ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Max Manowski, Wizard's Revenge

Max Manowski wrote Adventure, a text adventure game that he released into the public domain to Atari users groups. Later, he modified Adventure and called it Wizard's Revenge, which was published by Atari Program Exchange. Wizard's Revenge was available in the fall 1981 APX catalog, the very first APX catalog.

This interview took place May 27, 2016.

Teaser quote: "In this adventure, each node that you went to was a separate file. And if you went to a node that didn't exist, then you could write the node as you were playing. You could write the node and say what happened."

AtariMania's list of Max's games

Wizard's Revenge in the fall 1981 APX catalog

Gaming After 40 playthrough of Wizard's Revenge

Wizard's Revenge re-typed by the author

Frank Paris, Mathlib for Deep Blue C

Frank Paris wrote Mathlib for Deep Blue C, a library of floating-point functions for use with the Deep Blue C programming language. Mathlib first appeared in the fall 1983 APX catalog, where it won second prize in the systems/telecommunications category. The Deep Blue C compiler was written by John Palevich, whom I previously interviewed.

You can contact Frank at: frankparis at comcast dot net.

This interview took place on May 27, 2016.

Teaser quote: "6502 assembly language, it was just a dream come true for me. I mean, it was just so simple compared to the languages I was used to."

Mathlib entry in the fall 1983 catalog

Frank's book, The Embrace of Celestia: http://online.flipbuilder.com/lasm/tqas/

Interview with John Palevich

In this three-year anniversary episode of Antic the Atari 8-bit podcast — we uncover an abundance of Atari source code, documentation, and engineering notes; Bill explores Five Dots, a new game; and we debate the fate of the 1200XL.

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

ANTIC Facebook Page

AHCS

What we've been up to

• Norwegian Museum of Science & Technology
• Morse Code Tutor at APX
• Paul Westphal at Eight Bit Fix - http://www.eightbitfix.com
• PromoVision Pro-1000 software at archive.org
• PromoVision discussion at AtariAge
• Promovision Pro 1000 Youtube video
• Wes Newell Interview Source and Manuals Discussion on AtariAge
• Link to all Wes Newell scans on Internet Archive
• Databar - The Monthly Bar Code Software Magazine TI 994/A edition
• Atari Databar program from magazine
• Atari Databar programs in ATR format - https://archive.org/details/AtariDatabarOSCARSoftware
• PoC||GTFO
• Philippe's write-up of decoding the Databar format - wiki.yobi.be/wiki/Databar_decoding
• Philippe's decoding script on github - github.com/doegox/Oscar
• Rose City Atari Club meeting with speaker Joe Decuir
• • Shot video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XjiX1nA3AI
  • Joe - two engineering notebooks to scan. Here's the first one
  • Presentation video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XjiX1nA3AI
  • Here's the slide deck
• American Computer Museum in Bozeman, MT - http://www.compustory.com/
• SIO2BT - Interview with Marcin Sochacki
• SIO2BT ordering thread on AtariAge

Interview Discussion

• Rob Zdybel interview
• Neil Harris interview
• Ted Kahn Interview

News

• Atari Party - http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/atariparty/
• Alan Ackerman, co-founder of MPP and Supra, died in March
• ANTIC Interview 106 - Alan Ackerman, MPP
• MPP/Supra product and design note pictures
• Sys-Check 2.2 - tf_hh on AtariAge
• Bally Alley Astrocast (Adam Trionfo and Chris Federico) - http://www.ballyalleyastrocast.libsyn.com/
• AtariBytes(2600) Podcast - http://ataribytes.libsyn.com/podcast
• Atari Kong Podcast (2600) - http://atarikong.com
• 3D Atari video by Oliver Rapp

• AtariAge 8-Bit User Age Demographics
• New video reviews: Amigos Plays Atari 800 - BoatOfCar on AtariAge
• ABBUC Software competition 2016 (AtariAge) , ABBUC Software Competition 2016 (ABBUC)
• AtariLand Deepth0ught Archive - Kernal on AtariAge (Rick)

• "Easy to Learn, Hard to Master - The Fate of Atari"
• Atari.io (Justin) has appointed the 26th of every month as Atari Day

New at Archive.org

• Mark Simonson sent a fat folder of Twin City Atari Interest Group newsletters to scan. 22 are online so far, with more to come - https://archive.org/details/@savetz?and[]=TAIG
• 1989 Bellcom Public Domain Shareware Catalog
• 1990 Bellcom Catalogue Supplement
• MWPDS Public Domain Software Catalog for Atari

• Allan:
• • https://archive.org/details/FoodFightAtari
  • https://archive.org/details/OSSNewsletterOctober1984
  • Atari Program Exchange Software Catalogue Spring 1983 Edition - https://archive.org/details/APXBritishCatalog
  • https://archive.org/details/AtariXLHandbook

Bill's Modern Segment

• Gitlab page for 5dots (with source & ATR disk image downloads) - https://gitlab.com/bocianu/5dots
• WAP-NIAK website - http://wapniak.atari.org.pl/
• Atari.org.pl info (with large zip download) about WAP-NIAK competition (Polish)
• Atariteca post about the WAP-NIAK 2016 competition results (Spanish)
• AtariOnline.pl post about the WAP-NIAK 2016 competition results (Polish)
• "5 dots is from zero to assembler" thread at AtariOnline.pl (Polish)
• Wojtek "bocianu" Bociański's JavaScript proof-of-concept of the game - http://mimuma.pl/5dots/

Kathy and Phil Bergh, I'm Different!

