Atari Program Exchange

Atari Program Exchange (officially abbreviated APX) was a division of Atari, Inc. that sold software via mail-order for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers. Quarterly APX catalogs were sent to all registered Atari 8-bit owners. APX encouraged any programmer, not just professionals, to submit software for commercial distribution. If selected, a program was added to the catalog, with credit given to the programmer. The top submissions in each category were awarded, and several popular APX titles were moved to Atari's official product line.

The brainchild of Dale Yocum, the Atari Program Exchange started in February 1981. In 1982 it management was taken over by Fred Thorlin, who operated it until it closed. APX published quarterly catalogs until 1984, when new Atari CEO James J. Morgan closed down the mail-order division.

History

When Atari first launched the Atari 8-bit family in late 1979, the company kept most of the hardware details secret.[1] It intended to be the primary supplier of software for the platform, as had been the case with the Atari 2600 console. By the end of the first year on the market increasingly sophisticated applications from outside Atari were nonetheless becoming available. There were, however, a limited number of distribution channels at the time.

Dale Yocum approached Atari with the idea of setting up their own third-party publishing arm. With Atari's distribution capabilities the products would be seen by many more prospective customers, and at the same time, Atari would make money with every sale, money that would otherwise be lost. Chris Crawford later stated:

The guy who cooked up the idea, Dale Yocum, was trying to explain to the management that there are a lot people out there that like to write programs and if we can publish these programs for them, it's a win-win. He put together a business plan for it and said 'Look, we only need a little bit of money and this thing can be self sufficient and it might make some money.' They grudgingly agreed to let him do it because the Atari platform desperately needed a larger software base, a void not being filled by the other publishers of the day. And so he did it and very quickly made it into a monster success. It was a major profit center for Atari. They rewarded Dale for his initiative by bringing in another guy to be Dale's boss... so Dale, in disgust, transferred to the new Atari Research Division under Alan Kay about a year after APX launched.[2]

Catalogs

Atari mailed catalogs to all computer owners who sent in warranty cards.[3] The first issue of the catalog, dated summer 1981, stated that while "Atari offers a wide variety of useful and entertaining software ... we've come across other interesting software deserving public recognition ... [APX] will make such software available quickly and inexpensively ... We'll keep costs down [by using] simple packaging and we'll rely on user-written documentation ... What we'll offer, then, is a lot of interesting software quickly and inexpensively".[4]

The quarterly publication included descriptions and screenshots of each program, and advertisements for computer magazines. Other products sold included the book De Re Atari and various peripherals. Many APX programs were games, but it distributed a wide variety of applications, utilities, programming tools, and educational software.[5]

Discontinuation

According to Atari CEO Morgan, APX was losing money in its mail-order business so that part was shut down:

Moreover, Atari had to come to grips with the fact that Atari is not in the mail-order business. However, APX will continue to review products sent to Atari by outside programmers. If the programs are topnotch, they will be added to the main Atari catalogue. Otherwise, they will not be sold by Atari in any fashion.[6]

After the discontinuation of APX, Antic magazine published some APX titles as APX Classics from Antic and continued soliciting new software as Antic Software. The Antic Software catalog, created by Gary Yost, was bound into issues of the magazine.

Products

Atari Star winners

In 1981 APX announced an award program, the Atari Star with quarterly and yearly cash awards. All programs submitted for publishing were considered for the awards. The annual grand prize for the best program was a trophy and $25,000.[7][5] The first winner was My First Alphabet by Fernando Herrera. He used the money to start First Star Software, which developed the Boulder Dash and Spy vs. Spy franchises.

The 1982 winner was Typo Attack by David Buehler, a game designed to improve touch typing skill. Atari published it as a cartridge in 1984.

The 1983 winner was Getaway! by Mark Reid, a maze chase game taking place across a large, scrolling city map. According to Reid, there was talk of moving the game into Atari's product line, but Atari's troubles stemming from the North American video game crash of 1983 kept this from happening.[8]

Others

Two of the biggest APX hits were the wargame Eastern Front (1941)[3] and a product that was neither software nor user-written: the book De Re Atari,[9] which contains information about the proprietary hardware of the Atari 8-bit computers. The source code for Eastern Front was also available as a separate purchase. Eastern Front and vertically-scrolling shooter Caverns of Mars were both converted to ROM cartridges and became part of the official Atari product line.

John Palevich's Dandy inspired the arcade game Gauntlet and became the home game Dark Chambers.

Though APX was created to sell user-written software, Atari distributed two official arcade ports through APX: 1978's Avalanche, credited to Dennis Koble, who wrote the original arcade game,[10] and 1982 platformer Kangaroo,[11] which was uncredited.[12]

gollark: +<collatz
gollark: ++data list % global
gollark: ++remind 16h have guesses || metabee
gollark: +<markov 10
gollark: If you want more accurate data, please send me a CSV with all your Discord messages ever so I can train some things on you.

References
  1. Nelson, Ted (1983). "The Atari Machine". In Small, David; Small, Sandy; Blank, George (eds.). The Creative Atari. Creative Computing Press. ISBN 0916688348.
  2. Steve Fulton, "Atari: The Golden Years -- A History, 1978-1981", Gamasutra, 21 August 2008
  3. DeWitt, Robert (June 1983). "APX / On top of the heap". Antic. Retrieved October 30, 2013.
  4. "Introducing the Atari Program Exchange". Atari Program Exchange Software Catalog. Summer 1981. pp. 1–2. Retrieved July 29, 2014.
  5. "The quarterly APX contest / APX: Programs by our users...for our users / Publications / Hardware". APX Product Catalog (Fall ed.). 1983. pp. 34, 72. Retrieved July 29, 2014.
  6. Fred D'Ignazio and Selby Bateman, "Atari's New Lease On Life", Compute!, Issue 50 (July 1984), pg. 44
  7. "Introducing the premier award of the software industry". Creative Computing (advertisement). January 1982. pp. 24–25. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
  8. "Reminisching: Getaway!".
  9. Kevin Savetz, "Fred Thorlin: The Big Boss at Atari Program Exchange", April 2000
  10. "The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers".
  11. Hague, James (1997). "Halcyon Days: Interviews with Classic Computer and Video Game Programmers". dadgum.com.
  12. "APX Catalog". archive.org. Fall 1983. p. 48.
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