Savetz Posted November 30, 2019 Author Share Posted November 30, 2019 Dennis Zander: Artworx, Hazard Run, Strip Poker http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-376-dennis-zander-artworx-hazard-run-strip-poker Dennis Zander was one of the founding partners of the software publishing company Artworx. He programmed a number of games and educational titles, including Hazard Run, Rings of the Empire, Monkeymath, Giant Slalom, Intruder Alert!, Monkeynews, and others. He collaborated with Roger Harnish on Artworx popular Strip Poker game. This interview took place on June 13, 2019. In it, we discuss Art Walsh, whom I previously interviewed. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted November 30, 2019 Share Posted November 30, 2019 Really cool guy, thanks! Anything new on Astrobot Academy since June? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted November 30, 2019 Author Share Posted November 30, 2019 3 hours ago, www.atarimania.com said: Really cool guy, thanks! Anything new on Astrobot Academy since June? Not yet, but I'm about to ask him. -Kevin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted December 21, 2019 Author Share Posted December 21, 2019 James Hugard, Neanderthal Computer Things http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-377-james-hugard-neanderthal-computer-things James Hugard was co-founder of Neanderthal Computer Things, a company that created just one product. "810 Turbo" was a hardware conversion board for the Atari 810 disk drive that promised true double density storage, and faster data reading and writing. The device, released in 1983, could be installed inside your 810 disk drive with "no jumpers, no soldering, no extra box." It cost $295. James wrote the firmware for the device. Check the show notes for links to the 810 Turbo Manual and advertisement, photos of the board, and a lively discussion on AtariAge (in which James has answered some questions and added more commentary.) This interview took place on June 7, 2019. ALSO: In this AtariAge thread, James has answered some questions and the AtariAge community has reverse-engineered the firmware, and is working on creating replica 810 Turbo devices. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted January 14, 2020 Share Posted January 14, 2020 On 11/30/2019 at 9:45 AM, Savetz said: Dennis Zander was one of the founding partners of the software publishing company Artworx. [...] This interview took place on June 13, 2019. In it, we discuss Art Walsh, whom I previously interviewed. Great interview as always, Kev! I was especially intrigued to hear Dennis talk about _Intruder Alert,_ which I always had in my head as an extremely obscure but quite efficiently programmed BASIC curio. There's actually a fun article on our website about it from a few years back: https://orphanedgames.com/articles/Real-Time_Reactions/Intruder_Alert/Intruder_Alert.html Thanks as usual for all the awesome work! Chris++ (courtesy of BallyAlley's account here) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted February 1, 2020 Author Share Posted February 1, 2020 Craig Hickman, Atari Photography Software and Security System http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-378-craig-hickman-atari-photography-software-and-security-system Craig Hickman was featured in the June 1982 edition of Atari Connection magazine for his photography software tools. "Craig has developed two programs written in Atari BASIC for use in his darkroom. One of the programs times the negative’s development, and the other monitors and times enlargements and the making of the positive prints." His Developing program could store up to 30 film processing combinations. "Once the film is developed into a negative, you are ready to use Craig's Enlarger/Timer program to make a positive print." The Atari 400 was connected to the enlarger with relays: the computer would turn the enlarger on and off at precise intervals for making photographic prints. Craig also rigged up an apartment security system using his Atari 400, which he wrote about in an article on his web site. He wrote: "I designed a home surveillance system for our apartment in Seattle that used little magnetic switches from Radio Shack. It displayed a representation of our apartment on the screen and showed when a door or window was open. It worked so well I expanded the system to include little tilt switches placed on bushes outside the windows. This also worked fine until one windy night when I was away from home and it set off the alarm every few minutes. The next day my wife told me to dismantle it." Later, Craig created the popular program Kid Pix for the early Macintosh computer. This interview took place on January 29, 2020. See the show notes for links to Craig's web site and YouTube channel, and the Atari Connection magazine article. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YSG2020 Posted March 29, 2020 Share Posted March 29, 2020 (edited) On 4/8/2015 at 9:25 AM, Savetz said: Jerry Jessop, Atari ANTIC Interview 30 - Jerry Jessop, Atari 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. 