ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Aric Wilmunder: Star Raiders II, Temple of Apshai

Here’s how Aric Wilmunder introduced himself to me: “When The Last Starfighter didn’t do well in the theaters and marketing re-branded the Atari 800 Last Starfighter game as Star Raiders II, they didn’t take into account that there was already an actual sequel to Star Raiders that was just a few months away from completion. I was the designer and solo engineer who worked for about a year on the project as a member of an R&D team inside Atari Coin-Op. A friend helped me copy the disk image a few years back and when I saw Steve Hales post your tweet about the source code [for Star Raiders] I thought there might be some interest.

“The game was close to being finished, but there were still parts that needed polishing like the enemy AI, so I’ve been hesitant to release it since it might be judged as a finished work. I’d hate to wait 30 years to release the game just to get a bad review.”

Aric Wilmunder started writing programs on the Exidy Sorcerer computer, then worked at Automated Simulations, writing the Atari 8-bit conversions of Star Warrior; Crush, Crumble, and Chomp; and Temple of Apshai. Next he worked at Atari’s corporate research department, where he worked on Chris Crawford’s Gossip game. Then, in the R&D department at Atari coin-op, he created Star Raiders II for the Atari 8-bit computers — a game that was never finished nor released. Later he worked at LucasFilm games, where his work included the XEGS version of Ballblazer.

This interview took place December 5, 2015.

Teaser quotes:

“A music video on the Atari 800. So it was video and art being displayed on the Atari 800 that was in sync with music that was playing off of a CD.”

“[In Star Raiders] Because you’re targeting the Xylons, you’re putting them in your crosshairs, you’re actually their A.I. ... All they had to do was this very simple A.I. to move around, and the closer you track them, the more accurate they become. ... [Doug Neubauer] let the player fight themselves.”

LINKS

Download Star Raiders II ATR file and documentation (click Show All): https://archive.org/details/StarRaidersII_Wilmunder

Video of unreleased, unfinished Star Raiders II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb03mSdMaYc

Aric’s web site: http://www.wilmunder.com/Arics_World/1980s.html

Custom PC Magazine article about SCUMM and interview with Aric (see page 86): http://issuu.com/duongkim/docs/custom_pc_-_2015.10

AtariAge discussion about Star Raiders II: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/246591-wilmunders-star-raiders-ii-released/

Courtney Goodin, Compu=Prompt teleprompter

Compu=Prompt was the first electronic, personal computer based teleprompter, which ran off of an Atari 800XL computer. It was created by Courtney Goodin, who won an Emmy award for it, for “Pioneering Development in Electronic Prompting.”

He also created the Atari graphics programs Color Print and Graphic Master, both of which were distributed by Datasoft.

This interview took place on December 4, 2015.

Teaser Quotes:

“This software is probably one of the most expensive pieces of software sold that ran on the Atari.”

“We sold systems to companies like IBM, we sold to JC Penney, we sold them to the Defense Intelligence Agency - the government.”

LINKS

Photos of the device from the eBay listing: http://imgur.com/a/oc6S6

Device on eBay

Proprompt: http://proprompt.com

1984 InfoWorld article mentioning Compu=Prompt

Antic magazine article about Color Print and Graphic Master: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v2n10/ComputerArt.html

Anthony Jones, Atari UK

Anthony Jones was general manager of Atari’s headquarters in the United Kingdom. Later he moved to the United States, where he was group product manager in the marketing arm. There he worked on the Mindlink controller, a controller for the Atari that strapped to your forehead with a headband. Later, he worked at Nolan Bushnell’s Catalyst Technologies incubator.

This interview took place on September 22, 2015.

Teaser quotes:

“As opposed to a video game where it gets faster and faster as you go on the game (in the older games at least) this one was kind of the opposite: the more you relaxed, the higher your score cranked. It was quite a surreal experience.”

