Chuck Mullally, Mastermatch

Chuck Mullally published one game through Atari Program Exchange: Mastermatch, game similar to the Mastermind board game. Mastermatch was one of the last APX programs to be released: it was first available in the Winter 1983-1984 APX catalog — the final APX catalog. Chuck told me that the game won a $1000 prize from APX, but the catalog — a sparse 8 pages and much smaller than the previous APX catalogs — doesn’t even mention that.

This interview took place on January 31, 2016.

LINKS

Chuck’s old web page about Mastermatch

Mastermatch in the Winter 1983-1984 APX catalog: https://archive.org/details/APXCatalogWinter1983

Download Mastermatch from AtariArchives.org: http://www.atariarchives.org/APX/showinfo.php?cat=20259

Bryon Wilcox, Wilcox Company

On December 12, 2015, I bought an unusual Atari computer on ebay: it appeared to be a typical 800XL, but where the Atari name would have been, there was a sticker that said "GRAPHICS 1 - The Wilcox Company." Another sticker on the bottom of the computer indicated that the company was based in Washougal, Washington.

When I received the computer, I found that it included a hand-made cartridge that contains a message display program. You can enter a few lines of text, plus the time and date, which are then displayed in large letters on the screen. 

I wanted to know more about this computer and the company that created it, so I hunted down Bryon Wilcox. This interview took place on January 27, 2016.

Pictures of the computer and binary dump of the cart: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/248826-dump-of-wilcox-message-display-cart/

John Crane, RPN Calculator Simulator

John Crane published one Atari program, through Atari Program Exchange: RPN Calculator Simulator. The program first appeared in the Spring 1982 APX catalog, where it was awarded second prize in the business and professional applications category. 

John was also one of the founders of the Bay Area Atari Users Group, and did some software evaluation for Atari Program Exchange.

This interview took place on January 31, 2016.

Teaser quote:

"He [Steve Wozniak] introduced all of us to his demonstration about his Apple -- what would become the Apple I. I saw his demonstration and I go, 'Oh, that is very cool.'"

"I had what I used to call the bash and bang test. I'd load up the program on an Atari 800 or 1200 or whatever I happend to have at the time, and as the program was running I would just start pounding on the keys at random, just taking my fists and just banging on the keyboard."

Alan Newman: Domination, Tutti Frutti, Hotel Alien

Alan Newman published several programs for the Atari 8-bit computers: Domination, a Hamurabi-style management game, was published by Atari Program Exchange. It first appeared in the Fall 1981 catalog, where it won first prize in the entertainment category. Next he created Tutti Frutti, an arcade-style game that was published by Adventure International. And Hotel Alien, a graphical adventure game published by Artworx. He also wrote Spy Vs. Spy — not the Mad Magazine game published by First Star Software; a word game that was to be published by PDI but didn't get wide release. Alan has sent me that program to archive, so it's now available online for the first time.

This interview took place on February 2, 2016.

Teaser quote:

"I wanted to move to California. I wanted to do this full time. But when I realized how much copying was out there, it became a bad idea."

Spy vs. Spy scans and downloads: https://archive.org/details/SpyVsSpyWordGameAtari

AtariMania's list of Alan's games: http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-newman-alan-m_team_969_8_G.html

Darren Schebek, Envision character set editor

Darren Schebek wrote Envision, a character set editor for the Atari 8-bit computers. It was published in Antic magazine’s software catalog in 1986. Envision cost $19.95: “Create giant, multi-screen, 8-way scrolling pictures. Build effortless animations (up to 128 frames at 10 speeds). ENVISION has over 50 commands giving you total control over the Atari’s 6 incredible text modes. On the 130XE, Envision supports 16 simultaneous fonts.” After we conducted this interview, Darren sent me the Envision source code, which is now available at the Internet Archive.

Darren later wrote two more games for the Atari: Death By Solitaire and Yahtzee.

He worked for Canadian software publisher Distinctive Software, where he wrote the Commodore 64 port of Road Raider (porting it from the Atari ST version), and later worked at Mindspan Technologies where he created the Commodore 64 version of Mondu's Fight Palace.

This interview took place on January 30, 2016. 

