parts for Dnieper River Line are there as well - https://www.mobygames.com/game/dnieper-river-line/cover-art/gameCoverId,348252/

Possible side effects of listening to the Antic podcast include stuffy nose, sneezing, sore throat; drowsiness, dizziness, feeling nervous; mild nausea, upset stomach, constipation; increased appetite, weight changes; insomnia, decreased sex drive, impotence, or difficulty having an orgasm; dry mouth, intense hate of Commodore, and Amiga lust. Certain conditions apply. Offer good for those with approved credit. Member FDIC. An equal housing lender.
1 hr 5 min