ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Al Alcorn, Atari Employee #3

Welcome to Antic, the Atari 8-bit computer podcast. I’m Randy Kindig and this is an interview-only episode of Antic. My guest for this interview was employee #3 at Atari where he created the world's first commercially successful video game: Pong, Mr. Al Alcorn. Al was a very influential figure in the early Atari and has a lot of great stories to share about those early days. He tells us about Steve Jobs stealing employees from Atari, his opportunity to buy into Apple, why Atari got into the home computer business, a special meeting with IBM concerning Atari computers, and his thoughts about why Atari failed. Al has a terrific sense of humor and I very much enjoyed talking with him. I hope you enjoy it too.

Links

Al twitter

Al Alcorn at Wikipedia

Space Ghost Coast to Coast with Al

Al Alcorn Interview at IGN

William Volk

William Volk wrote three Atari games for Avalon Hill: Conflict 2500, Voyager 1, and Controller. He also wrote Forth Turtle Graphics Plus, a 3-D graphics library for the Forth language that was released by Atari Program Exchange; ValGraphics for Valpar International; and Super Smart Terminal, an 80-column terminal application which -- may have been released by APX? He later went on to work on Return To Zork for Activision.

This interview was conducted March 25 2015.

Teaser quotes:

"True story, when we did Conflict 2500, we had no documentation, so we literally started poking addresses to find out how to do things. Literally."

"It sounded like a good deal but I was still in grad school so I said, 'I would only do that if you paid me X,' where X was for the time was some ridiculous amount of money. And they said 'Sure, we'll pay you that much.'"

"It looked terrible. It looked annoying as hell but it was funny because it made you think you were in a radar room, you know?"

"Voyager 1 was in inspired by Alien. In fact I remember taking my future wife to the premiere of Alien in Philadelphia, thinking that it was going to be like Star Wars: pretty light-hearted. I was kind of shocked. As was she! Our first movie date."

LINKS

Obsolete Gamer interview with William Volk

Stick Figure Movie Trivia

William Volk Papers at Video Game History Foundation

Atarimania's List of William's Games

Jerry Jessop

Jerry Jessop worked at Atari from 1977 through 1985 where he did many jobs - including lead of production repair, customer service supervisor for the Atari 400/800, and he worked with the secret skunkworks group that was creating the Amiga, when it still could have been an Atari product. In this interview he shares great stories, including how he hand-assembled Atari 800s on the production floor, and fired up the very first 800XL prototype the very first time.

This interview was conducted on March 28, 2015.

Teaser quotes:

"I worked on the 1400XL. I could tell from day one, nobody had their heart into it."

"It was good stuff cutting up Atari 2600s on a Sunday afternoon."

"I shoved 72 Atari 810s in a 1979 Dodge Colt one day. I took the seats out so that I could load up as many 810s as I could possibly get in there."

"We had this big inflatable frog that we grabbed from the party, and we're walking down the street in Chicago and we ran into a very drunk on-the-street Muhammad Ali."

David Cramer - Western Design Center

David Cramer is the VP of Business Development at Western Design Center, the company that still, today, manufacturers and sells the 6502 chip, the CPU that's at the heart of the Atari 800, Apple ][, Commodore 64, and many other classic computers. In fact, the 6502 is used in many modern applications like pacemakers, and it's also available in development kits for hobbyists, as David explains.

This interview occurred on March 27, 2015.

LINKS

Western Design Center

65xx.com

mouser

Jameco Electronics

Rich Pasco

Rich Pasco was Manager of VLSI Development where he worked on the FREDDIE memory management chip used in the Atari XL and XE series computers. He worked at Atari from November 1982 through May 1983. He lobbied management to create some products for the Atari 8-bit line -- including a mouse and an 80+ column display system -- which were not developed. Prior to his time at Atari, he was a member of the research staff at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).

This interview took place on March 27, 2015.

ANTIC Episode 20 - Visicalc, Choplifter

LINKS:

Virtual Apple ][

Drop 300 Inches Podcast

Peter Dell, WUDSN and THE!CART Studio

Hello, welcome to another interview-only episode of Antic, the Atari 8-bit podcast. My name is Randy Kindig and today I’ll be talking with Peter Dell, also known as JAC! on AtariAge. Peter is the developer of the outstanding WUDSN product for developing Atari 8-bit software and also is the developer of another product called THE!CART Studio, which is used to put software onto the flash cartridge product known as THE!CART. Peter is doing some amazing work for the Atari 8-bits and I hope you enjoy this interview.

This interview was recorded via Skype on December 21, 2014.

Links

http://www.wudsn.com/

http://www.mega-hz.de/Angebote/THE!CART/THE!CART_EN.htm

W. Sean Hennessy

W. Sean Hennessy worked in the Consumer Electronics Division at Atari from April 1982 through March 1984 where he developed Realsports Tennis for the Atari 800 and 5200, and created the version of Centipede for the Atari 5200, and Pengo for the Atari 800 and 5200. He also worked at The Software Machine, a company that was working to create edutainment software for the Atari and other platforms.

This interview took place March 1 2015.

Scott Adams - Adventure International

Scott Adams is probably best known for his line of text adventures for early personal computers -- including AdventureLand, Pirate Adventure, Mystery Fun House, and many others. He was also the founder of Adventure International, the company that brought Atari users myraid programs, including Preppie!, Rally Speedway, Whomper Stomper, and lots of others. The company also released countless programs for TRS-80, Commodore, Apple ][, and other platforms.

This interview took place March 16 2015.

LINKS

Scott Adams' web site

Play Scott Adams' adventures on the web

AtariMania's list of Adventure International games

Michael Katz is a video games industry pioneer. Katz was Marketing Director for New Product Categories at Mattel Toys, where he helped create the portable, hand-held games category with the Auto Race and Mattel Football handheld toys. And he was Vice President of Marketing at Coleco, where he worked on ColecoVision and the Coleco tabletop arcade game line. Then he was president at Epyx, where he oversaw the release of three hits for the Atari 8-bit computers — Pitstop, Jumpman, and Summer Games. He left Epyx for Atari, where he was head of the short-lived entertainment electronics division.(What's electronic entertainment? Think hardware toys like Teddy Ruxpin and Laser Tag.) Later, he was president of Sega Entertainment, where he oversaw the launch of the Sega Genesis.

LINK

Coleco Electronic Quarterback commercial