Bob Stein, Atari’s Encyclopedia Project Bob Stein worked at Atari Research for 18 months beginning in 1981. He was hired by Alan Kay. He worked almost exclusively on an encyclopedia project, a potential collaboration between Atari and Encyclopaedia Britannica that never went anywhere. I learned about Bob after he uploaded an item called The Atari D…

Episode 144 - Interview with Don French and Steve Leininger, Co-Designers of the TRS-80 Model I Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics Arcade Shopper FutureVision Research Hello, and welcome to episode 144 of the Floppy Days Podcast, for October, 2024. I am Randy Kindig, your host for this audio ode to the home compute…

ANTIC Episode 111 - “Is Kay Really Funny, or is it Just a Courtesy Snicker?” In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-Bit Computer Podcast… We go over the ABBUC Software Contest winners, we cover PRGE, Kay accelerates his interview publishing schedule, and we ask the question: Is Kay really funny, or are Randy’s snickers simply courtesy? You decide … R…

Nick Kennedy, Atari Morse Code Keyer I was adding a batch of ham radio newsletters to the Internet Archive's Digital Library of Amateur Radio And Communications, and I noticed the word "Atari" on one of the pages. In the September 2019 issue of Solid Copy, the newsletter of The CW Operators Club, Nick Kennedy had written: "Few hams who are both CW …

Ed Sabo, UltraBASIC Ed Sabo, with the help of his dad, founded UltraBASIC, a company that produced software for Atari 8-bit computers. UltraBASIC's software for the Atari 8-bits, which was all programmed by Ed, were: Tank Math: "a tutored math exercise plus a bonus roman numeral quiz" FunSpeller: "use your own words or the fifteen word-sets include…

Discovered from some reel to reel tapes made in the early 1970s was an account of a Roman ghosts in West Mersea in Essex as well as the unfortunate treatment of 'Witches' in Thorpe Le Soken, Saint Osyth and strange goings on in Great Leighs in 1941! Enjoy a Rural Essex Accent and a well told story recovered from old technology! The second recording…

Two Interviews about Making Modern Atari Hardware In this interview episode, there are interviews with two people creating today's Atari hardware: the Atari 400 Mini and other modern reboots of retro consoles such as the Atari 7800+. First, an interview with Matthew Burnett, Vice President of Strategic Operations at Atari — the guy in charge of Ata…

Episode 143 - Interview with Paul Terrell, The Byte Shop - Part 3 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics Arcade Shopper FutureVision Research Hello, and welcome to episode 143 of the Floppy Days Podcast, for September, 2024. I am Randy Kindig, your host for this retro ride to the past of home computing. This month I’m …

ANTIC Episode 110 - Are the Grandkids Listening!? In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-Bit Computer Podcast… Kay makes TI users unhappy, VCFMW recap, we drool over an Atari Home Computer Demonstration Center display, we bid farewell to an Atari podcast, and Randy uses a word he wouldn’t want his grandkids to hear… READY! Recurring Links Floppy Days…

ANTIC Interview 438 - John Carlsen - Atari Summer Employee Hello, and welcome to this interview-only episode of ANTIC, The Atari 8-bit computer podcast. I’m Randy Kindig, your host for this episode. John Carlsen worked at Atari only briefly, as a summer job for 6 weeks in 1987, between his final years of high school. Later, in 1988-1989, he worked …

Interview with Steve Leininger, Designer of the TRS-80- Model I Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics Arcade Shopper 0 Floppy Days Tune 1 min 13 sec Vintage Computer Ads 1 min 42 sec Intro 9 min 03 sec bumper - Peter Bartlett 9 min 11 sec New Acquisitions 17 min 11 sec bumper - Ian Mavric 17 min 19 sec Upcoming Comput…

ANTIC Episode 109 - Host Wars In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-Bit Computer Podcast… Brad and Randy cover VCFSE, Kay finishes archiving the Famous Computer Cafe and gets some great material from Dan Kramer and Larry Summers, and the hosts trade barbs… READY! Links for Items Mentioned in Show: What we’ve been up to Larry Summers: Excalibur - htt…

Episode 141 - Interview with Paul Terrell, The Byte Shop - Part 2 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics Arcade Shopper Hello, and welcome to episode 141 of the Floppy Days Podcast, for July, 2024. I am Randy Kindig, your host, as always, for this historical perspective on obsolete-but-still fun technology. This month …

