ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Jeff Johannigman

Jeff Johannigman published his first two computer programs through Atari Program Exchange: Rabbotz and Snark Hunt. He went on to program the Atari ports of Mask of the Sun and Serpent's Star for Br0derbund, then worked on Relax for Synapse, GI Joe for EPYX, copy protection for Electronic Arts, and was producer of Master of Orion, published by MicroProse. Jeff is also one of the co-founders of the Game Developers Conference.

This interview took place on January 30, 2016.

Teaser quotes:

"So the next day, an email goes out to everybody in the company. 'No more Atari ST software, period.' So, somebody has no realization that he totally sabotaged the Electronic Arts support for Atari ST with one phone call."

“[Dan Bunten] also gave me one of the best pieces of advice about game design back then. He said that what's important in making a good game is not what you put in; its what you keep out."

Links:

AtariMania's list of Jeff's Atari games - http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-johannigman-jeff_team_659_8_G.html

Leigh Zeitz, Epson Connection book

Leigh Zeitz wrote the book The Epson Connection: Atari Edition, about using your Atari 8-bit computer with Epson printers; as well as a version of the book for the Commodore 64.

This interview took place on November 8, 2015.

Teaser quotes:

"IBM came out and said: 'Well guess what? As of next month we're not going to be creating any more IBM PCjrs.'"

"'Uh, Leigh, I probably don't even need to make this phone call, but we don’t need your book.'"

Links:

Epson Connection at Archive.org - https://archive.org/details/The_Epson_Connection_Atari_Edition

Epson Connection at AtariArchives.org - http://www.atariarchives.org/epson/

Lee's blog - http://drzreflects.com

David Johnson, Popeye

David Johnson co-created the Atari 400/800/5200 version of Popeye, which was released by Parker Brothers.

This interview took place on November 9, 2015.

Teaser quote

"That was my first work experience. I really enjoyed it. We were doing like 60, 70 hours a week."

Steve Baker: Defender, Stargate

Steve Baker is well-known in the Atari world as having done the 400/800 and 5200 conversions of Defender. He also did ports of Stargate for the 5200 and the 400/800. Additionally, he developed Miniature Golf and Microgammon SB for the 400/800 and 5200, and Reversi and Gomuku for the 400/800. He worked for Apple from 1980 to 1982, then for Atari from 82 to 84. Steve also wrote games for the Apple II, the Atari 2600, the Intellivision, and the Commodore 64.

This interview took place on November 1, 2015.

Links:

Interview with 2600 Connection - http://www.2600connection.com/interviews/steve_baker/interview_steve_baker.html

Defender video at YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiB_DttmN3Y

Defender at AtariMania - http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-defender_1561.html

Stargate for the 400/800 Video (YouTube) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI1iILhB9Dg

Mike Potter: Protector II, Shadow World, Nautilus, Chicken

Mike Potter ported several Apple II games to the Atari 8-bit computers

for Crystalware, including Protector. He later developed five programs

for Synapse Software: Protector, Protector II, Chicken, Nautilus and

Shadow World — in a one year period, with the combined sales of 93,000

copies.

In this interview we discuss Steve Hales and Ihor Wolosenko, both of

whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place October 22,

2015.

Teaser quote:

"Let's see, I got married in '84, and my brother-in-law had every

single one of my games pirated. And I was like, 'What? You have all my

games!'"

AtariMania's list of Mike's games - http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-potter-mike_team_1073_8_G.html

Mike’s web site, includes history and videos of people playing the Atari titles - http://mikepotterhere.com

Arthur Leyenberger, Atari columnist

Arthur Leyenberger wrote the "Outpost: Atari" column in Creative Computing magazine, the End User column in A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing, and the ST User column in ST-Log magazine. He was also editor of the Jersey Atari Computer Group newsletter.

This interview took place on November 10, 2015.

Teaser quote:

"If I think about one thing that really captures that era, is that it was exciting. It was exciting, it was fun, it was something new, it was something you could share - you could join a user group, there were all these magazines. ... A lot of information out there, a lot of stuff to learn, a lot of stuff to have fun with and share."