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." After listening to this fantastic interview it is clear that he is entirely correct that Apple became what Atari set the foundation for. Atari should have and would been Apple. Jobs and Woz made some better strategic business/marketing decisions and took advantage of hiring away and continuing the unique Atari creative culture and engineers as it crumbled. Also fascinating that the Amiga would have been an Atari had the company not been sold. Atari’s downfall was that it saw itself as a consumer gaming company and that limited its computer market potential tremendously. Atari is very likely the most important and influential early IT company of all time, or at least in the Top 4 or 5. (Xerox, IBM, HP, Atari) The Macintosh, iPod, iPad could have so easily have been an Atari products (decades earlier too) instead of an Apple if Jobs and Woz had not started their own breakaway company. Edited March 29, 2020 by YSG2020 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonprophet Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 (edited) On 5/7/2019 at 2:57 PM, Savetz said: He did. Bruce did not reply (tried two contact methods.) I'll try again but am not hopeful. -Kevin Kudos to you, Kevin, for pulling off an interview with Bruce Irvine anyway! It's a great interview and we're all very thankful for it. Edited March 31, 2020 by nonprophet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonprophet Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 On 6/17/2017 at 7:38 AM, rkindig said: Jay Balakrishnan, HESWare http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-285-jay-balakrishnan-hesware Jay Balakrishnan bought his first Commodore PET in 1978, which spurred him to found Human Engineered Software (HES or HESWare) in 1980. HESWare got its start on the Commodore PET but later moved into many other platforms. They developed or sold software for C64, Vic-20, Atari 8-bit, Apple II, Atari ST, Amiga, ZX Spectrum, Dragon, TI-99, DOS and others. Many Llamasoft games, through an alliance with Jeff Minter, were published in the US by HESWare. For the Atari 8-bit, they published games like Pastfinder, River Raid, Decathlon, Space Shuttle, Attack of the Mutant Camels, Gridrunner. By early 1984 InfoWorld estimated that HES was tied with Broderbund as the world's tenth-largest microcomputer-software company and largest entertainment-software company. In early 1984 they made their biggest splash when they acquired the services of Leonard Nimoy as spokesman. This interview took place on November 20, 2016. Kevin, Have you ever sought an interview with Jaron Lanier, the "father of Virtual Reality", whom Jay Balakrishnan mentioned during his interview? According to a WIRED story from 1993, Quote [H]e...got work with Atari, creating sound and music for video games. and Quote He free-lanced a high-quality game called Moondust for Atari... Interestingly, Moondust is only listed as being a C64 title in all of the video game databases that I'm aware of so perhaps there was an Atari 800 version that went unpublished? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkindig Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 6 hours ago, nonprophet said: Kevin, Have you ever sought an interview with Jaron Lanier, the "father of Virtual Reality", whom Jay Balakrishnan mentioned during his interview? According to a WIRED story from 1993, and Interestingly, Moondust is only listed as being a C64 title in all of the video game databases that I'm aware of so perhaps there was an Atari 800 version that went unpublished? As Jay was my interview, I still have his contact info and I can ask him if he knows how to contact Jaron Lanier. thanks Randy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonprophet Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 2 hours ago, rkindig said: As Jay was my interview, I still have his contact info and I can ask him if he knows how to contact Jaron Lanier. thanks Randy Hi Randy! Maybe Jay has kept in touch with Jaron through all these years but, in case he hasn't, his current email address on his homepage—which I also provided a link to in my last post—is hello at jaronlanier dot com. Thanks for following up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted April 4, 2020 Share Posted April 4, 2020 On 11/30/2019 at 4:45 PM, Savetz said: Dennis Zander: Artworx, Hazard Run, Strip Poker Nice interview, thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 (edited) On 7/15/2016 at 8:51 PM, Savetz said: John (Harris) told me today: "Pretty sure I don't have any of the basic games. I think the Blythe Valley games may be on the hard drive of the Channel Plus, and Bankster is there for sure. Even mustache game is on it. I had to reconstruct that one from a bad floppy at one point, where I could read most, but not all of it. So I patched in missing sections of code from memory and sleuthing. Looks like the CMOS battery died on it though, so it's going to take some effort to resurrect. Most of it is probably on floppies too, but I don't even have any drives, and unlikely the disks would be readable anyway. In any case, I'll see what I can come up with, but we're still trying to do our beta release, so no free time at the moment. " He's now on my list to follow up in a few weeks. Is there any update on this? Edited April 10, 2020 by www.atarimania.