Randomly Accessed Memories of Page 6 and things Atari
I 'graduated' from an Atari VCS 2600 games console to
an Atari 800 Home Computer System (16K RAM + 410 cassette recorder)
early in 1981. I had seen reviews of the machine in the American
'Creative Computing' magazine and wanted to play Star Raiders! I also
wanted to play Adventure games.
Page 6 was a splendid 'accessory' when it first
appeared – I had spotted the small advertisement on the pages of
'Computer & Video Games' magazine, and promptly sent off my subscription
starting with issue 1. The range of information provided every two
months by Les Ellingham kept my interest in the Atari on the boil. That
is of course when I wasn’t playing Star Raiders or puzzling my way
through the Scott Adams’ series of adventure games. However, I soon
decided that I had to tackle the Infocom adventures as well, but this
would mean the purchase of a 810 disk drive in which to insert those
5.25” floppy disks (yes, those were the days when floppies were
floppy!). I recall visiting the nearest Atari stockist and pondering
whether to invest in a 16K RAM upgrade or a disk drive. Obviously keen
to make a sale, the manager offered to throw in a RAM module if I
purchased a disk drive. I couldn’t resist that – and having opted for
the drive, well I had to purchase disk-based software to use on it!
The first disk program I purchased was Infocom’s
Deadline, and I can still recall the delight I had in solving the
mystery. Meanwhile, as well as continuing through the Scott Adams'
series, I became aware of Level 9, a British company producing adventure
games for a range of home computer systems, including the Atari. Their
initial offering was Colossal Adventure – a clone of the infamous
mainframe adventure game from which evolved Infocom’s Zork series. I had
thought that my first contribution to Page 6 was a review of Colossal
Adventure that appeared in issue 10, but using the search facility on
this web site revealed that I did in fact have a letter printed on the
Readers’ Letters page of issue 9 (little did I know what that would
eventually lead to!)
The review of Colossal Adventure seemed to be well
received. Level 9 liked it enough to use a quote from it in their
advertising (see page 32 of issue 12 for instance – although the quote
is attributed to Atari User rather than Page 6). It would be remiss of
me not to mention other sources of Atari knowledge that I devoured
during the 1980s. ANALOG and Antic were two Atari-dedicated periodicals
which had sporadic distribution on this side of the Atlantic, but were
worth their weight in nuggets of information. I did generally prefer
ANALOG – you seemed to get more value from that publication. As well as
those two American imports, I invested in a subscription to COMPUTE!
Magazine. This American home computer monthly covered a range of
systems, Commodore PET/Vic, Apple, TRS/Tandy as well as the Atari
machines. The bonus with COMPUTE! was that the 'Insight: Atari' column
was written by Bill Wilkinson, founder of OSS - the company that
produced Atari BASIC and Atari DOS. COMPUTE! also began publishing a
series of books, initially with some reprints from early issues,
latterly with all new material, for the Atari computers. I wrote a
review of COMPUTE!’s Atari Collection Volume 1 which Les used in issue
16 of Page 6.
Page 6 got me interested in Flight Simulator II
(thanks to all those articles by John S Davison), in more creative use
of word processing (through a review by Les of PaperClip, which became
by first choice tool), and in communication through BBS systems in those
'pre-internet' days.
I found time to contribute some articles that Les
published. There was a review of Database Publications’ Mini Office II –
a rare thing, a UK-developed non-game program for the Atari 8-bit range.
My rambling thoughts of adventure games surfaced in a 'Confessions of an
Adventure Addict' piece. However, I was most pleased with an item I
called 'The Question Mark Affair' which answered a question posed in the
letter column, explaining an undocumented feature of Atari BASIC’s input
statement.
In issue 58 Les requested assistance in handling the
letter column of the magazine. He felt that the work required to compile
the rest of each issue meant that he was left with little time to do
justice to the letters received. For some reason, I decided that I could
help out so booted up the word processor and offered my services. The
next issue had a small announcement from Les informing readers that I
would be acting as Mailbag Editor – and then the avalanche began.
I compiled the letter column for Page 6/Atari User for
the next 14 issues (I guess that covered a period of 2˝ years). I always
tried to include at least a reference to each letter that was sent on
from Stafford by Les and Sandy. My philosophy was that if someone took
the time to write, they deserved some form of acknowledgement that would
keep their interest up. As a result, some issues featured 4 pages of
letters! I think the readers liked this approach – I did get one or two
complimentary letters (which I felt I didn’t need to include), and Les
didn’t find the need to trim the column extensively.
Les compiled the letter column for issue 74 as by the
time enough letters arrived in Stafford, it would have been too late for
them to be sent to me for editing and then back to Les to meet the
printer’s deadline. I pulled the letters together for issue 75, but
after that it was back to Les as the correspondence dried up and the
magazine schedule became less regular. My last listing as a 'regular
contributor' was in issue 79.
In my professional career I have been involved in
software development for mainframe and distributed computing
applications, working as programming team manager, project manager and
senior software test manager. I have now taken early retirement to enjoy
a better quality of life.
Allan J Palmer, November 2004
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