Uploaded September 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The Famous Computer Cafe 1984-12-12 Timothy Leary. Aired on KIEV.
Famous Computer Cafe aired another, two-part interview with Leary later that month.
Part 1. youtu.be/rQkDc4VH0Pw
Part 2: youtu.be/O6q6VO-clBM
Digitized from reel-to-reel tape by Harbor Digitizing of Friday Harbor, Washington.
The Famous Computer Cafe recovery and digitization project was done by Kay Savetz in 2024. If you have access to other episodes of Famous Computer Cafe on tape, please contact Kay Savetz.
The Famous Computer Cafe 1984-12-12 Timothy Leary. Aired on KIEV.
Famous Computer Cafe aired another, two-part interview with Leary later that month.
Part 1. youtu.be/rQkDc4VH0Pw
Part 2: youtu.be/O6q6VO-clBM
Digitized from reel-to-reel tape by Harbor Digitizing of Friday Harbor, Washington.
The Famous Computer Cafe recovery and digitization project was done by Kay Savetz in 2024. If you have access to other episodes of Famous Computer Cafe on tape, please contact Kay Savetz.





![Tandy Trower, Atari product manager — Interview
Tandy Trower started at Atari evaluating software titles, then moved on to the position of product manager, managing new titles including Missile Command, Asteroids, and the port of Microsoft BASIC for the Atari. Then, he left Atari for Microsoft, where — once again, he managed Microsoft BASIC for the Atari. Tandy also wrote the Character Set Editor program which was sold by Atari Program Exchange.
This interview took place May 13, 2015.
Teaser quotes:
“The Atari executives were so impressed with Bill [Gates] at the time that they flew up in their corporate jet to Seattle and offered to try to acquire Microsoft. But Bill and Paul [Allen] were not interested in selling at all at that time.”
“If you had a title, you had to make sure there was an engineer who was available and interested in doing it. So if you couldn’t talk an engineer into writing it — unless you were going to write it yourself. Except for me, there were very few people in the marketing department that could write their own code.” Tandy Trower, Atari product manager — Interview](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/N6wlNfhy7gQ/mqdefault.jpg)

![Aric Wilmunder: Star Raiders II, Temple of Apshai — interview
Here’s how Aric Wilmunder introduced himself to me: “When The Last Starfighter didn’t do well in the theaters and marketing re-branded the Atari 800 Last Starfighter game as Star Raiders II, they didn’t take into account that there was already an actual sequel to Star Raiders that was just a few months away from completion. I was the designer and solo engineer who worked for about a year on the project as a member of an R&D team inside Atari Coin-Op. A friend helped me copy the disk image a few years back and when I saw Steve Hales post your tweet about the source code [for Star Raiders] I thought there might be some interest.
“The game was close to being finished, but there were still parts that needed polishing like the enemy AI, so I’ve been hesitant to release it since it might be judged as a finished work. I’d hate to wait 30 years to release the game just to get a bad review.”
Aric Wilmunder started writing programs on the Exidy Sorcerer computer, then worked at Automated Simulations, writing the Atari 8-bit conversions of Star Warrior; Crush, Crumble, and Chomp; and Temple of Apshai. Next he worked at Atari’s corporate research department, where he worked on Chris Crawford’s Gossip game. Then, in the R&D department at Atari coin-op, he created Star Raiders II for the Atari 8-bit computers — a game that was never finished nor released. Later he worked at LucasFilm games, where his work included the XEGS version of Ballblazer.
This interview took place December 5, 2015.
Teaser quotes:
“A music video on the Atari 800. So it was video and art being displayed on the Atari 800 that was in sync with music that was playing off of a CD.”
“[In Star Raiders] Because you’re targeting the Xylons, you’re putting them in your crosshairs, you’re actually their A.I. ... All they had to do was this very simple A.I. to move around, and the closer you track them, the more accurate they become. ... [Doug Neubauer] let the player fight themselves.”
Download Star Raiders II ATR file and documentation (click Show All): https://archive.org/details/StarRaidersII_Wilmunder
Video of unreleased, unfinished Star Raiders II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb03mSdMaYc
Aric’s web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20170721225328/http://www.wilmunder.com/Arics_World/1980s.html
Custom PC Magazine article about SCUMM and interview with Aric (see page 86): http://issuu.com/duongkim/docs/custom_pc 2015.10 Aric Wilmunder: Star Raiders II, Temple of Apshai — interview](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NLyhJiENtLs/mqdefault.jpg)


