ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Ron Bieber, SmartDOS

Ron Bieber was involved with the creation and marketing of SmartDOS, an alternative DOS that was bundled with disk drives from Rana and Astra, and also sold by Sears stores. SmartDOS'swas the first disk operating system to be "Density Smart" — automatically changing between the disk drive's density modes depending on the disk used.

This interview took place on March 4 2015.

Teaser quotes:

"So I decided that instead of trying to sell the program, I want to be paid for every single floppy disk drive that a manufacturer makes."

"It was designed for sort of a moment in time, and the goal was not to keep evolving it as new hardware became available. It was to fulfill the need at that time."

Doug Carlston, Broderbund CEO

Doug Carlston was co-founder and CEO of the software publisher Broderbund.

Broderbund published many hits across several platforms, including Bank Street Writer, Print Shop, A.E., Choplifter, Lode Runner, Karateka, Spelunker, David's Midnight Magic, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.

This interview occurred March 5, 2015.

LINKS

AtariMania.com's List of Br0derbund Games

Teaser quotes:

"So we thought it'd be funny to call it Br0derbund and put a slash through the O. Caused all kinds of grief."

"There was a competition between us and a number of other companies like Sierra Online and Sirius Software to see how many [products] we could get on the best seller list at the same time. I think maybe the best we ever did was something like 6 products out of 30."

"It was kind of a game: we had very talented engineers in-house who loved to try to put copy protection on, and sometimes carried it to unfortunate lengths."

"I drove across the country and back over 5 weeks and sold about $15,000 worth of software, and often ended up staying at the homes of the people who owned the little computer stores. I would just look up a name of a computer store in every town I went through and zigzag across the country."

Victor Cross, Atari copywriter

Victor Cross was a freelance copywriter for Atari from 1982 through 1984. He wrote many press releases and product announcements for Atari 2600 and 5200 games. He also wrote the documentation for the Atari 5200 Baseball game; plus various catalog copy for Atari. He also wrote game manuals for LucasArts, Spectrum Holobyte, Br0derbund, and other software companies.

Victor lent me his collection of Atari news releases that he wrote, which I scanned and uploaded toarchive.org. You'll find a link to that in our show notes atAtariPodcast.com.

This interview was conducted March 5, 2015.

LINK

Victor's Atari 5200 and Atari 2600 News Releases

Teaser quotes:

"For me, this was kind of like my big break... it was a huge blessing for me, really."

"I did play the game, and I kept killing E.T.. ... He kept dying on me. He'd literally have little crosses over his eyes. And I was going my god, nobody's going to like this."

Liza Loop,Technical Writer

Liza Loop wrote the first users manuals for the Atari 400 and 800 computers. She was a Consultant/Technical Writer for Atari from June 1979 through April 1980, sometimes writing documentation for interfaces that had not been designed yet -- so her description became the de facto interface specification. Liza also worked for Personal Software, where she wrote the reference manual for the original VisiCalc program. And in an interesting Atari-related note, she and her husband Steve Smith were married by Atari 400/800 designer Jay Miner -- she talks about that in the interview, too.

This interview was conducted January 28, 2015. As of the day I'm recording this in April 2015, Liza hasn't been able to find the manuals and newsletters that we discuss to scan them -- but she says she's still on the lookout. When she finds them and we get them scanned, they'll be added to the show notes atAtariPodcast.com.

LINK

History of Computing for Learning and Education: A Virtual Museum

Teaser quotes:

"There was no way that this machine [the Atari 800] would be accepted by a touch typist if you had to shift to get lower case."

"I met Steve Wozniak...I was the first person that he had ever met who was taking computers into schools so he gave me the first Apple... So we have Apple I number 1 and Apple II number 10."

"One of the things very few people know about Jay [Miner] is that he was interested in nudism. The local nudist group used to have their parties at his house."

"So I would have to go and stand in the accounting office...and say 'It's a week after my pay date and I have not received my check... write me a hand check, and put it in the system later ... And I'm going to stand here until you do it."

"The guys who started Activision were at Atari. ... Somebody asked me how much I was being paid. I told them ... And they said, '$40 an hour! We're in the wrong business.' And they all quit, and they said 'If you want us to work for you, hire us back at consultants for $40 an hour.'"

Hello, you are listening to Antic, the Atari 8-bit computer podcast. I am Randy Kindig, one of the co-hosts, and I’m bringing to you today an interview episode with the author of one of the best games ever released for the Atari 8-bit computer line. That would be David Fox, one of the authors of Rescue on Fractalus. David shares his memories of developing that iconic game, working for LucasFilm (later LucasArts), publishing a book about Atari graphics and much more. Please enjoy.

This interview was conducted March 18, 2015 via Skype.

