Sep 18, 2021
Eric Podietz, Interactive Picture Systems
Eric Podietz was co-founder of Interactive Picture Systems, a
company that created software for 8-bit computers from 1982 through
1984. The company's first program was PAINT! for the Atari 8-bits,
which was developed at the Superboots software development lab
located at the Capital Children's Museum in Washington, D.C..
PAINT! was first published by Reston then by Atari.
Their next program was Movie Maker, an animation program. Next came
three educational titles published by Spinnaker Software: Trains, a
business simulation; Grandma's House, a digital dollhouse; and
Aerobics, a fitness program. The company also created Operation
Frog, simulated frog dissection software for the Apple II and
Commodore 64.
This interview took place on September 9, 2021. In it, we discuss
Guy Nouri, Ann Lewin-Benham, and Bill Bowman, whom I have
previously interviewed.
After the interview, Eric sent me the source code for his early
Apple II program Painter Power, which I scanned and uploaded to
Internet Archive.
This interview on
YouTube
ANTIC Interview 410 - Ann Lewin-Benham, Director of Capital
Children's Museum
ANTIC Interview 407 - Guy Nouri, Interactive Picture
Systems
ANTIC Interview 278 - Bill Bowman, CEO of Spinnaker
Software
Reston Software's
Paint manual
The
Designers Behind MovieMaker in Compute! Gazette Issue 15
IPS
feature in Starlog Magazine Issue 084
Movie Maker feature in Creative Computing April 1984
Painter
Power source code
Emma One Sock fabric