ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

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**ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast**

We cover Atari news, reviews, and a special feature each show for the Atari 8-bit line of computers (400/800/XL/XE/XEGS)

Latest Episodes:

Inteview Index May 22, 2016

Show notes

Click here to see the index of ANTIC interviews

ANTIC Interview 176 - Clyde Spencer: Stereo 3-D Graphics and Isopleth Map Making May 22, 2016

Show notes

Clyde Spencer: Stereo 3-D Graphics and Isopleth Map Making

Clyde Spencer published two programs through Atari Program Exchange: Stereo 3-D Graphics Package and Isopleth Map-Making Package. Stereo 3-D Graphics Package was first available in the winter 1982 APX catalog, and Map-Making in the Spring 1982 catalog. Clyde was also co-founder of the Bay Area Atari Users Group, and wrote some reviews for Antic magazine.

This interview took place on March 1, 2016. In it, we discuss Liza Loop and John Crane, both of whom I previously interviewed.

Teaser quote:

"I actually withdrew my teacher's retirement money out to help fund the startup on that. ... About a year or two into that project, Atari went bankrupt. ... I was left with an orphan then at that point in time."

Stereo 3-D Graphics Package: Winter 1982 APX catalog

Isopleth Map-Making Package: Spring 1982 APX catalog

Clyde's articles in Antic magazine

ANTIC Interview 175 - Robert Waldman, Financial Asset Managment System May 20, 2016

Show notes

Robert Waldman, Financial Asset Managment System

Robert Waldman wrote Financial Asset Managment System, which was published by Atari Program Exchange. It first appeared in the Fall 1981 APX catalog, where it won second prize in the personal finance and record keeping category.

As explained in my interview, Robert submitted a program called Atari 800 Olympic Gamebook System to Atari Program Exchange but it was not accepted or released. Robert sent me his only copy of the never-before-published Olympic Game Book System software, which was lost in the mail. He scanned the manual and a small part of the program listing, which I've uploaded to archive.org (you'll find a link in the show notes at AtariPodcast.com). But it appears that the complete program is gone forever.

This interview took place on February 8, 2016.

Teaser quote:

"I remember writing long BASIC programs. I would come home from work and then stay up all night coding."

Atari 800 Olympic Gamebook System manual

Financial Asset Managment System catalog entry

ANTIC Interview 174 - Tod Frye, Asteroids May 18, 2016

Show notes

Tod Frye, Asteroids

Hi, there! Welcome to the next in the series of Atari-related interviews being produced by Antic, the Atari 8-bit computer podcast. My name is Randy Kindig and I'll be leading this interview. Most notably, while working at Atari, Tod Frye developed the 400/800 version of Asteroids and the 2600 version of Pac-Man, converting them from the coin-op version. He has many other games to his credit. He later worked for Axlon, Nolan Bushnell's company.

This interview was conducted on January 3, 2016.

Teaser Quotes

"While I was at Atari, it went from a pretty big company, to a huge company, to a complete flop."
"I didn't work at Atari; I LIVED at Atari; and I loved it."
"Because of the CTIA and GTIA and Antic, the sprite hardware was WAY better than the sprite hardware on the Commodore."
"The hard parts were: writing code that was fast enough, writing code that was small enough to fit in the cartridge, and writing code that would fit in the RAM. Basically everything was hard."

Links

Tod Frye at Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tod_Frye
Tod Frye at PRGE 2015 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLoJ5jcccPU

ANTIC Interview 173 - Ursula Wolz, early computing and education May 16, 2016

Show notes

Ursula Wolz, early computing and education

Ursula Wolz was thinking about computers and education in the early days of personal computing. She worked on Apple ][ games for Children's Television Workshop, consulted for Atari Research on their endeavors in educational software, and taught Logo to some of the first students who learned it.

This interview took place on February 12, 2016

Teaser quote:

"It was one of the first games that was completely graphical ... Because the kids using it might not be able to read the text, we did everything through gestures."

Ursula's site: https://sites.google.com/site/theimpatientcoder/

ANTIC Interview 172 - Owen Rubin: Major Havoc, Space Duel May 14, 2016

Show notes

Owen Rubin: Major Havoc, Space Duel

Owen Rubin worked in Atari's coin-op division from 1976 to 1984 — he is best known for his programming work there on Major Havoc, Space Duel, and Battlezone. He also served as a go-between between the arcade division and the consumer division, where the Atari home computers were created. After that, he was a game designer at Nolan Bushnell's Bally Sente.

In this interview, we discuss Ed Rotberg, whom I previously interviewed. This interview contains some coarse language.

It took place on February 12, 2016.

Teaser quotes:

"And I lost it. I just completely lost it with him ... and I slammed the listings down on his desk, basically clearing his desk of just about everything else, and I said, 'Do it yourself, I quit.'"

"I find MAME both very cool that you can see it, and very sad that you don't get the right feel."

"We really wanted coin-op games to be about a 90-second experience. Up to a couple minutes if you got good at it."

Owen's web site: http://www.orubin.com

Owen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/orubin

Ed Rotberg interview: http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-72-ed-rotberg-rotberg-synthesizer

ANTIC Interview 171 - Randy Glover, Jumpman May 12, 2016

Show notes

Randy Glover, Jumpman

Randy Glover is the creator of one of the best games for the Atari computers, Jumpman, which was published by EPYX. He also created the sequel, Jumpman Junior, and programmed the swimming competition portion of Summer Games. Randy ported Jumpman to the Commodore 64 and created another C64 game, Lunar Outpost.