Forrest Mozer, Pioneer in Digitized Speech

Forrest Mozer invented and patented the first integrated circuit speech synthesizer in 1974. He licensed this technology to TeleSensory Systems, which used it in the Speech+ talking calculator. Later, National Semiconductor also licensed the technology, used for its "DigiTalker" speech synthesizer.

In 1984, Mozer founded Electronic Speech Systems to develop and market speech synthesis products. In 1994, Mozer and his son Todd, founded Sensory Circuits, Inc., now Sensory, Inc., where they developed the RSC-164 speech recognition integrated circuit. Mozer has 17 US patents in the areas of speech synthesis and speech recognition.

Electronic Speech Systems did the work to add digitized speech to several games for the Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64 computers. You can hear digitized speech created by ESS in the Atari versions of Kennedy Approach by MicroProse, 221B Baker Street by Datasoft, and Ghostbusters by Activision.

The Atari versions often had fewer spoken phrases than the Commodore 64 ports of the same games — probably due to the Atari’s smaller amount of RAM and floppy disk capacity vs. the C64. For instance, The Atari version of Ghostbusters says the title, but leaves out “He slimed me!” Commodore talking games - thanks to ESS - also included — among others — Talking Teacher by Imagic, Solo Flight by MicroProse, Friday the 13th by Domark, Desert Fox by Accolade, and Impossible Mission by Epyx.

Thanks to Mark Keates for extensive background information for this interview. Keates has created a pair of demos for the Atari, in which he ported the Commodore 64 digitized speech from Ghostbusters and Impossible Mission to play on the Atari computers.

This interview took place on September 14, 2015.

Teaser quote:

“You spent a long time. You spent — to produce a minute of speech, you would spend ... it would be many hours of work.”

LINKS

Wikipedia on Mozer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_S._Mozer

Article about Access Software, speech in Beach-Head: http://www.filfre.net/2014/08/access-software/

Interview with Dennis Caswell of Impossible Mission: http://www.mayhem64.co.uk/interview/caswell.htm

Aiming High - A Biography of Masayoshi Son: http://amazon.com/dp/B00F77T9A8/?tag=ataripodcast-20

Ghostbusters audio clips: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/32274-ghostbusters/#entry3339309

Impossible Mission audio clips

Bryan Edewaard

Bryan Edewaard briefly worked with Atari and with ICD. In 2004, 20 years after the 5200 was cancelled, he wrote the homebrew game "Castle Crisis" and released it on Atari Age for the 5200 and for the 400/800. Castle Crisis is a clone of the arcade game "Warlords".

Bryan lives on a 300 acre farm in Costa Rica with full lodging facilities. He's planning to host classic gaming retreats in the future and welcomes inquiries from people who would like to visit the area. His user name is Bryan on AtariAge or he can be contacted at [email protected].

I want to apologize for a couple of quality issues that I ran into with this interview. First of all, I had a cold at the time of the interview and this affected my voice. Secondly, a Costa Rican rain storm came up during the interview and while I attempted to remove the noise of the rain on the metal roof, it did affect the quality of portions of Bryan’s speech.

This interview was conducted on July 11, 2015.

Links

Atari 5200 Super System review of the video game "Castle Crisis" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOiE9LXu7Qw

Interview with Bryan on The Atari Times - http://www.ataritimes.com/index.php?ArticleIDX=432

Castle Crisis (5200) on AtariAge Store - https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=262

Castle Crisis (400/800) on AtariAge Store - https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=274

Castle Crisis (8-bit) on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsGkNe8xcQs

Castle Crisis at AtariMania - http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-castle-crisis_19788.html

Jeff Osorio, Atari Manager of Financial Planning and Cost Accounting

Jeff Osorio was Manager of Financial Planning and Cost Accounting at Atari from 1981 through 1984. He was responsible for establishing cost accounting and financial planning functions with a staff of 11 and an annual department budget of more than $1 million.

This interview took place September 22, 2015.

Teaser quotes:

“The one that everybody is always interested in is E.T. And I actually have the distinction of having signed the scrap ticket to write them all off and run them through the crusher.”

