Oct 17, 2021
Margaret (Akin) Guilbault, Atari Camper
Margaret Akin was one of the children who attended Atari's computer
camps, and one of the kids who was featured in The Magic Room,
Atari's movie about the camps. Her name is now Margaret
Guilbault.
Atari ran its summer camps from 1982 through 1984 at several
locations around the United States. That first year, Atari
commissioned a film about its summer camps, which was filmed at the
San Diego location. Margaret attended Atari camp that first year in
San Diego, then again in 1983 the Minnesota location.
It turns out Margaret's first year at a computer camp was in 1981,
the summer before Atari's first camps. Her first computer camp
experience was at Zaca Lake -- near Santa Barbara, California --
hosted by a company called Computer Camp Inc., which used Atari
computers.
I talked with Margaret about her experiences at those camps, and
taking part in the filming of The Magic Room, on September 12,
2021.
You can watch The Magic room at YouTube and Internet Archive. In
previous interviews I've talked with filmmaker Bob Elfstrom; Linda
(Gordon) Brownstein, the Atari vice president who oversaw the camp
project; and other Atari computer campers.
The Magic Room (18-minute
version)
Newspaper
article about Computer Camp Inc.'s Zaca Lake camp
ANTIC Interview 419 - Bob Elfstrom, The Magic Room
ANTIC Special Episode - Atari Summer Camp