Teaser Quotes:

“Every time someone does a LucasArts or LucasIflm retrospective, they find me and they ask me to do stuff. Happy to talk to them because it's fun!”

"The original 2 games that we did, which were Rescue and Ballblazer, were intended to be kind of throw-away games."

"Thank you George (Lucas). He knew about story telling in a way that I didn't and it was really great to have his feedback on that."

"And I think Star Raiders also kind of inspired me to do Rescue, to do Rescue on Fractalus"

Links

• interview with David Fox from Halcyon Days: Interviews with Classic Computer and Video Game Programmers

• interview with David Fox on ElectroDance, Words on PC Gaming

• Computer Animation Primer By David Fox and Mitchell Waite, published 1984

• The Making of Rescue on Fractalus from Retro Gamer #44

• David Fox at Wikipedia

• David Fox on LinkedIN

• David’s website

• twitter: @DavidBFox

• info on David's recent game, Rube Works: The Official Rube Goldberg Invention Game

• David's Rescue on Fractalus! page

• David's Ballblazer page

• Thimbleweed Park game development blog

• Recent video interview on Sup Holmes

• David’s YouTube playist of Lucasfilm/LucasArts presentations, interviews, talks

Charles Ratcliff, son of MAT*RAT

Charles Ratcliff is the son of Matthew Ratcliff, the prolific writer for the Atari magazines. Matthew Ratcliff -- or MAT*RAT -- died in 1999.

Matthew wrote for Antic, STart, Compute!, A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing, and ST-LOG. In 1986 won Antic magazine's award for Outstanding Contributor. Here's what they wrote about him:

"In 1985, Missouri programmer Matthew Ratcliff was really on a roll--publishing four major Antic programs on a remarkable variety of subjects. In March, he delivered the powerful printing utility Custom Print. Following in August was Atari 'Toons, an ambitious animation program that we featured in a popular contest. In September, it was the innovative Revision C Converter that debugged a longstanding problem for many users of Atari BASIC Revision B. Then in December, BBS Crashbuster was a valuable safeguard for bulletin board sysops needing protection against destructive system-crashers."

Charles dug around in his dad's filing cabinets and found a lot of interesting Atari-related material that he lent me to scan. In it, you'll find: Matthew's a record book listing expenses and income related to his writing (which is fascinating look at the financials of an early technology writer), writing contracts for A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing, Antic Magazine, and ST-LOG Magazine, and a version of Matthew's resume.

This is a different sort of conversation, in which I interviewed Charles about his dad, then he sort of interviews me about his dad, then we end with some technical troubleshooting on his Atari, which I've left in the recording because, why not.

This conversation occurred December 12 2014.

LINKS

Matthew Ratcliff Atari Documents Collection

AtariAge thread about MAT*RAT

1986 Antic Awards

Matthew's articles in Antic

Michael Phillips, Atari Bench Tech

Michael Phillips worked as a bench technician at Atari from February 1981 to June 1984, doing component level repair of Atari video game systems, personal computers, and peripherals.

Because Michael is a lifelong stutterer, he didn’t want to do a voice interview — but he was willing to be interviewed by email. Because this is an audio podcast, I’ve enlisted Randy Kindig to read Michael’s responses. You can also read the original written version of this interview via the link below.

The interview was conducted via email, February 2015.

Teaser quotes:

“Beating the device in question...was part of being a good tech. The key is knowing how hard and where to hit.”

“Misspellings, bad English and odd terminology were par for the day. One guy once referred to the I/O cable as a ‘hose’.”

“One I vividly remember was an 810 [disk drive] that came back 3 times. The guy claimed it would randomly erase disks, but we could never find a culprit...”

LINK

Read the original written version of this interview

Ian Chadwick

Ian Chadwick is the author of Mapping The Atari, which was -- and remains -- the ultimate

memory map for the Atari 8-bit computers. Mapping was published in two editions: the

original was for the 400/800 computers, then an updated version was later released for

the XL and XE machines. Ian also did a lot of documentation writing behind the scenes,

including many of Antic's software manuals, and several manuals for Batteries Included and other companies.

This interview was conducted on March 3, 2015.

Teaser quotes:

"So I would write these little BASIC programs that would go along, and they'd POKE a bunch of memory locations, and at the same time they'd be PEEKing into other memory locations to see what would happen. And it was so much fun!"

"It wasn't intentionally started out as a book, it really intentionally started out as a database of information for my own use."

"They'd say 'You're the guy who wrote Mapping The Atari! You know, that turned my life around when I was 18!' or something."

"It took about two or three minutes to get the platter warmed up. Spinning up to speed it

sounded like a Lear jet taking off. Wooooosh! And it held six megabytes."

