Video version of this interview

1984 "PLATO Rising" article in Antic magazine

The Learning Phone review in ANALOG Computing magazine

The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture

Computer History Museum PLATO@50: PLATO Computer Learning System 50th Anniversary

IRATA.ONLINE, a modern PLATO server and terminals

ATARI PLATO Users Guide version 3.1 (1983)

ANTIC Episode 49 – Thomas Cherryhomes and PLATO

ANTIC Interview 10 – Mark Rustad

ANTIC Interview 117 – Landon Dyer

ANTIC Interview 183 – Lane Winner

Early versions of Atari PLATO released

PLATO on Wikipedia

Vince Wu – Follow the Arc of Justice

Vincent Wu's birthday memories—jailed at Selma in 1965, worked security for MLK at the March finale

Steve Bryson, game programmer

Steve Bryson was a programmer for EPYX and The Connelley Group, where he ported many games to various 8-bit systems. He ported Dragonriders of Pern, an action/strategy game based on the Anne McCaffrey novels, to Atari and Commodore 64. He ported Jumpman to the Apple II, and Lower Reaches of Apshai, Upper Reaches of Apshai, and Temple of Ra to the C64.

This interview took place on August 5, 2026.

Video version of this interview: https://youtu.be/SdK56W9bd6Y

Steve's personal web site: https://www.stevepur.com

Randy Glover, Jumpman interview: https://www.savetz.com/antic-interviews/transcripts/i171/i171-transcript.html

Tom Zimmerman, AMY chip interview: https://www.savetz.com/antic-interviews/transcripts/i431/i431-transcript.html

Jon Freeman, Freefall Associates interview: https://www.savetz.com/antic-interviews/transcripts/i070/i070-transcript.html

Dragonriders of Pern at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/a8b_Dragonriders_of_Pern_The_1983_Epyx_US

Dragonriders of Pern at AtariMania: https://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-dragonriders-of-pern_1723.html

James W. Burley, APX Data Base/Report System

James W. Burley is the programmer of Data Base/Report System, which was sold by Atari Program Exchange beginning with the Summer 1982 APX catalog. It was catalog number 20134 with a price of $22.95. APX sold it for about a year, through the Summer 1983 catalog.

APX awarded Data Base/Report System first prize for new software in the "Business & Professional Applications/Personal Finance & Record Keeping" category: for that, James was awarded an Atari Star plaque and $2000 prize. (He received the plaque, but says he never received the money.) The software may have also been sold by Main Street Publishing.

Here's what the APX catalog had to say:

Data Base/Report System by James W. Burley
Recommended for experienced data base users/Written in BASIC and machine language

If you've ever used a data base manager on a large computer system, you'll appreciate the many features of DATA BASE/REPORT SYSTEM. This general-purpose system for ATARI 800 Home Computers creates and maintains records having up to ten units of information ("fields"), with a maximum field length of 100 characters and a maximum record length of 255 characters. The total number of records you can store varies with record key size, a key being the unique identifier for each record) and available computer memory. Generally, you can store about 1300 records having a five-character key on a system with 40K of memory.

You use the main program to create a new file; add, update, and remove records; sort the file; and print reports. Auxiliary programs reorganize the data files to free unused diskette space; redefine the file by adding fields, modifying field sizes, or changing field headings; delete old files; and print special reports.

... These and other features make DATA BASE/REPORT SYSTEM a really versatile data base management system for your ATARI 800 Home Computer.

REVIEW COMMENTS: You need some data base knowledge to use the program; it's a bit complex, but all the features are worthwhile. The print formatting and file reorganization features are very useful. The sort and search routines, written in assembly language, work quickly.

In 1983, Antic magazine featured the program as one of the "Ten Best from APX". In 2024, Wade at the Inverse ATASCII podcast did a deep dive into Data Base/Report System: check the show notes for the link to that review, which includes dozens of screenshots, sample print output, and information about the database's file format. Wade gave the software a rating of 5 out of 8.

As of this recording, the Atari community doesn't yet have a scan of the APX manual for Data Base/Report System: if you have a copy, let me know, or scan it and upload it to Internet Archive. The Main Street Publishing version — both disk and manual — are also not preserved.

This interview took place on May 22, 2026.

Data Base/Report System at AtariMania

Data Base/Report System in the APX Summer 1982 APX catalog

Antic Magazine - February 1983 - Ten Best from APX

Inverse ATASCII reviews Data Base/Report System

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

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