Outpost: Atari in Creative Computing beginning Nov 1983

http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/index/index.php?author=Arthur+Leyenberger

The End User column in A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing

http://www.atarimagazines.com/analog/index/index.php?author=Arthur+Leyenberger

The ST User column in ST-LOG

http://www.atarimagazines.com/st-log/index/index.php?author=Arthur+Leyenberger

Jeff Bell, Atari coin-op

Jeff Bell worked for Atari Games for 31 years. He stated in 1973 as a Pong inspector, then moved to the engineering department, specifying requirements for parts. He worked in IT and system administration, and did other jobs in his more than three decades with the company. He also ran the Itsy Bitsy Bulletin Board System.

This interview took place on November 7, 2015. In it, we discuss Bob Stahl, whom I previously interviewed.

Teaser quote:

"People say Atari died in — what? — 1983? Didn't happen. Didn't happen. We were in Milpitas making video games. We made great video games."

Stephen Lawrow, Mac/65 assembler

Stephen Lawrow created the Mac/65 assembler, which was published by Optimized Systems Software. Stephen became an employee of OSS, where he also worked on the company’s enhanced BASIC products, BASIC XL and BASIC XE.

This interview took place on November 1, 2015. In this interview we discuss Bill Wilkinson of OSS, whom I previously interviewed.

Teaser quotes:

“I got so frustrated, I couldn’t wait till I got Mac/65 mature enough where it could start assembling itself. So that’s why it has a lot of compatibilities syntactically with the Atari Assembler/Editor.”

“A lot of us were not formally educated in software development. Because it just didn’t exist in the colleges at the time ... Algorithms, searching, and things like that — all that stuff happened after that.”

Bob Stahl, Atari receiving inspection and software quality

Bob Stahl worked in the Atari home computer division, where he was the senior technician in the receiving inspection department, doing first article inspection. (He explains what that means in the interview.) He then moved to software quality engineering, testing produced software to make sure it looked right and worked correctly. Later, he was hired by Atari's coin-op division to do receiving inspection for that company. He also ran an Atari BBS called Modem Magazine.

In this interview we discuss Cassie Maas, whom I previously interviewed. This interview took place on November 1, 2015.

Teaser quotes:

"Biggest problem we had, of course, was the cassette tapes in the early days losing data ... Huge dropouts in the data stream, looking at the status signal through an oscilloscope. But we never found out exactly why, and you know that technology went away really quick."

"I took a 300 baud acoustic modem and a Mr. Microphone on one computer, and a stereo and a 300 baud acoustic modem on another, and we would send files from one corner of the garage to the other using FM frequencies over the airwaves."

InfoWorld article featuring Bob and Cassie

Modem Magazine BBS in Antic magazine: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v3n5/communications.html

Clayton Walnum, A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing and ST-Log

Clayton Walnum was writer and editor at A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing and ST-Log magazines. He started out as technical editor at A.N.A.L.O.G., and was eventually executive editor of both magazines. Clayton wrote the C-manship column - an ongoing tutorial on the C programming language - as well as many, many other articles.

This interview took place on November 8, 2015. In the interview we talk about Lee Pappas, whom I previously interviewed.

Teaser quotes:

“The first day, he pointed out my desk and it was like a foot deep in submissions that they hadn’t gotten to yet. So my first job was to go through all of those submissions and find the stuff that looked interesting, and see what we might want to buy for the magazine.”

“At that point on the masthead I was listed as executive editor. I was pretty much single-handedly producing both A.N.A.L.O.G. and ST-Log.”

Clayton’s articles in A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing: http://www.atarimagazines.com/analog/index/index.php?author=Clayton+Walnum

Clayton’s articles in Start magazine: http://www.atarimagazines.com/st-log/index/index.php?author=Clayton+Walnum

AtariMania’s list of Clayton’s games: http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-walnum-clayton_team_1376_8_G.html