Russ Wetmore: Preppie!, Sea Dragon, Homepak

Russ Wetmore started at Adventure International, where he worked with Scott Adams on Savage Island Part II. He then went on to program Preppie!, Preppie! II, and Sea Dragon - all of which were published by Adventure International - and Homepak business software, which was published by Batteries Included.

This interview took place on September 24, 2015, and then a little bit more on January 4, 2016. 

After the main interview took place, Russ sent me the source code for Preppie!, Preppie! II, and Sea Dragon, plus an demonstration disk of an unfinished Atari game called Lulu. I successfully archived all of those disks and have posted them to archive.org. I also made a YouTube video of the Lulu demo. Links are below.

Links

Game source code

Video of Lulu

Lulu discussion and ATR download

AtariMania list of Russ Wetmore software

JavaScript version of Preppie

AtariAge discussion about the source code

Teaser quote:

“I actually only spent about 18 months writing those three games, and I probably would have done them in much sooner time, but I was 23 and lazy.”

Paul Lewandowski, APX Puzzler

Paul Lewandowski was in high school when he wrote Puzzler, which was published by Atari Program Exchange and won the Atari Star Award in fall 1983: first prize in the learning category.

Puzzler is a game that shows you a picture on the screen, chops it into equally sized squares, and scrambles them. Then, the player uses the joystick to try to put the picture back together - like one of those plastic puzzles where you slide numbers around to put them in order. Puzzler had three difficulty levels: 4x4 was easy, 8x8 was hard, and 10x10 was “insane”.

This interview took place on December 9, 2015

Teaser quote:

“The whole thing was such a great idea ... having users write programs. It was so ahead of its time.” 

Links

APX catalog featuring Puzzler

Puzzler download at AtariArchives.org

Paul on Twitter

Clinton Parker, Action!

Welcome to this special interview edition of Antic, the Atari 8-bit computer podcast.  All of our interviews are special in some way and we appreciate the time that the interviewees donate to the Atari 8-bit community at large.  This interview is a much-anticipated one due to the beloved nature of the software provided by the interviewee and due to the fact that the he has been away from the Atari 8-bit community for some time.  The software I’m talking about is the Action! programming language and the author is Clinton Parker.  Action! was released in 1983 by Optimized Systems Software (better known as OSS).  It quickly became one of the favorite programming languages ever produced for the Atari 8-bits and was used in the development of some commercial products.  The 6502 source code for Action! was made available under the GNU General Public License by the author in 2015.

This interview took place on September 6, 2015 via Skype.

Teaser Quotes

“It was an opportunity for me having a platform, which is what the Atari was to me.  It provided a platform where I could sit down and literally design a language that I liked and that had the features I liked.”

“It was selling well enough that I was able to for several years to pretty much make a living off the royalties of the sales of it.”

Links

Action! Review in ANALOG - http://www.cyberroach.com/analog/an16/action.htm

HI-RES VOL. 1, NO. 4 / MAY/JUNE 1984 / PAGE 72 - http://www.atarimagazines.com/hi-res/v1n4/action.php  

Action! at SourceForge - http://sourceforge.net/projects/atari-action/  

Action! Source at Archive.org - https://archive.org/details/ActionVersion36_SourceCode

Peter J. Meyer - Tempest Xtreem, Venture, Delta Space Arena

The intro music to this episode is the tune “Mind’s Eye” from the Atari XL/XE version of Tempest Xtreem; composed by Sal KJMANN Esquivel.  Our guest for this interview is the author of Tempest Xtreem, as well as Delta Space Arena and Venture for the Atari 8-bits, Mr. Peter J. Meyer.  Peter has done a great job of developing game software for the Atari in the modern era and continues to develop additional software.  His software is available at Video 61 and Atari Sales, run by Lance Ringquist.  Please enjoy the interview and let Peter know you appreciate the work he continues to do for the Atari 8-bits.

Teaser Quote:

“I was on my Atari and my friends brought over this Nintendo system and they said ‘Oh, your Atari will never be able to do anything like this!’”

