ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast: Daily Summaries Delivered

ANTIC Interview 460 - Tim Jenkins, Cheating at Roulette

Tim Jenkins, Cheating at Roulette with an Atari Computer Tim Jenkins is the author of several humorous memoirs: "Missions Accomplished: And some funny business along the way", "More Missions Accomplished: And a lot more funny business", and "Business Missions Accomplished: Silly travel tales on the corporate dime". I wanted to talk to Tim about one chapter in his 2018 book More Missions Accomplished: the chapter is titled "Gaming the System" and it tells the tale of him trying to cheat a roulette using his Atari 800 computer. A brief excerpt from that chapter: "Las Vegas — 1989. Shortly after the dawn of the personal computer revolution, opportunity beckoned. Some people wrote software and sold it over retail counters. Others launched services that harnessed the databasing and processing power of the PC to help people find a job, a date, or other people with the same interests. I put my own Atari 800 computer to work simulating roulette. ... If you kept increasing your bet every time you lost a spin of the wheel, eventually your number would come up: The question was, would you earn back all the money you'd previously lost and make a profit? Yes. That is, you would if you did not first run into the table limit. ... How to get there without hitting the max bet? That's what I set out to simulate on my Atari computer. ... The program showed this to be a winning strategy, if perfectly executed." This interview took place on May 22, 2025. More Missions Accomplished at amazon: https://amzn.to/446MrVP At Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/moremissionsacco0000timj/page/138/mode/2up Video version of this interview: https://youtu.be/EW-pDXlBDQg

ANTIC Interview 459 - Mike Lorenzen: Atari Program-Text Editor, Pitfall II

Mike Lorenzen: Atari Program-Text Editor, Pitfall II Mike Lorenzen worked at Atari, Activision, and Accolade, creating games for the Atari 2600, Atari 8-bit, and Commodore 64 computers. At Atari, Mike coded Golf and Circus Atari for the Atari 2600. For the 8-bit computers, he wrote MEDIT (which he told me stands for Mike's EDITor.) Atari got a lot of mileage from MEDIT, using versions of that text editor in several products: first, in Atari Program-Text Editor (which was bundled with Atari's Macro Assembler), and in two Atari Program Exchange products: APX 20075, Atari Program-Text Editor; and APX 20076: Word Processing Diskette, where it was bundled with a text formatter. Both Program-Text Editor and Word Processing Diskette first appeared in the Winter 1981 APX catalog (the second APX catalog) with a price of $39.95 for Program-Text Editor and $49.95 for Word Processing Diskette — relatively hefty prices, considering the median price for software in that catalog was just $17.95. At Activision, he ported Pitfall and Pitfall II Lost Caverns to the Atari 8-bit — and in that, created the undocumented Easter egg of an additional game inside: Pitfall III, which appears only in the Atari 8-bit version. At Accolade, Mike developed the game "Psi-5 Trading Company" for the C64, which he called "the most sophisticated Commodore 64 program ever written". This interview took place on June 4, 2026. Software mentioned: Macro Assembler and Program-Text Editor at AtariMania APX 20075: Atari Program-Text Editor at AtariMania APX 20076: Word Processing Diskette at AtariMania Pitfall at AtariMania Pitfall II Lost Caverns at AtariMania People mentioned: Scott Scheiman interview Dale Yocum interview Chris Crawford interview Fred Thorlin interview Brad Fregger on Lorenzen's overwork More information: Inverse ATASCII reviews APX Program-Text Editor AtariWiki on Program-Text Editor Psi-5 Trading Company

ANTIC Episode 129 - SDX and FNSlots

ANTIC Episode 129 - SDX and FNSlots In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-Bit Computer Podcast…Brad plays around with SDX, Kay and Randy bring you news from some vintage computer shows, we drool over all the new hardware news, and we bring you FujiNet news, including FNSlots… READY! Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast AtariArchives.org AtariMagazines.com Kay's Book "Terrible Nerd" New Atari books scans at archive.org ANTIC feedback at AtariAge Atari interview discussion thread on AtariAge Interview index: here ANTIC Facebook Page AHCS Eaten By a Grue Next Without For What we've been up to Box of stuff from Bob Fraser Light pen - https://atari8bitads.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-light-pen-is-here-and-now-its-gone.html Disks! Six early versions of MEDIT - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/381770-source-code-for-editorassembler-and-programtext-editor-released/#findComment-5854788 Prerelease version of DOS 2.0S - https://github.com/savetz/ballsong INIT HELLO https://init-hello.org/ at System Source Computer Museum https://museum.syssrc.com/ Print Slop https://www.savetz.com/print-shop-camera/atari.html discussion at https://forums.atariage.com/topic/324752-print-shop-atari-related-graphics/#comment-5854339 ANTIC Interview Transcripts site - https://www.savetz.com/antic-interviews/ SDX - https://sdx.atari8.info/index.php VCF SW - https://www.vcfsw.org/ National Videogame Museum - https://www.nvmusa.org ABBUC - https://www.abbuc.de Recent Interviews ANTIC Interview 457 - Atari at the Science Fair: Lisa Link Melville, Weather Prediction ANTIC Interview 458 - Allan Bushman, Atari archivist New & Updated Games EDGE: Eight-bit D*****! Game Engine - <a href= "https://forums.atariage.com/topic/390906-edge-eight-bi

