Harvey Lentchner software

Gury · December 8, 2013

Hello everybody,

I had a nice chat with Harvey Lentchner, very kind person, author of Klystron Raider, who gave me permission to put his software on my site. Currently my library only has Klystron Raider (sold by Creative Computing under the name of Onslaught), but I couldn't find other software. So, if anybody has anything from Harvey, please post here and we will make it available to public for download.

Klystron Raider

Here is quoted Harvey Lentchner's description of his work for Atari 8-bit and Atari ST family of computers:

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That was a long time ago. I was an Atari developer for the 800, then later

for the ST.

I had a few games for the 800 that were sort of popular.

Math Duel, written for my son to help him in math. It had automatic skill

adjustments, but was so fast paced that no one ever noticed. The better

player usually won the first game, the poorer skilled one usually won the

second game, then it was a toss-up. I demonstrated it in his school once and

could not get the kids away from it. The programming worked and made me feel

good.

Jill's Twinkle, written for my 4 year old daughter. Sort of a chutes and

ladders game. Again multiple skill levels. Hitting the space bar to move,

identifying a number to move, then simple addition to move.

Codeword a word game with memory exercise. An adult game.

Klystron Raider, sold by Creative Computing under the name of Onslaught.

Began as an experiment in scrolling, then display list manipulation. Up to

48 players at a time on screen, in 48 colors. (The computer could only

display 4 players/colors at a time, don't tell me what I cannot do, came

into play again. I just changed the display list every 8 scan lines, bingo.)

I also had out a Mailing List program. It put more data on the disk than it

was rated for. I may have been the first one to use data compression.

Version 1 was written in Basic, Version 2 was all hand crafted machine

language.

All are free game to put up on your site, If you can find the originals.

They are stored on 5 1/4" floppys and they have fallen apart.

I have a vague feeling that there was one more, but cannot remember what it

was.

I worked on a game making program for the ST. It made making games easy,

design the player, design the board, define the possible moves of the

player, and the game would be made for you. It took about a year and a half

and was ready. Then we had a break-in and the computer was stolen, never

recovered. (That defined the meaning of "pissed" for me.)

P.S. Good to hear from you again.

Harvey Lentchner

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There were two versions of the Mailing List program. V1 was written in Basic

and worked well, V2 was hand crafted in machine language and was instant in

functions. It was a fun time in my life.

Harvey

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Greetings,

Gury

www.atarimania.com · December 8, 2013

Another mystery solved!

Was Onslaught actually sold by Creative Computing Software? I have never seen it mentioned ANYWHERE so the company may have just bought / picked up the game without properly releasing it.

Was Klystron Raider sold by Harvey Lentchner himself as well?

BTW, you can now link all programs to Harvey's original company name: HEL Laboratories, Inc. ;-)