Links:

Video 61 and Atari Sales - http://members.tcq.net/video61/main.html

Delta Space Arena at YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW_9myJ2Cu0

Tempest Xtreem Music (Mind’s Eye) by Sal Esquivel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq3XaGBPc60

Tempest Xtreem at YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbpN4cMnQrw

Download of Tempest Xtreem - http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-tempest-xtreem_23225.html

Venture at YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hpmD5LQcoE

Antic Episode 26 with Bill’s Modern Segment on Tempest, Venture, Delta Space Arena - http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-episode-26-100-episodes-and-counting

Larry Reed, Childware

Larry Reed was a programmer for Childware, where he worked on two educational games for the Atari 8-bit computers: Word Flyer and D-Bug, both of which were published by Electronic Arts.

This interview took place December 6, 2015.

Teaser quotes:

"I'll tell you, working with FORTH on the Atari was great until we exceeded the memory capability of the Atari, and then it was a royal pain in the ass."

"'Anybody who thinks there is a distinction between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either.'"

LINK

http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-childware-inc_developer_298_8_G.html

Tony Nicholson and John Babinchak II, Hi-Res Magazine

In this episode, two interviews for the price of one: two people who helped create Hi-Res Magazine — the computer magazine that only published four issues. First, we’ll hear from Tony Nicholson, the publisher of Hi-Res magazine; then John Babinchak, the editor of the  magazine.

Hi-Res was a short-lived magazine dedicated to Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64 computers. It was published from late 1983 to early 1984. Although they didn’t publish months on the cover, I believe the first issue would have have a cover date of November 1983. Subsequent issues would have been January 1984, March 1984, and the final issue was May 1984. Hi-Res came to the Atari magazine party late in the game, fighting against magazines with established advertiser and subscriber bases. A.N.A.L.O.G. magazine started in January 1981, and ANTIC magazine’s first issue was April 1982. Creative Computing was starting its tenth year around that time. 

You can read all four issues of Hi-Res at www.atarimagazines.com/hi-res/.

The interview with Tony took place September 24, 2015, the interview with John on September 29.

LINKS

Hi-Res at AtariMagazines.com: www.atarimagazines.com/hi-res/.

Hi-Res at archive.org: https://archive.org/details/@savetz?and[]=hi-res%20magazine

Kevin Hayes, Atari Games Ireland

On this interview episode, we take a trip to Ireland, and to the coin-op side of Atari. Kevin Hayes was Controller for Atari Irerland Ltd. in 1978, then became manufacturing director. Later he moved to California where he was VP of Manufacturing for Atari Games, then vice president of Operations.

This interview was recorded December 7, 2015.

Teaser quote:

"They had goats grazing on our property, and ... he killed one of their goats, he slaughtered it. ... the owner of the goat came on the property and wanted to be compensated for it."

On this episode of ANTIC the atari 8-bit podcast: our annual holiday buying guide for Atari 8-bit lovers, we announce the winner of the interview transcription contest, I test all of the BBUC game contest entries, and we outright start bribing people to donate to archive.org.

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

News

New at Archive.org

Holiday Recommendations

Of the Month

Programming Languages Segment

Closing

Alan Ackerman, MPP

Alan Ackerman co-founded Microbits Peripheral Products (MPP) with John Wiley. MPP made modems and printer interfaces for the Atari 8-bit computers. MPP also published software: Microfiler and Assault Force 3-D. The company would re-structure to become Supra, a giant in modems which became the largest hardware manufacturer for Commodore Amiga computers.

This interview took place on October 2, 2015.

Teaser quote:

“The volumes got to be insane. ... You know, at that point if we had a product we were selling 5,000 units a month, we thought that was pretty damn good.”

Alan Stratton, plant controller

Alan Stratton was Atari’s plant controller, managing the financial functions in the El Paso, Texas manufacturing facility. He was also involved with the infamous dumping of game cartridges in the Alamogordo, New Mexico dump.

This interview took place on October 2, 2015.

Teaser quotes:

“A rumor got out that we were going to search people as thy left the floor, as they left shift. Later that evening as we went into the lavatories, the floors were littered with cartridges and PC boards that were fully functional.”

“This was all planned in advance, until the landfill opened up a brand new cut - a brand new area - so that we could be on the very, very bottom.”

“If I had an auditor come in, I’d sit him down at an Atari game console or my computer, and have him play some games. Boy that audit went sweet after that.”