Jul 5, 2026
Mike Lorenzen: Atari Program-Text Editor, Pitfall
II
Mike Lorenzen worked at Atari, Activision, and Accolade, creating
games for the Atari 2600, Atari 8-bit, and Commodore 64
computers.
At Atari, Mike coded Golf and Circus Atari for the Atari 2600. For
the 8-bit computers, he wrote MEDIT (which he told me stands for
Mike’s EDITor.) Atari got a lot of mileage from MEDIT, using
versions of that text editor in several products: first, in Atari
Program-Text Editor (which was bundled with Atari's Macro
Assembler), and in two Atari Program Exchange products: APX 20075,
Atari Program-Text Editor; and APX 20076: Word Processing Diskette,
where it was bundled with a text formatter.
Both Program-Text Editor and Word Processing Diskette first
appeared in the Winter 1981 APX catalog (the second APX catalog)
with a price of $39.95 for Program-Text Editor and $49.95 for Word
Processing Diskette — relatively hefty prices, considering the
median price for software in that catalog was just $17.95.
At Activision, he ported Pitfall and Pitfall II Lost Caverns to the
Atari 8-bit — and in that, created the undocumented Easter egg of
an additional game inside: Pitfall III, which appears only in the
Atari 8-bit version.
At Accolade, Mike developed the game "Psi-5 Trading Company" for
the C64, which he called "the most sophisticated Commodore 64
program ever written".
This interview took place on June 4, 2026.
Software mentioned:
Macro Assembler and Program-Text Editor at AtariMania
APX 20075: Atari Program-Text Editor at AtariMania
APX 20076: Word Processing Diskette at AtariMania
Pitfall at AtariMania