This interview took place on May 7, 2016. I am joined on this interview by Rob McMullen, host of the Player/Missile Podcast, who has been working to reverse engineer Jumpman using the Omnivore binary editor that he created.

For more background on EPYX, you might enjoy Antic's interviews with Jon Freeman, co-founder of EPYX; and Michael Katz, the CEO of EPYX — he oversaw the development of Jumpman, Pitstop, and Summer Games.

Teaser quote:

"My guy ran around in this environment purely based on his collision with the environment. I like to think that made him more interesting, more spontaneous. He wasn't pretty -- he was just a little stick man -- but he ran around with a certain flair and he reacted to the environment."

The Digital Antiquarian - From Automated Simulations to Epyx: http://www.filfre.net/2013/08/from-automated-simulations-to-epyx/

Jon Freeman interview: http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-70-jon-freeman-freefall-associates

Michael Katz interview: http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-24-the-atari-8-bit-podcast-michael-katz

Player/Missile podcast: http://www.playermissile.com

Omnivore, the Atari 8-bit Binary Editor: http://playermissile.com/omnivore/

AtariMania's list of Randy's games: http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-glover-randy_team_472_8_G.html

Jumpman hacking thread on AtariAge: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/252267-jumpman-hacking/

ANTIC Interview 170 - Mike Silva, Syncalc May 10, 2016

Show notes

Mike Silva, Syncalc

Mike Silva worked at Synapse, where he wrote the Syncalc spreadsheet application.

In this interview we talk about Ihor Woloseko, whom I previously interviewed.

This interview took place on February 11, 2016.

Teaser quotes:

"If I had put out a game ... it would have sold a few thousand copies and that would been it. So I just got dumb lucky by being talked into writing a spreadsheet instead."

"These guys, a lot of them, they were in the world - some of them - before they were ready for it. I remember a couple of young programmers, they were just freaked out about having to make decisions, and having to pay taxes. It was almost too much success too early for some of them."

Atari Synapse Commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkpbIbFHDQU

SynCalc at AtariMania: http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-syncalc_s12808.html

Ihor Woloseko interview: http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-13-the-atari-8-bit-podcast-ihor-wolosenko

Inverse ATASCII reviews SynCalc: https://inverseatascii.info/2016/02/23/s2e08-synapse-software-syncalc/

ANTIC Interview 169 - Richard Lindgren, APX financial software May 07, 2016

Show notes

Richard Lindgren, APX financial software

Richard Lindgren published two programs in Atari Program Exchange. Real Estate Cash Flow Analysis first appeared in the winter 1983 APX catalog, where it won first prize in the business and professional applications category. Strategic Financial Ratio Analysis was first available in the summer 1983 catalog, where it took second prize in the home management category.

Richard also wrote the program Banjo Picker, "Program your Atari to make sounds like an automated five-string banjo," which appeared in the October 1985 issue of Antic magazine, and which provides intro tune for this episode.

This interview took place on February 8, 2016.

Teaser quote:

"You know, the APX experience was an intersting experience ... I think it was a really interesting precursor of the models that we're seeing today."

Richard's software at AtariMania

Real Estate Cash Flow Analysis entry in APX catalog

Strategic Financial Ratio Analysis entry in APX catalog

Banjo Picker: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v4n6/banjo.html

ANTIC Interview 168 - Marcin Sochacki, SIO2BT May 04, 2016

Show notes

Marcin Sochacki, SIO2BT

Marcin Sochacki, also known as Montezuma on AtariAge, is originally from Poland and currently lives in Germany. In recent years he developed theSIO2BT, or SIO to Bluetooth for the Atari computer line. This hardware allows you to connect your Atari to your modern computer,tablet, or smartphone to share files. Mar-TEEN also developed the NVC (Next Valid Character) software, a tool for organizing files on SD cards for SIO2SD. And, if that weren't enough, he also developed the Megacart Studio PC software, a tool for the 512k and 4MB Flash MegaCart Module. The Megacart Studio generates a ROM and bootable ATR files that are used to flash the MegaCart modules.

This interview was conducted onNovember 22, 2015.

Links

1) "SIO2BT" project (1st place in the ABBUC Hardware Contest 2014)

Google Play

Google Drive

Ordering Thread on AtariAge

This project is still being developed (and got recently new TCP/IP networking functionality).

2) "NVC" PC software (in Java)for effectively working with SIO2SD

Not spread out that much, but really usefully for all RETRO freaks (not only ATARI).

3) "Megacart Studio" PC software(in Java) for "Flash Megacart" cartridge project

In a few episodes you mentionedRaspberry Pi and you wondered how could it be married with the8-bit ATARI:

SIO2PI

It was one of my small projects to use a Raspberry Pi as a floppy emulator (with AspeQt).

The idea to use a RPI as anATARI emulator is nice, as well. Especially if you build your own(mini) Arcade Cabinet for it

This is a nice manual about connecting a real joystick to the RPI

And if do not have time, but have some free money, some guys are selling a ready RPI Arcadekit

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