ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Fandal: Atari programer and archivist Frantisek Houra is better known to the Atari community as Fandal. He's an Atari computer programmer and long-time archivist of European Atari software. He has created many original Atari games and conversions from other platforms: including Fruity Pete, Mashed Turtles, Crescent Solitaire, and Diamondz. This interview took place on August 28, 2019, during the Fujiama Atari conference in Lengenfeld, Germany. Roland Wassenberg sat in to assist with the interview. Shortly after, Fandal and I and several other attendees hooked up a multijoy and played some rounds of Mashed Turtles with six players (up to eight can play), and it was so. much. fun. Fandal's web site Mashed Turtles Xenophobe game for sale at Video61

Gregg Squires, Atari Manager of Hardware Engineering Gregg Squires was a Manager of Hardware Engineering at Atari from 1982 through 1984, working from their New York office. He was project manager for Val, a cost-reduced version of the Atari 2600; and project manager for the Atari XL computer series. He was co-designer of the 65816 microprocessor architecture. Greg sent me a scan of an Atari 600XL Product Status Meeting handout dated January 1983. It's an impressive 45 pages and paints a clear picture of the timeline, costs, and issues involved with creating that computer. This interview took place on February 13, 2019. Atari VAL photo Atari 600XL Product Status Meeting Handout The Working Clock-Timer by Joel Moskowitz ANTIC Interview 65 - Steve Mayer, 400/800 Designer

Rik Dickinson, Encore Video Productions Rik Dickinson is founder of Encore Video Productions, a company that rented Atari 8-bit computers to hotels for use as character generators. The computers would show information about the hotel on channel 2 of guests' televisions. This was part of a service that Encore offered to provide in-room movies that ran off videotapes. The tape machines ran on a timer, and when the movie ended, the video feed switched back to the text information displayed by the Atari. This interview took place on April 20, 2020. Forum about Encore Video Productions Display System Encore Video Productions

David Gedalia, Atari-controlled Telescope Listener Paul Somerfeldt sent me a blurb he found in a book titled "The Dobsonian Telescope" by David Kriege and Richard Berry. The book reads: "Computer-controlled Dobsonian telescopes entered amateur astronomy in the late 1980s. An outstanding early example was David Gedalia's 10-inch f/4.5 Dobsonian driven by an Atari 800XL computer, shown at the 1987 Riverside Telescope Makers Conference. With the Atari driving altitude and azimuth stepper-motors, the telescope would move automatically to coordinates entered on the computer’s keyboard. David was a third-year engineering student when he built this telescope." I sought out David to find out more about his Atari-controlled telescope. This interview took place on May 29, 2020. Photos of David with his telescope The Dobsonian Telescope by David Kriege and Richard Berry

New Horizons in Amateur Astronomy by Grant Fjermedal