ANTIC Episode 108 - Randy’s Eyes Are Bleeding! In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-Bit Computer Podcast… Kay visits VCFSW and the National Videogame Museum, tapes from the famous Computer Cafe are found, Atari acquires Intellivision, and Randy’s eyes start bleeding from watching YouTube videos 24x7… READY! Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast Atari…

Episode 140 - Interview with Paul Terrell, The Byte Shop - Part 1 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics Arcade Shopper Hello, and welcome to episode 140 of the Floppy Days Podcast, for June, 2024. I am Randy Kindig, your guide to this journey through vintage computer goodness. This month I’m bringing you another inter…

Randy and Earl talk about ugBASIC, and Randy interviews the author/creator! News BASIC 60th birthday!: https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/basic_60th_birthday_releases/ AMSCII-Compo: https://logiker.com/AMSCII-Compo (Amstrad CPC AMSCII) Show Topic ugBASIC main site: https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/ ugBASIC IDE: https://spotlessmind1975.itch.io/ugbas…

Teletext50: The Stories A Byte High No Limit / illarterate co-production In 1974, a brand new technology called teletext was being rolled out. It would, over the next few decades, have far-reaching implications, not only in the UK but worldwide. These are the stories of those involved in the production, restoration and art of the blocky medium that…

ANTIC Interview 437 - Dr. Kristina Hooper Woolsey, Atari Research Labs and Apple Multimedia Lab Hello, and welcome to this interview-only episode of ANTIC, The Atari 8-bit computer podcast. I’m Randy Kindig, your host for this episode. Dr. Kristina Hooper Woolsey is an American scholar and cognitive scientist known as the "mother of multimedia" for…

Episode 139 - Interview with Vic Tolomei, VP Software Development, Exidy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics Arcade Shopper Hello, and welcome to episode 139 of the Floppy Days Podcast, for May, 2024. This month I’m bringing you another interview episode; in the ongoing effort to document the story of Exidy and its …

James Domestic grew up in Essex, is a compulsive songwriter, a musician, occasional DJ, painter, poet, and punk. He holds a doctorate from the University of Essex, has toured the world and elsewhere with The Domestics, and made records with more bands than is healthy or sensible. He was kind enough to speak to me in his Local, The Brewers Tap, Sudb…

ANTIC Episode 107 - 4 Times! In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-Bit Computer Podcast…we realize there are 4 times as many interview episodes as regular episodes and what that might say, Kay visits the Strong Museum, Randy attends the Indy Classic Expo, and Brad drools over a keyboard for the 400 Mini… READY! Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast At…

Bob Pape's Dead Lights, Bob and I discuss Curious, Forgotten and Unusual films. In this Episode 12:01pm (1990) He Never Died (2015) The Giant Claw (1957) I Woke Up Early The Day I Died (1998) Please do leave us feedback on the discord or X twitter You can also support the show via ko-fi.com/bytehighBy Byte High no Limit Productions

Episode 138 - Interview with Hans Franke, VCF Europe and Computeum Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics Arcade Shopper Hello, and welcome to Episode 138 of the Floppy Days Podcast for April, 2024! My name is Randy Kindig and I host this podcast about beautiful, obsolete, extremely interesting computers of 35 to 45 ye…

ANTIC Episode 106 - Thom, do you ever sleep!? In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-Bit Computer Podcast… we cover all the recent contests involving new Atari software development, bring you all the other Atari news we could find, and marvel at the stamina of Thom Cherryhomes… READY! Recurring Links Floppy Days Podcast AtariArchives.org AtariMagazin…

This Episode I had the pleasure of the host of Floppy Days, Randy Kindig. 11 years and 141 episodes so far and his quest to cover every home computer chronologically has only got him to 1984's Grundy Newbrain! what dedication. Randy Speaks to me about his motivation and collection of vintage computers and we share our observations on how computing …

Randy and Earl explore programming of the CHIP-8 family of interpreters! News! No news this episode! Z88DK, C compiler and assembler for 8080, Z80, 8085 https://z88dk.org/site/ CHIP-8 Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIP-8 Joseph Weisbecker: http://www.cosmacelf.com/history/joseph-weisbecker.html Joseph Weisbecker’s introduction of CHIP-8 …

