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ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast


hosts: Randy Kindig, Kay Savetz, Brad Arnold
email: antic@ataripodcast.com
twitter: @AtariPodcast
Mastodon: @ataripodcast@oldbytes.space
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Oct 31, 2016

Thom Graziano, CompuClub 

Thom Graziano was founder of CompuClub, an Atari mail-order company and retail store based in Massachusetts. The company began in 1983 and closed in 1986.

CompuClub ran full-page advertisements in the Atari magazines with the headline "The Greatest Atari of All Time." For a $5 annual membership, you could become a CompuClub member, which got you a subscription to their newsletter and access to their catalog of Atari software at "at least 25% below retail." The company only sold programs for the Atari computers — first, the 8-bits and later, the ST line.

This interview took place on October 13, 2016.

Teaser quote: "The Department of Defense was sending Atari software to schools all over the world ... I tried to be very up-front and very honest with them."

CompuClub newsletters: http://www.digitpress.com/library/newsletters/compuclub/

CompuClub ad

CompuClub catalogs


Garry Terrell
almost seven years ago

I was one of those Dept of Defense students Thomas mentions in the podcast. We were stationed in Frankfurt Germany in the early 80's and our DOD Frankfurt American High School was outfitted with Atari 800's. There was a huge Atari culture at our school and other DOD schools in Europe. Spent a bunch of time learning about Atari, swapping software, and playing all kinds of games. Most of us used programs like Atariwriter to do our term papers or drawing programs to complete our work. I am still friends with many of those Frankfurt American High School Atari folks to this day.