Uploaded January 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
William Volk wrote three Atari games for Avalon Hill: Conflict 2500, Voyager 1, and Controller. He also wrote Forth Turtle Graphics Plus, a 3-D graphics library for the Forth language that was released by Atari Program Exchange; ValGraphics for Valpar International; and Super Smart Terminal, an 80-column terminal application which -- may have been released by APX? He later went on to work on Return To Zork for Activision.
This interview was conducted March 25 2015.
Teaser quotes:
“True story, when we did Conflict 2500, we had no documentation, so we literally started poking addresses to find out how to do things. Literally.”
“It sounded like a good deal but I was still in grad school so I said, ‘I would only do that if you paid me X,’ where X was for the time was some ridiculous amount of money. And they said ‘Sure, we’ll pay you that much.’”
“It looked terrible. It looked annoying as hell but it was funny because it made you think you were in a radar room, you know?”
“Voyager 1 was in inspired by Alien. In fact I remember taking my future wife to the premiere of Alien in Philadelphia, thinking that it was going to be like Star Wars: pretty light-hearted. I was kind of shocked. As was she! Our first movie date.”
LINKS
Obsolete Gamer interview with William Volk: obsoletegamer.com/the-interview-william-d-volk
Stick Figure Movie Trivia: itunes.apple.com/us/app/stick-figure-movie-trivia/id960795764?mt=8&uo=4&at=1l3vtks
Atarimania's list of William's games: atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-volk-william_team_1621_8_G.html
William Volk Papers at Video Game History Foundation: gamehistory.org/william-volk-papers
William Volk wrote three Atari games for Avalon Hill: Conflict 2500, Voyager 1, and Controller. He also wrote Forth Turtle Graphics Plus, a 3-D graphics library for the Forth language that was released by Atari Program Exchange; ValGraphics for Valpar International; and Super Smart Terminal, an 80-column terminal application which -- may have been released by APX? He later went on to work on Return To Zork for Activision.
This interview was conducted March 25 2015.
Teaser quotes:
“True story, when we did Conflict 2500, we had no documentation, so we literally started poking addresses to find out how to do things. Literally.”
“It sounded like a good deal but I was still in grad school so I said, ‘I would only do that if you paid me X,’ where X was for the time was some ridiculous amount of money. And they said ‘Sure, we’ll pay you that much.’”
“It looked terrible. It looked annoying as hell but it was funny because it made you think you were in a radar room, you know?”
“Voyager 1 was in inspired by Alien. In fact I remember taking my future wife to the premiere of Alien in Philadelphia, thinking that it was going to be like Star Wars: pretty light-hearted. I was kind of shocked. As was she! Our first movie date.”
LINKS
Obsolete Gamer interview with William Volk: obsoletegamer.com/the-interview-william-d-volk
Stick Figure Movie Trivia: itunes.apple.com/us/app/stick-figure-movie-trivia/id960795764?mt=8&uo=4&at=1l3vtks
Atarimania's list of William's games: atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-volk-william_team_1621_8_G.html
William Volk Papers at Video Game History Foundation: gamehistory.org/william-volk-papers
