Arick Anders has been developing IBM PC educational products for the past two years with a company called WICAT in Orem, Utah. The touch-typing program he developed is now being marketed by the IBM educational division. Arick received his B.S. degree in Computer Science with a minor in Chemistry from Brigham Young University. On the weekends he is a medic with the National Guard and during his spare time he raises English Angora rabbits, three children and tries to keep up with his wife. She is a registered nurse and works in the emergency room of the local hospital.
Michael Bendlo works for Hart Scientific, writing data-acquisition software. He has been a professional programmer since 1978 and received degrees in Comparative Literature from Brigham Young University and the University of Chicago. He's been fascinated by computers since he read the Popular Electronics construction article for the MITS Altair. His first computer was the Processor Technology SQL with 2K of RAM and a binary switchbox for a keyboard.
Christophe Bonnet of France is a 21-year-old university student studying physics, electronics and (surprise) computers at the University of Marseilles. His six years of computer experience have involved work on the Apple II and the Macintosh. He wrote Reversi after some four months with the Atari ST. He is currently at work on a 3D graphics program for the ST.
Christophe also has an interest in war-simulation games and tentatively plans to develop his own, following completion of the graphics project. When the computer is down, Christophe heads for the tennis courts or the slopes. He lives with his family in Marseilles.
Christopher Chabris appeared in the premiere issue of START with "ST Assemblers-A START Comparison." A student of computer science at Harvard University, Christopher maintains a strong interest in artificial intelligence and is completing a book on the subject which will be published in 1987 by Dow Jones-Irwin/Multiscience Press.
Christopher is among the top 50 chess players in the United States under 21 years of age. His knowledge of programming languages includes 68000 assembly, LISP, and PROLOG. Christopher has owned one of every Atari computer as far back as 1980, "with the exception of the 1200XL."
Ian Chadwick has been writing about computers since 1979. His articles have appeared in the Toronto Star, Softside, Antic, Analog, Computer Gaming World, and other publications. He was an editor on the Canadian computer magazine Info-Age, and was the trade book editor for Holt, Rinehart & Winston of Canada. He is best known as the author of Mapping the Atari, published by Compute! Books, and of software manuals for Antic, Batteries Included and other publishers.
Ian lives in Toronto, Canada, with his wife Susan, their six cats and one dog. He is now writing mystery fiction and trying to teach his dog to play chess.
Jim Dunion was a programmer with the "old" Atari, where he first worked in the Software Development Support Group, then later in Alan Kay's research group. He has been with computers since the first days of microcomputers and was founder of Peachtree Software in Atlanta, Georgia. Presently, he is with The System Works in Redmond, Washington.
Jim designed Dunion's Debugging Tool, considered by many to be the best debugger for the 8-bit Atari, and is now working on an ST version to be called STDDT.
Tom Hudson is the author of DEGAS, CAD-3D, and the new DEGAS Elite. He was head of programming with Analog magazine from 1982 to 1985 before leaving to become a free-lance software developer. In our premiere issue, Tom wrote "Stealing the ST Printer Driver," a multi-printer screen-dump desk accessory.
Tom's first computer was an IBM 1620 that he played with in high school. He worked his way through college teaching computer neophytes, then landed a job as programmer/operator at a savings and loan while earning a BS in data processing. Tom lives in Mission, Kansas and is a SYSOP in the 16-bit Atari section of CompuServe.
Harry Koons first programmed the IBM 704, 709 and 7090 mainframes while attending MIT. There, he received a BA in Physics and a Phd in Geophysics before moving directly to The Aerospace Corporation where he remains employed as senior scientist building instruments for satellites. There are about half-a-dozen major satellites orbiting the earth with my equipment on board?
Harry developed several award winning products for the original APX (Atari Programmer's Exchange) line, including Mapware and Star-ware. His ST programs include Maps and Legends, and The Astrologer (available from The Catalog). Harry is also the author of The Tax Advantage, for the 8-bit machines, and is currently working on a tax program for the ST planned for next tax season.
Alex Leavins built his first computer when he was in the fourth grade. It added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided binary numbers. "It was a real primitive calculator and it was about the size of an Atari 800. But it worked? Alex went on to graduate with a BS in mathematics at the University of Chicago. From there, he worked at Midway Manufacturing, designing Atari 2600 games. He then branched out on his own forming Dynamic Software Design.
Alex's interest in text adventures goes back some years-he coauthored Wombats and Wombats II, two satirical Infocom-style text adventures written for the Atari 8-bit computers. Alex recently joined KnowledgeSet as a software engineer.
Daniel Moore, along with partner Steve Ablstrom has written several programs for the 8-bit Atari's, including Paperclip and Synfile. Dan recalls his first computer was a Hewlett Packard 2114B in high school: "It was the size of an extra-large, legal file cabinet and contained 8K words of memory. It used paper tape and a 30-line Fortran program took three hours to compile?
Dan attended the Colorado School of Mines. "We were six blocks from a Coors brewery and I remember waking up in the dorm, opening the window, and taking a deep breath of Rocky Mountain hops." Dan is currently working on the Hometext portion of Russ Wetmore's HomePak for the ST and on Paperclip Elite for the ST.
Tim Oren wrote "Tracking the Elusive GDOS" in the first issue of START. He was one of the original designers of the GEM system at Digital Research, working on the AES portion and sections of the Desktop. Tim also implemented the Resource Construction Set as well as much of DOODLE.
Tim has a master's degree from Michigan State University. He is the author of ST PROFESSIONAL GEM, a regular GEM programming column that you can read on ANTIC ON-LINE, a CompuServe information service. As this START went to press, Tim had just accepted a position with a major Silicon Valley firm. He plans to spend his free time hiking throughout the Santa Cruz mountains.
Mark Skapinker is Director of Product Development at the Canadian software firm, Batteries Included. He is author of Thunder! and coauthor of the Isgur Portfolio System. Mark was raised in Africa, where he studied psychology at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg. He later emigrated to Israel, where he lived in a kibbutz for a year while doing postgraduate work in computer science.
Mark's first computer job was developing software for CP/M machines with NISN Information Services in Tel Aviv. There, he learned by necessity to program microcomputers to accomplish tasks done elsewhere by minicomputers. Mark lives in Toronto, Ontario with his wife, Hazel, and daughter, Lisa.
David Small has contributed a wealth of technical articles to various computer magazines, including Creative Computing, Antic, and the first issue of START (Voodoo Computing). He has three books, including Guidebook for Winning Adventures (Baen Enterprises, N.Y., NY) which he coauthored with his wife, Sandy Their fourth book is expected out in January 1987.
David discovered how to make the Atari ST into a Macintosh (much to Apple's chagrin) and hopes to get the "MacCartridge" to market soon. He has worked for several computer companies and is now a consultant, freelance writer, and busy father of two children.
Xanth Park is not a person, but a collection of talented programmers. Situated in downtown Seattle, XANTH is the largest ST retailer in the state of Washington. It began- and still partly exists-as the XANTH SST (Seattle ST) User's Group. A little over a year ago, the group began selling Atari 130XE's and have since become a full computer store.
The XANTH programmers, having evidently tired of wowing the ST community with graphic demonstrations, are currently putting the finishing touches on a multi-computer, point-of-view, 3D maze game. Although they cherish anonymity, they welcome correspondence:
XANTH Computer Systems
600 First Avenue
Seattle, WA 98104
BBS: (206) 682-8039