Podcasts by The Ted Dabney Experience

TDE EP34 - Atari Pong Creator Allan Alcorn from 2023-08-08T14:29:21

For this episode we speak with none other than Allan Alcorn, Atari employee number three after Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, and the engineer of Pong, one of the very first video arcade games.

TDE EP33 - Atari Inc Designer and R&D Manager Roger Hector from 2023-06-29T13:55:19

Senior corporate executive, serial entrepreneur, automotive designer and fine artist. Roger Hector is not only a successful businessman but a bona fide creative polymath. A long time ago, Roger sha...

TDE EP32 - Eugene Jarvis - Part 2 from 2023-05-01T21:23:40

Part 2: Eugene Jarvis cut his teeth in the Atari pinball division before going on to produce the groundbreaking Defender for Williams Electronics. Also for Williams (contracted as Vid K...

TDE EP32 - Eugene Jarvis - Part 1 from 2023-05-01T21:13:25

Eugene Jarvis cut his teeth in the Atari pinball division before going on to produce the groundbreaking Defender for Williams Electronics. Also for Williams (contracted as Vid Kids, his new company...

TDE EP31 - Arcade Britannia author Dr Alan Meades from 2023-02-23T19:10:04

Dr Alan Meades teaches the undergraduate and post-graduate game design courses at Canterbury Christ Church University and is the author of Arcade Britannia, published by MIT Press. After dedicating...

TDE EP30 - Atari Engineer Dave Sherman from 2023-02-05T12:49:33

Dave Sherman joined Atari shortly prior to Nolan Bushnell’s departure and was at the company through its precipitous near-collapse and subsequent restructuring during the infamous market crash of ’...

TDE EP25 - Centuri coder Lee Feuling from 2022-04-07T23:39:13

Lee Feuling is a retired United States Airforce and American Airlines pilot who, once upon a time, was a coder for Centuri Video Games in Hialeah, Florida. Centuri was best known for its hugely pop...

TDE EP24 - Death Race creator Howell Ivy from 2022-02-18T14:45:22

Howell Ivy is the creator of Exidy’s infamous Death Race. Released in 1976, this was the first arcade game to stir a moral panic over videogame violence in America, leading the company to hire roun...

TDE EP23 - Atari graphic designer Evelyn Seto from 2022-01-21T20:51:06

Evelyn Seto worked at Atari under creative director George Opperman on some of the company’s most iconic graphic material, including arcade cabinets such as Fire Truck and Soccer, a wealth of arcad...

TDE EP22 - Atari Battlezone and S.T.U.N. Runner programmer Ed Rotberg from 2021-12-14T19:34:16

In accordance with Theurer’s Law - named after Missile Command and Tempest programmer Dave Theurer, which states that every programmer’s first game will be a relative failure - Ed Rotberg’s first g...

TDE CLIPS - EP01 from 2021-11-29T19:11:44

Excerpts from our interviews with the gentlemen who created Gottlieb’s Golden Age Video Arcade titles Q*Bert, Mad Planets and Krull. Featuring Warren Davis, Jeff Lee, Matt Householder and David Thiel.

This is The Ted Dabney Experience from 2021-11-22T22:12:12

The Ted Dabney Experience is a podcast project by Richard May, Paul Drury (Retro Gamer magazine) and Tony Temple (author of Missile Commander - A Journey to The Top of an Arcade Classic). We host i...

This is The Ted Dabney Experience from 2021-11-22T22:12:12

The Ted Dabney Experience is a podcast project by Richard May, Paul Drury (Retro Gamer magazine) and Tony Temple (author of Missile Commander - A Journey to The Top of an Arcade Classic). We host i...

TDE EP21 - Gravitar and Missile Command programmer Rich Adam from 2021-11-19T10:47:33

Rich Adam joined Atari in 1978, initially working on the company’s pinball games before being assigned the role of Junior Programmer on Dave Thuerer’s Missile Command. Rich went on to take the capt...

TDE EP20 - Gottlieb, Atari and Epyx alumnus Matt Householder from 2021-10-28T21:06:29

Matt Householder co-designed Gottlieb’s underrated arcade adaptation of Peter Yates’s ill-fated Krull, before going on to join Atari’s consumer division to work on home adaptations of video arcade ...

TDE EP19 - Asteroids, Centipede and Gauntlet programmer Ed Logg from 2021-09-29T20:33:39

Ed Logg, AKA Super Duper Game Guy, is the programmer’s programmer. Cited by his contemporaries as one of the all-time greats, Ed designed and co-developed arcade smash hits such as Asteroids, Centi...

TDE EP18 - Former Atari VP Steve Calfee from 2021-08-24T15:49:17

Steve Calfee has rarely gone on record about his time at Atari. His managerial role at the company’s Coin-Op division saw him channel the work of well-known programmers such as Rich Adam, Dennis Ko...

TDE EP17 - Pinball audio engineer and Gottlieb alumni David Thiel from 2021-07-21T11:26:56

David Thiel is perhaps best known for his pinball audio work on titles such as Tron: Legacy, Alien, Dialed In, Avatar and Family Guy, but he was also responsible for everything aural on all the Gol...