LINKS

Ian Chadwick on Twitter

Ian's web site

Ian's articles in Antic magazine

Interview with Ian in Atari Times

Full text of Mapping The Atari

Louis Massucci, Atari Bench Tech

Lou Massucci was a bench technician for the Atari 800 line, repairing 8-bit computers and peripherals in Somerset, New Jersey. Later, he was was promoted to field service representative for the southwest territory.

This interview was conducted on March 2, 2015.

Teaser Quotes

"Actually, that's what was causing some of the failure modes because the debris left behind by the cockroaches is very acidic and would actually eat through the PC board traces."

"And it kind of came out of nowhere. I mean, we were repairing these things for a year, and really never had a problem with the keyboard. Then all of a sudden we're starting to get this rash of defective 800s with spacebar problems."

"I think it was a Friday afternoon. We got a call from Atari California, and my manager came in saying, 'You need to get the modem going and they're going to download this file.' We complete the download and it was basically a beta copy of the Pac Man cartridge. So for the next two hours, I think, four or five of us were sitting around our computers playing a beta copy of the Pac Man cartridge."

"I was actually a support engineer for a commercial -- an Atari 8-bit computer commercial."

LINKS

Atari Computer Commercial Behind The Scenes Photos

Lou and mug

Lou and pencil

On this episode of ANTIC the atari 8-bit podcast:

• a plethora of news about new atari software and podcasts

• Randy tells us all about the “other” official basic, Microsoft BASIC for the Atari

• and we de-brief about all of the recent interviews.

Yoomp will have a great time listening!

Links mentioned in this episode:

Recurring Links

Floppy Days Podcast

AtariArchives.org

AtariMagazines.com

Kevins Book “Terrible Nerd”

New Atari books scans at archive.org

ANTIC feedback at AtariAge

the Atlanta Historical Computing Society

What We’ve Been Up To

Atari Meeting at VCFSE - thread on AtariAge

Floppy Days Episode #33 - The Atari 400/800 Part I (History)

Broderbund FBI FOIA response

EPYX FBI FOIA Response

Synapse Software FBI FOIA Response

Antic and Kevin won a FOILies award for the weird FBI reply about Mattel!

worked with Roland at AtariWiki on finishing up the education tape software collection

Atari 5200 and Atari 2600 News Releases provided by VIctor Cross

Interviews Discussion

Ozark Softscape Revelations Discussion at AtariAge

Atari interview discussion thread on AtariAge

News

New Atari 5200 Super Podcast

Atari 5200 Masterplay Controller Adapter Clone from atariguy1021 on eBay

AMIcast

Electric Dreams BBS Podcast

Atari 7800 Game By Game Podcast

IntariVisions Podcast

TechStuff Podcast - The Rise and Fall of Atari (3 Parts)

Forever Party 2015 held in SlovakiaCompilation Disk of Atari Entries at Forever Party 2015

Midwest Gaming Classic April 11 & 12, 2015, Sheraton Milwaukee Brookfield Hotel

VCF East X April 17-19, 2015, Wall, New Jersey

VCF SE 3.0 Saturday, May 2 & Sunday, May 3, 2015 Kings Market Shopping Center, Roswell, Georgia

Atari Party Sat May 2 2015 at the Davis, CA Public Library

VCF Midwest 10 August 29-30, 2015, Elk Grove Village, IL

2015 10-line BASIC contest update at AtariAge

2015 10-line BASIC Contest Home Page

MegaSpeedy 1050 upgrade

MegaSpeedy 1050 Discussion at AtariAge

new released version 2.60 final of emulator, Altirra

New game released: Tecno Ninja 25 years anniversary edition

ATARI: GAME OVER Documentary of Atari Game Burial with Zak Penn

PacAPong — pac man, space invaders, and donkey kong at the same time

Possible Reboots Of ‘Tempest’ And ‘Missile Command’ Coming From Atari

Dog Poor Anthony 3

Atariware.cl published seven issues of the newsletter "Enter"

New at Archive.org

28 issues of MACE Journal - michigan Atari computer enthusiasts

11 issues of Atari Classics (full run?) pub Dec 1992-April 1995

Many Atari Game manuals

Old Hackers Atari User Group newsletter - complete run of floppies

Bill’s Modern Segment

Type: Action

Name: Yoomp!

Credits:

Idea / main code: Marcin "Eru" Żukowski

Music / sfx: Łukasz "X-Ray" Sychowicz

Graphics: Bartek "BeWu" Wąsiel

Decompression / Music routines: Piotr "0xF" aka "Fox" Fusik

Awards: ABBUC 2007, 1st Place

Links:

* http://yoomp.atari.pl/

Of the Month (Brad)

XC12 Mod in Polish

A8CAS converter

Invitation to Programming 1 in FLAC

Programming Language Segment - Microsoft BASIC (Randy)

Wikipedia

Atari Microsoft BASIC I at AtariMania

Atari Microsoft BASIC II at AtariMania