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted April 10, 2020 Author Share Posted April 10, 2020 2 hours ago, www.atarimania.com said: Is there any update on this? In 2017 John sent me a batch of disks ("This wasn't actually the main stash I was looking for," he wrote) which I was able to read in June 2018. Yikes! I can't find any record that I posted those to Internet Archive or AtariAge. I emailed Roland about trying to compile Bankster, then forgot about it. At the time, I wrote to John [with current comments in brackets]: "A ZIP file containing the disk images are attached. Plus some screenshots which are easier to look at. Bankster: there is plenty of assembly source code, but I don’t seem to have any object code. I’ll ask a techie friend if it’s compile-able. [John told me "The last game I was working on for Synapse, "Bankster". Might not be the most recent, but probably close." It was done with the MAE Assembler. I asked Roland about it and then we both forgot about it.] Board Advent: in BASIC. if you RUN”D:ADVEN then at the ? prompt, enter one of the four-letter filenames (like SERP) it seems to let you edit enemy stats for a game. ["Something called "Board Adventure 2.0". This would be interesting to recover, because I don't quite remember what it is. I just know that I used to play homemade board games with a group of friends in San Diego, and I think this is either a supplement to, or a simulation of some of those efforts."] Briar Rose: I got it to work by putting “Briar Rose side A dd” in drive 1, and “Storybook side B” in drive 2. [Neither of these have files or screenshots on AtariMania)] Hansel & Gretel: got the program to run but it wants the Picture Disk, I’m not sure what file it wants where. [Neither of these have files or screenshots on AtariMania)] Maneuvering: data seems to be good, but it doesn’t self-boot and I can’t get a list of list of files. Stuck for now. ["A work in progress board game called “Maneuvering”. “It’s a very cool strategy board game that I was working on along with Warren Schwader doing an Apple ][ version."] " Today, I just emailed John again to see if he has found more disks or the hard drive data. -K John Harris disks.zip 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 So cool, thanks so much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted April 14, 2020 Share Posted April 14, 2020 (edited) Thanks to some incredible work by Fandal (once again!), here's a playable prototype of Bankster assembled from the code on John Harris' disks: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-bankster_35883.html Edited April 14, 2020 by www.atarimania.com 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted April 14, 2020 Author Share Posted April 14, 2020 3 hours ago, www.atarimania.com said: Thanks to some incredible work by Fandal (once again!), here's a playable prototype of Bankster assembled from the code on John Harris' disks: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-bankster_35883.html Wow, this could have been a great game. I love all the stuff going on, the color, the wide playfield. There's no sound or death detection, but you can get around on the overhead scrolly things and elevator, and sometimes the ladders. You can jump, and pick up the gold bars and drop them (even from very high, they fall.) You can pick up an axe and (very temporarily) kill the guy pursuing you. -K 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonprophet Posted April 15, 2020 Share Posted April 15, 2020 On 6/13/2016 at 8:13 AM, Savetz said: Joel Gluck: Babel, Attank!, Pushover, Fun-FORTH http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-186-joel-gluck-babel-attank-pushover-fun-forth ... He later worked at Atari's corporate research under Alan Kay. ... Hi Kay, Have you ever sought an interview with Alan Kay? It'd be interesting to hear what his goals were during his time at Atari and the obstacles he faced whilst trying to achieve them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted April 15, 2020 Author Share Posted April 15, 2020 1 hour ago, nonprophet said: Hi Kay, Have you ever sought an interview with Alan Kay? It'd be interesting to hear what his goals were during his time at Atari and the obstacles he faced whilst trying to achieve them. Many times. He has layers of protection around him. -K 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted April 15, 2020 Share Posted April 15, 2020 ...he doesn't respond to "fan" mail either. sigh. -Thom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonprophet Posted April 16, 2020 Share Posted April 16, 2020 On 4/15/2020 at 4:16 PM, Savetz said: Many times. He has layers