Bob Polin, Blue Max

Bob Polin was the programmer of Blue Max and Blue Max 2001 — both published by Synapse Software, and co-creator of Puzzle Panic with Ken Uston. He also wrote the game "Maxter Mind" which was published by Antic magazine.

This interview took place on February 15, 2016. In it, we discuss Ihor Wolosenko, whom I previously interviewed.

After we did this interview, Bob sent me the floppy disks containing the source code for Blue Max, which I was able to recover. There's a link to the source code in the show notes.

Teaser quote:

"I literally — when I do a game it's very, very intense where I day in and day out do it. I just burnt out, did nothing for a few years."

Blue Max source code: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/249933-blue-max-source-code-for-you/

AtariMania's list of Bob's games: http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-polin-bob_team_1070_8_G.html

Maxter Mind: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v2n7/MaxterMind.html

InfoWorld review of Blue Max: https://books.google.com/books?id=uy8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA71#v=onepage

Steve Hales: Slime, Dimension X, Fort Apocalypse

Steve Hales published several games with Synapse Software: Slime, Dimension X, Fort Apocalypse, and Mindwheel. His first job was reverse engineering the Atari 2600 to create the Starpath Supercharger. His game for that platform was Suicide Mission, an Asteroids clone.

This interview took place on October 21, 2015. In it we discuss Ihor Wolosenko and Cathryn Mataga, whom I previously interviewed; and Mike Potter and Bob Polin, whose interviews are forthcoming. 

Steve has released the source code for Fort Apocalypse. He and I talked about the possibility of also releasing the code for his other games. In March 2016 he emailed me, "I did a deep look into my archives, and didn’t find anything useful. I have one more place to look, but its not near me at all, so it will take a few months to look." However, he does have Mindwheel running on a web site at http://mindwheelgame.com and his more modern game, Squirrel Warz for iOS, is available at http://www.squirrelwarz.com. Check the show notes for those links as well as links to Steve's other projects.

Our interview starts with us talking about the recovery and scanning of the Star Raiders source code. Although he didn't create Star Raiders, Steve is the person who found the source code printout for Star Raiders in his files, and lent it to me to scan. 

Teaser quote:

"[Dimension X] didn't really come out that well. It was actually my first lesson in a failure of something that was fun."

"Solo developers of the time, their games were sometimes pretty great but sometimes mostly not. Electronic Arts brought, because of what Trip Hawkins learned, he brought the Hollywood studio system to the games industry."

Links:

Steve's web site: http://www.igorlabs.com

Steve's SquirrelWarz game for iOS: http://www.squirrelwarz.com

Steve on Twitter: http://twitter.com/heyigor

AtariMania's list of Steve's games: http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-hales-steve_team_530_8_G.html

Halcyon Days interview with Steve: http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/HALES.HTM

Fort Apocalypse Source Code: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/239792-fort-apocalypse-source-code-is-out/

Star Raiders source code: https://archive.org/details/AtariStarRaidersSourceCode

Glenn Faden, Microsailing

Glenn Faden published one program for the Atari 8-bit computers: Microsailing, which was published by Atari Program Exchange. Microsailing first appeared in the Spring 1983 APX catalog.

This interview took place on January 27, 2016.

Teaser quote:

“I got a lot of interesting feedback. One of the comments that I got back from people was that it was too difficult.”

Surfer Bob, Warez Sysop

"Surfer Bob", real first name Carlos, ran The Pipeline BBS, an Atari bulletin board system that offered warez for download -- pirated software.

This interview took place on January 28, 2016.

Teaser quote:

"He didn't have anybody to back him up but he had a stun gun ... he had that in his pocket, and he walked up to Shlomo and grabbed him ... took out the stun gun and just, like, sparked it in his face."

David Stoutemyer, The Soft Warehouse

David Stoutemyer was co-founder of The Soft Warehouse, a company that specialized in mathematics software for several computer platforms. The company published three programs through Atari Program Exchange. Algicalc and Polycalc first appeared in the summer 1982 APX catalog for $22.95 each. Algicalc was described as a "valuable tool for students and teachers of algebra and calculus and for professionals who want a quick way to perform operations in symbolic algebra and calculus." It won third price in the education category in that catalog.

