TDE EP22 - Atari Battlezone and S.T.U.N. Runner programmer Ed Rotberg

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 game for Atari, Baseball, didn’t exactly score a home run. However his sophomore title, 1981’s Battlezone, with its distinctive green XY monitor graphics and unique periscope-adorned cabinet is rightly regarded as one of Atari’s finest releases of the coin-op videogame Golden Age. You’ll also learn about Battlezone variants, such as the well-documented but still fascinating development of the Bradley Trainer (a version of the game adapted for military training purposes) and a unique Stereoscopic Battlezone that never left the lab.