Aug 7, 2021
Tom Halfhill discusses Charles Brannon and
SpeedScript
Charles Brannon was program editor at Compute! Publications from
1980 until 1986. He wrote and edited articles for Compute! Magazine
and Compute!'s Gazette. His Linkedin profile says that his "primary
responsibility was crafting BASIC and assembly language software
creations. Secondary was managing other young programmers."
Charles' wrote and ported many type-in programs for the Atari 8-bit
and other computers. His Atari programs included FontMaker, a
character set editor and The Atari Wedge, for adding commands To
Atari BASIC.
His most popular and well-known program was SpeedScript, an
assembly language word processor that was available first for the
Commodore 64 in the March 1985 issue. In subsequent issues -- one
month after another -- versions were published for VIC-20, then the
Atari 8-bits, then the Apple II. Each version was a type-in listing
that -- after excruciating hours of careful entry -- would build a
powerful, functional word processor. Charles wrote a couple of
books about SpeedScript (one specific to Atari and one specific to
the Commodore versions) which contained the manual, type-in program
code, and commented assembly language source code.
I've been trying to get an interview with Charles Brannon since
2015, to talk about his time at Compute! in general and SpeedScript
specifically. This year, I heard back from his wife Margaret, who
told me that Charles suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2016 and
no longer feels confident in his memory. I won't be able to
interview Charles.
But, Tom Halfhill, Charles' old friend and colleague at Compute!,
volunteered to talk to me about Charles. Tom was a supervisor at
Compute! when Charles wrote SpeedScript, and often discussed which
features to include and the problems he encountered. Tom worked at
Compute! Publications from 1982 to 1988, starting as the first
Features Editor for Compute! Magazine later becoming Editor. He was
the launch editor of Compute!'s Gazette for Commodore, Compute!'s
Atari ST Disk and Magazine, Compute!'s PCjr Magazine, and
Compute!'s PC Magazine.
This is not the first time I've talked with Tom: I interviewed him
about his time at Compute back in 2016. This time I talk with him
with an emphasis on Charles Brannon and SpeedScript. (To be
perfectly honest, we stuck to those topics for about 35 minutes.
After that, we found other interesting things to talk about, most
of which I left in this episode.)
This interview took place on July 22, 2021.
This interview at
Youtube
Compute! articles by Charles Brannon at AtariMagazines.com
SpeedScript
book, Atari version, at Internet Archive
SpeedScript
book, Atari version, at AtariArchives.org
Download SpeedScript for Atari or try it in your browser
My 2016 interview with Tom
Tom's web site
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