“He calls me on Monday morning in a panic, and he goes, ‘Jeffrey, where’s all my stuff? ... I’m at the warehouse and it’s empty. All the stuff is gone.’ ... A 100,000 square foot warehouse that was packed to the gunnels with manufacturing equipment on Friday, and on Monday morning it was empty.”

Gary Walton, Atari Store Owner and Pirate

Gary Walton owned Discount Video And Computers, a large Atari dealership in Fort Pierce, Florida, and was involved in the Atari software piracy scene. Gary is one of the people who helped me find Glenn the 5200 Man, whom I previously interviewed.

This interview took place on September 12, 2015. The New York Yankees lost both games in its double-header with the Toronto Blue Jays that day.

This interview contains adult language and content.

Teaser quotes:

“One day I call up there and I don’t get ahold of him, instead I get ahold of his mother. And I was like, ‘Yes ma’am, may I please speak with Robert [Jaeger]?’ And she’s like ‘Who are you?!’ ‘I’m a friend of Robert’s.’ ... ‘Are you one of those computer pirates?! You know, these computer pirates are getting Robert in trouble and he’s only 16 years old. He doesn’t need this type of trouble!’ screaming at me.”

“They were accusing him of having robbed more than $150,000 worth of phone services.”

“‘Tell you what we’re going to do. I want you to put your disk collection in one big box. And it better be everything!’ He goes, ‘And I’m going to be by your house in 15 minutes to pick up that box.’”

Brad Fuller, Composer

Brad Fuller started at Atari as audio engineer in the home computer division, where he composed music and sounds for Superman, Donkey Kong, E.T., Robotron, and other games. Then, in the coin-op division he composed music and sounds for Marble Madness, Klax, S.T.U.N. Runner, Rolling Thunder, Paperboy, Xybots, Blasteroids, 720°, and many other arcade games.

This interview took place September 2, 2015.

Teaser quotes:

“You know, you’d map out: OK, we’re going to start developing in September ... then maybe we can play test and beta. And over here, two years from now, it’ll be fun. This is when it’ll be fun. Well, you can’t plan that.”

Links:

Brad’s web site: http://www.bradfuller.com/about.html

Bill Mensch, 6502 chip

Bill Mensch is co-creator of the 6502 chip, the microprocessor that’s the heart of the Atari 8-bit computers, the Apple ][, Commodore 64, and many other classic computers.

This interview occurred August 6, 2015.

Teaser quotes:

“These guys at Motorola aren’t going to do the microprocessor that we need to do: that is a low-end microprocessor to complete with the Intel 4040 which sold for about $29.”

“I had a bet with Rod Orgle, and Rod Orgle said the 6501 would outsell the 6502.”

“I’m in empowerment technology. I want to empower people to do their idea. That’s what I did for Chuck [Peddle], that’s why he came to me.”

“Now, you’d think that I was a big fan of Apple, and I’m not. The reason why I’m not is they killed off the Apple II to make room for the Macintosh.”

“All of those old brands — Apple II, Commodore, Atari, and the old Nintendo — could all come back to life, with the right relationships. And we have the technology.”

Links:

Bill and Dianne Mensch Foundation: http://themenschfoundation.org

Western Design Center: http://www.westerndesigncenter.com

My interview with David Cramer, Western Design Center: http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-29-david-cramer-western-design-center

Keithen Hayenga, 5200 Tempest

Keithen Hayenga worked for both Apple and Atari and was an Apple II and Atari software programmer. While at Atari, Keithen worked on RealSports Baseball and several other unpublished projects such as Tempest for the Atari 5200, which he later completed and is currently available on AtariAge.

Teaser Quote

“Their answer was of course ‘well we had Keithen, the best in the business’. So, it’s like, I was ALMOST in a movie!”

Links

5200 Tempest at AtariAge

Information on the Unfinished 5200 Tempest Prototype at AtariProtos.com

Keithen Interview at Good Deal Games