ANTIC Interview 458 - Allan Bushman, Atari archivist

Allan Bushman, Atari Archivist If you've ever looked up an Atari computer manual at Internet Archive, chances are you've come across some of Allan Bushman's scans. For well over 13 years, Allan has been uploading scans of Atari-related catalogs, manuals, and books to the archive. Before that, since 1995 or before, Allan contributed to AtariMagazines.com and AtariMania. With a particular emphasis on finding and archiving Atari Program Exchange manuals, Allan has helped save the vast majority of the APX library. This interview took place on April 19 2026 at Vintage Computer Festival East. As of this recording, only 10 or so APX manuals have yet to be found and scanned. Basic Renumber Utility (Renum) Character Set Editor Database/Report System Diskmenu Home Loan Analysis Reversi/Roman Checkers Basic Arithmetic (MECC) Geography (MECC) Market Place (MECC) Gossip (unreleased?) Dragons Quest or a Twist in the Tail (unreleased?) Allan's scans at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/@allan52 Computer Shopper magazine Atari Articles: https://archive.org/details/@allan52?query=computer+shopper+atari+articles Allan on AtariAge: https://forums.atariage.com/profile/187-allan/

ANTIC Interview 457 - Atari at the Science Fair: Lisa Link Melville, Weather Prediction

Atari at the Science Fair: Lisa Link Melville, Weather Prediction The Herald Times newspaper, April 17 1984: "March 24 proved to be an exciting day for several area students participating in the South Central Indiana Regional Science Fair which was held in Bloomington. Lisa Link, an Edgewood High School junior, and Maxwell Brothers, a Bloomington North senior, took top honors in the advanced division. Programming an Atari 800 computer to forecast the weather was Link's project. The computer's entire 48K memory system was needed to develop the long and complicated program which predicts Bloomington's weather with an 88 percent rate of accuracy. Twelve variables are programmed into the computer which then forecasts the weather using such variables including temperature, cloud cover, rainfall, wind speed and barometric pressure. Link, though not presently enrolled in any science classes at Edgewood, went on to take not only top honors in the Regional Science Fair but also to win certificates of recognition from NASA and the Army as well as second place for best project by the Navy." An article a month later in The Newark Advocate said: "during a 17-day period in February and March, Miss Link said she accurately forecast the weather on 15 days." Her project garnered several awards: second place in her division from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association (which included a prize of $100), an Air Force honorable mention, and honorable mention from the American Meteorological Society. My interview with Lisa Link Melville took place on May 31 2026. Video version of this interview: https://youtu.be/nqJV_--YVkM

ANTIC Episode 128 - Stepping in a Pile of 800XLs

ANTIC Episode 128 - Stepping in a Pile of 800XLs In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-Bit Computer Podcast… special guest Rob McMullen (Player/Missile Podcast) joins us to talk about all the Atari 8-bit news; such as new and updated emulators, Jumpman level editor, Club Med and the Atari, and a whole lot more! READY! Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast AtariArchives.org AtariMagazines.com Kay's Book "Terrible Nerd" New Atari books scans at archive.org ANTIC feedback at AtariAge Atari interview discussion thread on AtariAge Interview index: here ANTIC Facebook Page AHCS Eaten By a Grue Next Without For What we've been up to AltirraSDL - https://github.com/ilmenit/AltirraSDL Fujisan - https://github.com/pedgarcia/fujisan Jumpman Reverse Engineering: https://playermissile.com/jumpman/notes.html Player Missile Podcast https://playermissile.com/ Audacity AI noise reduction plugin (Windows) - https://github.com/intel/openvino-plugins-ai-audacity VCF East - https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/ VCF Pacific Northwest - https://vcfpnw.org/ Computer Museum Tour - (https://icm.museum/) Connections Museum in Seattle - (https://www.telcomhistory.org/) Games Computers Play and Fujinet? https://forums.atariage.com/topic/132176-games-computers-play-inc-multiplayer-online-game/page/3/#findComment-5831081 Further discussion on fujinet discord https://discord.gg/7MfFTvD Jumpman Level Editor: https://www.savetz.com/jumpman/ Discussion - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/252267-jumpman-hacking/page/6/#findComment-5841022 The PowerPad by Chalkboard Inc.: Review in Creative Computing - https://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v9n10/52_The_legend_of_the_pad_of_.php </

ANTIC Episode 127 - Brad's 76K Brain

ANTIC Episode 127 - Brad's 76K Brain In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-Bit Computer Podcast… we turn the podcast into more of a multi-media experience, we cover a LOT of new and updated utility software for the Atari 8-bit, and Kay accuses Brad of having a 76K brain! READY! Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast AtariArchives.org AtariMagazines.com Kay's Book "Terrible Nerd" New Atari books scans at archive.org ANTIC feedback at AtariAge Atari interview discussion thread on AtariAge Interview index: here ANTIC Facebook Page AHCS Eaten By a Grue Next Without For What we've been up to pokey stream player - https://github.com/ilmenit/pokey-stream-player Fujisan with FastBASIC - https://github.com/pedgarcia/fujisan/ This Week in Retro episode 262 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q_ODmzynsM Atari lightbox - techdungeon.xyz Indy Classic Expo - https://www.indyclassic.org

ANTIC Episode 126 - All Atari All the Time