Kathy and Phil Bergh published one program through Atari Program Exchange: I'm Different!, which first appeared in the inaugural APX catalog, winter 1982-1983. The program won third prize in the Education category in that catalog. It was one of the few commercial programs developed in the PILOT language. Kathy and Phil also wrote three articles — also about PILOT — for ANTIC magazine.

This interview took place on May 24, 2016.

Kathy and Phil's articles in ANTIC

I'm Different in the winter 1982 APX catalog

I'm Different at AtariMania

I'm Different on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCaFpm9LHcE

Teaser quotes:

"'Consumer Reports Tests Educational Software' and so he made a big production of 'Let's see if our game is in it.' ... and it turns out, Consumer Reports did indeed review our game."

"They must have sold a few because I remember getting a check for $12."

David Thiel, musician and interactive audio

David Thiel is a musician and interactive audio designer. At Gottlieb, he did the sound for arcade games including Reactor, Q*Bert, and Mach 3. At Action Graphics, David created the sound for Artillery Duel for the Atari 2600, and Beamrider and Pitstop for the Atari computers. And at Free Radical Software/Incredible Technologies, he worked on Winter Games for the Amiga and Atari ST. He has created the sound and music for dozens of other computer games and pinball games.

This interview took place on May 17, 2016.

GDRI's list of David's games: http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/David_Thiel

2013 interview with David: http://www.c64.com/gt_display_interview.php?interview=31

Teaser quotes:

"In coin op, I had a sound board. I had a processor. It's my sandbox, I can do anything I want. But the minute you're doing console work, you're now seen by the programmer as a parasitic element that eats CPU and storage, and poops out sound."

"I think, ultimately, doing the Q*Bert voice was the finest destiny of that technology."

Gary Yost, The Catalog and Cyber Studio

Gary Yost worked at Antic magazine, in product development. He was the man behind The Catalog, Antic's catalog of third-party software. When Atari Program Exchange was shut down, he contacted programmers from APX to re-publish their works in's Antic's Catalog.

Gary was instrumental in creating CAD 3-D (written by Tom Hudson), Cybermate, and the Cyber Studio graphics suite — which were all published by Antic — and in commercializing the StereoTek 3D Glasses, which provided a 3-D view of the Atari ST's screen.

After Antic, he went on to form The Yost Group which created and licensed a number of products to Autodesk, including Autodesk Animator, Autodesk 3D Studio, and Autodesk 3DS MAX.

This interview took place on May 16, 2016. In it, we discuss Ted Kahn, Jim Capparell, and Tom Hudson, all of whom I have previously interviewed.

Gary's web site: http://GaryYost.com

Martin Doudoroff's history of the Antic Cyber graphics software: http://doudoroff.com/atari/history1.html

Antic articles by Gary

An issue of The Catalog

Fred Parr, MACE newsletter

Fred Parr was a member of MACE — the Michigan Atari Computer Enthusiasts group, and the man who printed the club newsletter. You can find scans of the newsletter at archive.org.

This interview took place on April 22, 2016. It in, we discuss Arlan Levitan, whom I previously interviewed.

"And I just marvel that something that crude, in today's perspective, could have actually given is so much enjoyment and hope about the future."

Roland Gustafsson, Print Shop Companion

Roland Gustafsson wrote The Print Shop Companion, an add-on package for Brøderbund's popular Print Shop software, which added a printable calendar, font and page border editors, and other features. He first developed the program for the Apple ][, then ported the software to the Atari 800 and Commodore 64.

In the retro-computing community, however, Roland is best known for his work on the Apple ][, where he specialized in designing copy protection as well as the RWTS18 disk format, which squeezed extra data onto the Apple's floppy disk.

This interview took place on May 17, 2016.

Teaser quotes:

"There was a guy in Switzerland who would hack into a telephone booth ... He would phone me and talk to me and tell me, 'Oh, your copy protection is great. I enjoy breaking your copy protection more than the games.'"

"The same concepts, where you make a good decision on the design work, the framework of what you're working on, the foundation — still applies today for modern software."

Roland on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rolandgust

Chuck Gibke, Air Raid!

Chuck Gibke, published one piece of software for the Atari computer: Air Raid!. The game first appeared in the winter 1982-1983 APX catalog, where it won second prize in the entertainment category.

This interview took place on April 22, 2016.

"Winning the contest generated a little bit of prizes you could pick from Atari stuff, which was pretty amazing. There was like $2,000 worth of stuff. ... Several boxes of stuff showing up at the house one day and I thought that was just the greatest thing."

Download Air Raid! http://www.atariarchives.org/APX/showinfo.php?cat=20187

Air Raid! in the Winter 1982 APX catalog

Steve Cavin: Minotaur, Juggles' House, Juggles' Rainbow

Steve Cavin started at Cromenco where he built computer kits and tested hardware. Later he wrote several programs for the Atari 8-bit computers: Minotaur, which was published by Atari Program Exchange — it first appeared in the fall 1981 APX catalog; and the Atari versions of Juggles' House and Juggles' Rainbow, educational games published by The Learning Company. He also wrote "The Five Letters", a hangman-style game that - so far - I haven't been able to find online.

This interview took place April 22, 2016.

"He looked at the screens and said, "Those don't look like the test programs that we normally use," and I said 'Well, they're not. I wrote my own. ... They're better than the other ones.'"

Steve's book, "To Find Out": http://amzn.to/1SBbRCJ

Minotaur in the fall 1981 APX catalog

Steve's games list on AtariMania