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Brett Bilbrey "Interview" Brett Bilbrey "Interview"

Some more comments from this former Astrocade guru. (July 11, 2001)

Interview with Dale Low of Astrogames Interview with Dale Low of Astrogames.
By Paul Thacker.
August/September 2021.

Dale Low was the programmer for Astrogames. Astrogames published tape collections including games like Multi-Adventure, Defense Pro, Metro Attack, Night Bombers, Star Wahs, Wah's Revenge, and Super Pac. He kindly agreed to answer a few questions.

David Ibach Interview David Ibach Interview

An interview with David Ibach, the programmer of the third-party cartridge "Sneaky Snake." He also was part of General Video, the company that released "The General Video Assembler," a two-pass assembler for the Astrocade. He devised a method, referred to as The Ibach Cartridge Conversion, for swapping cartridges while the Astrocade was still on (thus allowing Bally and Astro versions of BASIC to be swapped without losing the program in memory). He also wrote a few BASIC games and programs that were published in the Arcadian newsletter. (February 27, 2006)

Dick Ainsworth Comments Dick Ainsworth Comments

Some Comments from Dick Ainsworth, a former Bally employee (July 18, 2002)

Dick Ainsworth Interview Dick Ainsworth Interview

An interview with Dick Ainsworth, a former Bally employee. This is a follow-up to the comments that Dick made to the Bally Alley discussion group about seven years ago. His original comments have been gathered together and are also on this page. (April 18, 2009 - April 21, 2009)

George Moses "Interview" George Moses "Interview"

George Moses was a known best for his great musical tributes to the Astrocade. (July and August, 2001)

Jeff Frederiksen Interview Jeff Frederiksen Interview

Jeff Frederiksen was the chief engineer behind designing the Bally Professional Arcade hardware. He indicated that he still wants to put some more of his thoughts down, but he has sent some "interim" answers to a couple of questions, which are actually pretty detailed, and he said it would be fine to go ahead and publish these. (July 29, 2011)

Nola Donato Interview Highlights Nola Donato Interview Highlights.
by Kevin Bunch.
May 8, 2020.

Kevin Bunch interviewed Nola Donato. She was involved in GRASS and ZGRASS for a while before her career took her elsewhere in the tech industry (with a few more video game-related stints with Mattel and 3DO).

Paul Garber Interview Paul Garber Interview

An interview by Paul Thacker with a tech named Paul Garber that fixed Bally Astrocades for a company called North Iowa Electronics located in Garner, Iowa. (December, 2006)

Rickey Spiece Discussion Rickey Spiece Comments

Rickey Speice "worked on the original Bally Arcade back in the 70's at Dave Nutting and Associates." This is a compilation of eleven posting to the Bally Alley Discussion group. (April 2005)

Todd Johnson Comments on Astrocade Video Todd Johnson: Bally Arcade/Astrocade-Related Comments.
May/June 2022.
Comments Compiled June 14, 2022.

Todd Johnson, who created "Crown of Zeus," a BASIC game published in 1982 and 1983 in the "Arcadian" newsletter for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade, made a post in the comment area of a video called "A Real Computer? Exploring the Bally Computer System aka Astrocade." Paul Thacker and Adam Trionfo asked him additional questions about his time with the Astrocade. These comments are compiled in this document.
Tom Defanti Interview Notes Tom Defanti Interview Notes.
by Kevin Bunch
Version 1.0 - April 24, 2020.

Tom Defanti developed the GRASS computer language and was involved in its Z80 version, ZGRASS, as well as the Datamax UV1 computer and the unreleased ZGRASS add-under for the Bally/Astrocade Professional Arcade game console. Text is not verbatim and was originally typed while he was talking, as my recorder was not handy; it has been cleaned up for readability. This interview was conducted January 16, 2019.

The default download is a RTF version of the document. You can download the docx version of the document here:
  1. Tom Defanti Interview Notes (docx)
Tom Meeks Comments Tom Meeks Comments.
November 20, 2001.

These are a compilation of many comments from Tom Meeks, a former Astrocade employee. This is a compilation of comments that were made to the Bally Alley Yahoo discussion group.

Tom Meeks Interview (Summary) Tom Meeks Interview (Summary).
By Kevin Bunch.
March 24, 2020.

Kevin Bunch had a lengthy phone conversation with Tom Meeks, who worked at Astrocade in the early 80s. Years back he had a nice back-and-forth in this group, and in some regards our conversation was a follow up to that. I'm still going through my notes/refining them with the transcription, but Tom said he had no problem with me sharing his recollections with other interested parties, so I thought I'd share some highlights.

Bob Weber Interview Bob Weber (of W&W Software) "Interview"

Short "Interview" with Bob Weber of W&W Software (May 19, 2003)

Wavemakers 'Interview' WaveMakers "Interview"

Wavemakers released the best known (and probably the best) games on tape for the Astrocade. Mike Peace talks about his work. (August 2001)

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