Polycalc was described as "a computational tool for performing symbolic algebra and calculus operations. It differs from ALGICALC in that POLYCALC supports polynomials that are generalized to permit fractional and negative powers of variables, and the program can use many unassigned variables, whereas ALGICALC can use only one. However, POLYCALC is essentially a polynomial system rather than a rational expression system."

Their third Atari program was Calculus Demon, which was first available in the fall 1982 catalog. It also cost $22.95, and was described as "a comprehensive tool for automatically deriving symbolic partial derivatives and indefinite integrals of expressions."

This interview took place on January 29, 2016.

Links:

Ways to implement computer algebra compactly by David Stoutemyer: http://www.sigsam.org/bulletin/articles/178/stoutemyer.pdf

International Derive User Group: http://www.austromath.at/dug/

David Crane, Pitfall! and Atari 400/800 OS

David Crane started his programming career at Atari, making games for the Atari 2600. He also worked on the operating system for the Atari 800 computer, as well as the games Outlaw and Howitzer, which were sold through APX.  David left Atari in 1979 and co-founded Activision, along with Alan Miller, Jim Levy, Bob Whitehead, and Larry Kaplan. While at Activision, he was best known as the designer of Pitfall!

This interview took place October 23, 2015

Links

“Meet David Crane: Video Games Guru”, HI-RES Vol. 1, No. 2 / January 1984 / page 46 - http://www.atarimagazines.com/hi-res/v1n2/davidcrane.php

David Crane Interview at Good Deal Games - http://www.gooddealgames.com/interviews/int_David_Crane.html

PRGE 2015 - David Crane (Activision) - Portland Retro Gaming Expo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbinkHyWde8

Bill Rice, HYSYS

Bill Rice published one program in the Atari Program Exchange catalog: HYSYS, or Hydraulic Program. It was a tool that did calculations for sizing hydraulic systems and components. HYSYS first appeared winter 1982 APX catalog.

This interview took place on January 27, 2016

Teaser quote:

"So you can imagine with something like a hydraulic program, they're like 'No we've got our scientific calculators and we look really cool punching in these numbers. We're not going to get a home computer and do that.'"

On this episode of ANTIC the atari 8-bit podcast: I cause a robot invasion in Portland, Bill Kendrick goes ultra-mega-retro gaming with Game ‘N Watch inspired games for the Atari, Randy wraps up the retrochallenge, and we still manage to keep the podcast under 3h 21m.

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

Bill’s Modern Segment

Feedback

Jerry Falkenhan, Finance Software

Jerry Falkenhan had three programs published by Atari Program Exchange: Family Cash Flow, Family Budget, and Family Vehicle Expense. Atari bought Family Cash Flow and Family Budget and packaged them as an Atari-branded product, Family Finances.

This interview took place on January 26, 2016.

Teaser quote:

"I get my first royalty check. I'll never forget: $35,000. I go down to Wells Fargo and they wouldn't cash the darn thing."

Picture of Jerry during our Skype session: http://i.imgur.com/5y2yFMc.png

Inverse ATASCII podcast on Atari Family Finances:

http://inverseatascii.info/2015/01/27/s1e9-atari-family-finances/

Inverse ATASCII podcast on Family Vehicle Expense: 

http://inverseatascii.info/2015/10/13/s2e02-apx-family-vehicle-expense/

Bill Louden, CompuServe and GEnie

Bill Louden was part of the team that built CompuServe, the first consumer online service, where he was director of the computing, games, entertainment, e-mail, chat, and forum products. He went on to be the founder of the GEnie online service (General Electric Network for Information Exchange.)

This interview took place October 15, 2015.

Teaser quotes:

"You know, we expected at CompuServe customers to spend $10 to $15 a month. ... We never expected people to come online and spend $1,200, $2,000 a month playing MegaWars."

"We're there to serve the customer so I want [a name] that sort of embodies a service configuration, and it's magical. It's something new. And the best name they came up with was Albert, for Albert Einstein. This cost me $50,000. I literally came home from that meeting crying."