TDE EP17 - Pinball audio engineer and Gottlieb alumnus David Thiel from 2021-07-21T11:26:56

David Thiel is perhaps best known for his pinball audio work on titles such as Tron: Legacy, Alien, Dialed In, Avatar and Family Guy, but he was also responsible for everything aural on all the Gol...

TDE EP16 - Art of Atari author Tim Lapetino from 2021-06-17T11:57:54

Tim Lapetino on the underrated yet enduring legacy of Atari creative director George Opperman, and behind the scenes on both The Art of Atari and the forthcoming Pac-Man: The Birth of an Icon.

TDE EP15 - Atari Programmer Bob Flanagan from 2021-05-20T18:07:13

Honing his coding skills producing games for the Apple II, Bob Flanagan joined Atari in 1984. It was a difficult time for the company and the industry as a whole, yet Bob still managed to work on s...

TDE EP14 - Q*Bert co-creator Jeff Lee from 2021-04-16T16:23:32

Jeff Lee was the original video artist at D. Gottlieb and Company, designing the character Q*Bert and working on titles such as Krull, The Three Stooges and the late Kan Yabumoto’s seminal Mad Plan...

TDE EP13 - Atari veteran Dennis Koble from 2021-03-19T19:09:27

Recruited by the company in 1976, Dennis Koble was one of Atari’s earliest coin-op game designers. Koble stayed with Atari for five years and was responsible for such notable titles as Avalanche, S...

TDE EP12 - Atari market researcher Carol Kantor from 2021-02-19T21:27:23

TDE EP11 - GCC’s Steve Golson (Ms. Pac-Man, Super Missile Attack) from 2021-01-22T14:26:11

The inimitable Steve Golson reminisces about his days evading Atari’s radar with GCC, subsequently being co-opted by the former for arcade classics such as the frantic Food Fight and the singular Q...

An Introduction to The Ted Dabney Experience from 2020-12-27T13:10:05

A brief introduction to The Ted Dabney Experience podcast. Originally released as a segment for the Retro Asylum Christmas Special episode, 2020.

The Retro Asylum Interview from 2020-12-27T13:10:05

A brief introduction to The Ted Dabney Experience podcast. Originally released as a segment for the Retro Asylum Christmas Special episode, 2020.

TDE EP10 - Rampage co-creator Brian Colin from 2020-12-17T19:10:40

We talk with Rampage co-creator Brian Colin about the early days at Bally Midway, applying his traditional animation know-how to the seminal Discs of Tron and meeting The Rock.

TDE EP09 - Kevin Hayes of Atari Ireland from 2020-11-19T10:21:40

The Ted Dabney Experience podcast talks with Kevin Hayes, former Managing Director of Atari Ireland. If you played an Atari arcade game in Europe during the proverbial Golden Age of video games, in...

TDE EP08 - The Pit co-designer Andy Walker from 2020-10-19T16:58:21

TDE Podcast takes you from the North East Yorkshire coastal town of Bridlington to Miami Beach with one of the very few Brits to have developed coin-op videogames for the American market during the...

TDE EP07 - Joust and Sinistar designer John Newcomer from 2020-09-21T13:23:22

An in-depth discussion with John Newcomer, designer and lead developer of one of the most unique and enduring arcade games of the Golden Age, Joust. John talks to The Ted Dabney Experience about hi...

TDE EP06 - Doug Wismer of Canadian monitor manufacturer Electrohome from 2020-09-04T15:00

Electrohome supplied CRT monitors to all the big-name video arcade game manufacturers of the Golden Age, including Atari, Gremlin and Midway. Doug talks to us about how the company was ...

TDE EP05 - Mike Hally of Atari on Lucasfilm, Star Wars, lost classic Akka Arrh and Gravitar from 2020-07-23T11:50:48

Mike Hally devoted a quarter of a century to Atari, from the Sunnyvale years through Time Warner, literally turning off the lights when the company (that most of us would recognise) closed its door...

TDE EP04 - Owen Rubin of Atari on Space Duel and Major Havoc from 2020-06-26T09:35:21

The Ted Dabney Experience Podcast talks to Space Duel designer Owen Rubin about the frontier days of videogame creation at Atari, the volatility of vector hardware, the original Boss Key, disco dan...

TDE EP03 - ACAM Founder and President Gary Vincent from 2020-05-25T21:28:50

The Ted Dabney Experience Podcast catches up with a long-time friend, ACAM’s Gary Vincent. We discuss Gary’s early days at Funspot, NH, his participation in Randy Fromm’s Arcade School, Funspot’s t...

TDE EP02 - Gorf and Robby Roto Developer Jamie Fenton from 2020-05-15T16:20:44

TDE sits down with Jamie Fenton, the developer of the original multi-game shooter, Gorf. We dig deep into Jamie’s early life and career with Dave Nutting Associates and Midway, covering transgender...

TDE EP01 - Q*Bert Co-Creator Warren Davis from 2020-04-06T14:45

TDE talks to Q*Bert co-creator Warren Davis about the early days of videogame design at Gottlieb, lost Laserdisc classic Us Vs Them, his time at Williams Electronics working alongside Eugene Jarvis...