Post-VCF SoCal 2024 with Paul Nurminen Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics Arcade Shopper 0 Floppy Days Tune 1 min 13 sec Vintage Computer Ads 1 min 43 sec Intro 2 min 53 sec bumper - Paul Nurminen 3 min 00 sec Discussion with Paul Nurminen 1 hr 20 min 00 sec Closing Hello, and welcome to episode 137 of the Floppy D…

Yes, The Unpublished chapter!! Bob Pape is a computer game coder that came into prominence in the 8 bit world with his conversion of the Irem coin-op R-type to the humble ZX Spectrum. Around ten years ago he wrote an account of how he made the game and described a less than glamourous world of coding that surrounded it in 'It's Behind You' This boo…

ANTIC Episode 105 - Secret Club Meeting with Andy Diller In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-Bit Computer Podcast… we pull together our secret club of Atari hackers, including special guest Andy Diller, and talk FujiNet, archiving disks, VCF SoCal, VCF East, listener feedback and more in an extra-long episode. READY! Recurring Links Floppy Days Po…

Grundy NewBrain Peripherals thru Web Sites with Chris Despoinidis Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics Arcade Shopper 0 Floppy Days Tune 1 min 13 sec Vintage Computer Ads 1 min 42 sec Intro 5 min 17 sec bumper - Chris Espoinidis 5 min 28 sec New Acquisitions 6 min 33 sec bumper - Gerald McMullon 7 min 16 sec Upcoming…

Bob Pape is a computer game coder that came into prominence in the 8 bit world with his conversion of the Irem coin-op R-type to the humble ZX Spectrum. Around ten years ago he wrote an account of how he made the game and described a less than glamourous world of coding that surrounded it in 'It's Behind You' This book is available on www.bizzley.c…

Grundy NewBrain Tech Specs with Chris Despoinidis Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics Arcade Shopper 0 Floppy Days Tune 1 min 14 sec Vintage Computer Ads 1 min 43 sec Intro 5 min 38 sec bumper - Chris Espoinidis 5 min 51 sec New Acquisitions 16 min 32 sec bumper - Gerald McMullon 17 min 15 sec Upcoming Computer Show…

At 23:32:19 BST on 23 October 2012, Schoolboy Nathan Dane witnessed the close down of BBC's teletext service CEEFAX. The following years a pursuit to revive the abandoned service was realised with NMS CEEFAX, a fully working and up to date teletext service that can be used by anyone with an internet connection. Nathan's endeavours were now a nation…

ANTIC Episode 104 - You’re Gonna Label Me a Failure In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-Bit Computer Podcast…Kay plays with Pokey the AI chatbot some more, Kay’s cat tries to smack Randy in the head, we discuss what happens if we don’t meet our interview goals (hint: Randy will be labeled a failure), and we bring you all the Atari 8-bit news from …

VCF SoCal 2024 Preview with Organizing Team Hello, and welcome to this bonus, interview-only episode of the Floppy Days Podcast. My name is Randy Kindig; your host. This episode is a discussion with most of the organizing team around the very first Vintage Computer Festival 2024 that is coming up February 17 & 18 in Orange, CA. You’ll hear how the …

In this episode, I speak with the man in charge of Finland's YLE teletext service. He explains how he got into the industry, his battles with Nokia and the challenges for teletext in the future. Thanks to Dan Farrimond, who cleaned up this recording and provided the edits. There are some audio issues but not as many thanks to Mr Yak who, in my opin…

Grundy NewBrain History with Gerald McMullon Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics Arcade Shopper 0 Floppy Days Tune 1 min 14 sec Vintage Computer Ads 1 min 43 sec Intro 6 min 33 sec bumper - Gerald McMullon 7 min 15 sec New Acquisitions 13 min 55 sec bumper - Steve O'Hara-Smith 14 min 13 sec Upcoming Computer Shows 1…

Rodrigo Castro, Atari in Chile Rodrigo Castro was one of the organizers of an Atari Expo that took place July 22, 2023 in Santiago, Chile. He told me it was probably the largest Atari show in that country to date, with an estimated 300 attendees. Panelists included Robert Jaeger, creator of Montezuma's Revenge, who attended via videoconference. Rod…