Teaser quote:

“My dad would come back from work, and he’d visit computer shops and stuff. He’d bring home flyers for different computers. He brought home an Apple // flyer one day, and one day he brought home this Atari 800 flyer. And I’m looking at these two flyers, and I’m comparing these things, like, ‘I don’t get it. There’s no decision to be made here.’” 

Links

Envision source code: https://archive.org/details/AtariEnvisionSourceCode

Darren’s web site: http://www.user.dccnet.com/dschebek/envision.htm

Darren on AtariAge http://atariage.com/forums/user/37813-darren-schebek/

Jerome Domurat, artist and interface designer

Jerome Domurat worked at Atari from November 1981 through July 1986 as an artist and interface designer. He started creating art for the home game systems, including E.T., Krull, and Raiders of the Lost Ark for the Atari 2600; and Jungle Hunt, Pengo, and Baseball for the 5200. He made the transition when Jack Tramiel bought the company: he worked on user interface design for the Atari ST. He also helped design the NEOchrome paint program, and adapted the graphics and animation for the ST version of Star Raiders.

Picture of Jerome with Jim Eisenstein and Dave Staugas, March 1985 - http://i.imgur.com/hBIja3X.jpg

This interview took place on February 1, 2016.

Teaser quote:

"User testing with people — like I would just get random people to sit down and go through the system and have them think aloud. I would ask them what they thought this symbol meant or that symbol meant. I mean, you show people a trash can [icon] now and they immediately know that that's 'delete'. But at that point, they thought, 'Oh, it's a can for storing things for later.'"

Alan Henricks, Controller

Alan Henricks was Controller at Atari during the Warner Communications era. He was there from 1978 through 1983.

This interview took place on November 17, 2015.

Teaser quotes:

"Had the next generation of technology - the personal computer - succeeded, Atari would be where Apple is today."

"The first thing he said to me, looking me in the eyes ... he said, 'I speak to you on fear of my life.' My response was, 'I so don't want to be here.'"

On this episode of ANTIC the atari 8-bit podcast: we find a lot of new hardware gadgets for our Atari 8-bit machines, and learn all about Atari-branded printers.

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

What we’ve been up to

Interview Discussion

News

New at Archive.org

Richard Leinecker, Your Atari Comes Alive

Richard Leinecker is author of the book Your Atari Comes Alive, which was published by Alpha Systems. The book provides instructions for building hardware projects that work with the Atari 8-bit computers, such as event detectors, motion sensors, a light pen, Christmas lights, and networking computers together. The book has been scanned as is available at the Internet Archive. He wrote a followup book called Your Atari ST Comes Alive. He also wrote for Compute!, A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing and ST-Log magazines.

This interview took place November 8, 2015.

Teaser Quotes

"That was my first attempt at any writing of any kind. I didn't necessarily really know a whole lot. ... It was a lot of stumbling around trying to figure out what to do."

Links

Rick's web site - http://www.rickleinecker.com

Your Atari Comes Alive - https://archive.org/details/Your_Atari_Comes_Alive

Your Atari 8-Bit Comes Alive - https://archive.org/details/Your_Atari_8_Bit_Comes_Alive

Richard's articles in Compute! Magazine - http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/index/index.php?author=Richard+C.+Leinecker

Art Prag: Mapware, Starware, and Astrology

Art Prag, along with Harry Koons, published three programs with Atari

Program Exchange: Mapware, Starware, and Astrology. Harry Koons died

in 2005.

Mapware first appeared in the fall 1981 APX catalog, where it won

second place in the personal interest and development category. “With

the MAPWARE programs you can create a wide variety of high-resolution

world maps. MAPWARE already contains 9,000 pairs of geographic

coordinates for locating main land masses and islands on Earth. These

maps are useful for such applications as games and simulations,

tracking satellites, pointing amateur radio antennas, and teaching

geography and cartography.” The program came on two disks and cost

$20.95.

Starware first appeared in the spring 1982 APX catalog, on disk for

$17.95. “With STARWARE you can explore the heavens by way of your

Atari home computer. STARWARE displays the stars on your TV screen ...

Its 900 star coordinates accurately locate all the constellations in

both hemispheres.”

Astrology first appeared in the summer 1982 catalog, a program for

creating astrological charts. “With ASTROLOGY, the mysteries of the

zodiac, planetary positioning, natal charts, and rising signs will

unfold in your very own living room.” It cost $22.95.

This interview took place on January 30, 2016.