The retro community has been growing at a rapid pace, and one of the reasons are homebrew games, hacks and ports that attempt to faithfully recreate (or put a new spin on) arcade classics for vintage consoles. The Atari 2600 and 7800 libraries have been growing at a similar clip, and our interview this month is leading the charge. Bob DeCrescenzo is a preeminent modern Atari programmer who has published incredibly faithful ports of some amazing arcade games. Old School Gamer Magazine was lucky enough to interview Bob – understand his process a little bit, as well as learn about his published games library and upcoming projects!
OSG: Tell us a bit about yourself, if you don’t mind. Doyou have a full- me job that is not programming for a35-year-old home game console?
Bob Decrescenzo: I am a programmer by trade. I am currently working for a wonderful company where all the developers work from home.
OSG: Where did you grow up and what were yourgaming in uences? Did you play games with familyand friends at arcades, or did you spend most of yourme on computers and home consoles?
BD: I grew up on Long Island, N.Y. My gaming in fluences were Asteroids and Pac-Man, in that order. I had an Atari 2600, and would play mostly with my best friend,who unfortunately passed away almost ve years ago. I went to the arcade when I could (mostly to ‘Time Out’in Sunrise Mall in Massapequa). I’ve worked on com-puters since 1981 when I got my rst TI/994a.
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