ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Louis Massucci, Atari Bench Tech

Lou Massucci was a bench technician for the Atari 800 line, repairing 8-bit computers and peripherals in Somerset, New Jersey. Later, he was was promoted to field service representative for the southwest territory.

This interview was conducted on March 2, 2015.

Teaser Quotes

"Actually, that's what was causing some of the failure modes because the debris left behind by the cockroaches is very acidic and would actually eat through the PC board traces."

"And it kind of came out of nowhere. I mean, we were repairing these things for a year, and really never had a problem with the keyboard. Then all of a sudden we're starting to get this rash of defective 800s with spacebar problems."

"I think it was a Friday afternoon. We got a call from Atari California, and my manager came in saying, 'You need to get the modem going and they're going to download this file.' We complete the download and it was basically a beta copy of the Pac Man cartridge. So for the next two hours, I think, four or five of us were sitting around our computers playing a beta copy of the Pac Man cartridge."

"I was actually a support engineer for a commercial -- an Atari 8-bit computer commercial."

LINKS

Atari Computer Commercial Behind The Scenes Photos

Lou and mug

Lou and pencil