of protection around him. -K Hi Kay, Well thanks for trying! I've watched a number of his presentations and interviews but I can only remember him mentioning Atari once so, AFAICT, he could probably still tell some stories that few have heard. Hopefully he'll come around before it's too late; you and Randy have long since proven yourselves to be legitimate interviewers who shall be remembered in the annals of computing history for the preservation work that you've collectively done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted April 17, 2020 Author Share Posted April 17, 2020 Gabriel Baum: Atari Conversational French and Spanish http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-378-gabriel-baum-atari-conversational-french-and-spanish Gabriel Baum worked at Thorn EMI, where he managed the project to create two early language learning programs that were published by Atari: Conversational French and Conversational Spanish. (Atari's language learning series would also include Conversational German — Gabriel started that, but left Thorn EMI before that project was finished — and Conversational Italian.) After Thorn EMI, Gabriel moved to Mattel where he became one of the "Blue Sky Rangers," creating Intellivision games. If you'd like to hear more about that, Paul Nurminen interviewed him about that time in episode 37 of The Intellivisionaries podcast. For a deep dive into the Atari Conversational French software, listen to season 5, episode 1 of the Inverse ATASCII podcast. You can download the software and audio for all of the conversational language series from AtariWiki. This interview took place on March 31, 2020. In it, Gabriel mis-remembers a bit of the technical capabilities of the Atari cassette drive, which was a lot less sophisticated than he recalls. If you'd like to read the technical details of how the Atari 410 and 1010 program recorders worked, check out Appendix C of De Re Atari. Update that's not reflected in the episode: Paul Nurminen of the Intellivisionaries podcast listened moments after it went online, and clarified something: Paul wrote "It definitely sounds like Gabriel is confusing the Intellivision Keyboard Component 'Conversational French' — which did record, rewind/seek and playback phrases — with the Atari 8-bit programs." 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted April 26, 2020 Author Share Posted April 26, 2020 Atari Speed Reading: Karlyn Kamm and Brad Oltrogge http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-380-atari-speed-reading-karlyn-kamm-and-brad-oltrogge The Atari Speed Reading software package was released by Atari in 1981. It was a self-paced program, for use with the Atari computer and a cassette drive, that promised to teach you to increase reading speed and comprehension with 30 days of practice. The package contained a workbook and five cassette tapes. This is an interview with two of the people who created the Atari Speed Reading package. Karlyn Kamm created the speed reading educational material at the University of Wisconsin with Dr. Wayne Otto. In 1975, she and Dr. Otto published a book titled "Speedway, the Action Way to Read." Dr. Otto died in 2017. Brad Oltrogge is president of Learning Multi-Systems, the software publisher that was contracted by Atari to turn Kamm and Otto's speed reading material into a product for the Atari home computer. This interview took place on April 16, 2020. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dracon Posted May 1, 2020 Share Posted May 1, 2020 Hiya, folx! Could I add my two big interviews with legendary people who did a lot for Atari 8-bit? They are here: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/61379-interview-with-adam-gilmore https://atariage.com/forums/topic/306235-interview-with-fready/ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted May 2, 2020 Share Posted May 2, 2020 On 4/25/2020 at 10:43 PM, Savetz said: Atari Speed Reading: Karlyn Kamm and Brad Oltrogge [Interview] The Atari Speed Reading software package was released by Atari in 1981. It was a self-paced program, for use with the Atari computer and a cassette drive, that promised to teach you to increase reading speed and comprehension with 30 days of practice. The package contained a workbook and five cassette tapes. This was a really fun interview. I didn't realize that speed reading is meant to do anything more than to help you read faster. I had no idea that it is actually a study tool. After listening to the interview, I figured that I might try to run the software under Altirra. Kay (did I spell that right, old-Kevin?) linked to a page with all of the FLAC files (and more!) for Speed Reading: https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Atari Speed Reading Is there a tape format that I can easily use to run this program and hear the voice? Oh, and doesn't the guy holding the book on the cover of Speed Reading look like he might be holding a modern-day tablet? Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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