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The Video Game Newsroom Time Machine is a weekly retro gaming podcast in which we travel back in time to see what was making headlines 40, 30, and 20 years ago in the arcade, video game, and computer gaming business and interview industry veterans. 

We try to put those events into historical context to understand how the industry of today came to be. 

It's fun and educational! (in case you need to justify listening to it to a significant other)

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Jul 14, 2024

In the earliest days of the gaming biz, Human Engineered Software was a trailblazer, bringing big names like Jeff Minter to the US.  The company's founder, Jay Balakrishnan, is a serial entrepreneur who not only would help create the mass market for software at retail but would also have a long and storied career in games beyond Hes ware with such companies as Radical Entertainment and Dynamics.  
I spoke to Jay in November and December of 2023, and after a few technical hiccups we finally got a connection going and we jump right into that today, so don't worry that I don't start things off with my traditional chronology obsessed focus, we'll wrap around and cover the whole story as we go along.  Enjoy!

Recorded: November-December 2023

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Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Engineered_Software
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Minter
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_Becker
https://archive.org/details/ArticleHESWARESignsNimoy
https://archive.org/details/HESWARESpokesmanLeonardNimoyAndJayBalakrishanAt1984CES
https://www.mobygames.com/game/76/shamus/
https://archive.org/details/HESWARENewInvestmentsPressRelease
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizastar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Entertainment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamix
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WildTangent
https://www.mobygames.com/person/27385/jay-balakrishnan/credits/
https://www.straight.com/article-87384/indies-may-just-take-over-the-gaming-world
https://www.straight.com/article/hollywood-touch-may-be-too-much-for-games
https://www.bcbusiness.ca/industries/general/vancouver-gaming-industry-digital-warfare/
https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-285-jay-balakrishnan-hesware
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaybalakrishnan

Copyright Karl Kuras