505: “I Presented the Amiga Chipset to Atari… and Everyone Freaked Out!” - Atari's Matt Householder - The Retro Hour Podcast EP505

The Retro Hour (Retro Gaming Podcast)

The Retro Hour

Leisure, Technology, Video Games

4.9 • 558 Ratings

🗓️ 7 November 2025

⏱️ 117 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From hating Pong to working for Atari, this week we chat with Matt Householder. From his early days at Gaming Devices Inc. and designing the arcade classic Krull, through to joining Atari right after the video game crash and witnessing the dramatic Amiga chipset saga from the inside. Matt reveals what it was really like working under Jack Tramiel, converting GEM for the Atari ST in record time, and why developers had to sell snacks from their desks just to survive. He then takes us into the golden years at Epyx, creating World Games and the smash hit California Games, before moving on to 3DO, where a secret project he managed ended up helping fund Diablo.

Contents:

00:00 - The Week's Retro News Stories
54:26 - Matt Householder Interview

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Show notes

Solid Aluminium Xbox Prototype Actually Works: https://youtu.be/0OMP8JvGWNY
Lost Destruction Derby 2 Saturn Prototype Unearthed: https://tinyurl.com/5c75zhxa
James Pond Makes a Comeback on Modern Consoles: https://tinyurl.com/2s4j38wd
Castlevania Amiga Remake Gets CD32 Upgrade: https://tinyurl.com/47624rsa
Castlevania Comes to the Atari 2600 (!): https://tinyurl.com/2k5ub8f5
Sonic Finally Lands on the GX4000: https://tinyurl.com/bdm5svj2
Worms Turns 30 – Team17’s Classic Celebrated: https://tinyurl.com/mrvtutnc

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Coming up on this week's show, a legendary prototype gets remade.
0:04.8	Sonic lands on the Amstrad GX4,000, and we chat with Atari Legend Matt's householder.
0:20.2	And the Retro Hour podcast is brought to you every week with our amazing friends of Bitmap Books,
0:25.5	who are kind enough to sponsor our show every week. And of course, today lots of talk about Atari
0:30.1	as we welcome on Matt Householder as our special guest. One of their books you've got to check out
0:34.2	if you love Atari, Atari 2,600 and 7800, a visual compendium.
0:40.2	Now, this celebrates a console that really kick-started the Home Gaming Revolution,
0:44.5	including some of the most iconic titles of all time, asteroid, space invaders,
0:48.6	Pac-Man, Defender, Joust, Pitfall, they're all in there as well, weighing in more than
0:52.9	520 pages and covering more than
0:55.8	200 legendary Atari games. Check it out in the rest of their retro gaming collection at bitmapbooks.com.
1:02.8	And with our friends at replay events, we're going to be bringing the UK's biggest retro gaming
1:07.4	market back to Doncaster, a bit later this month on Sunday, the 23rd of November.
1:13.1	Now, it's going to be on back at the Doncaster Dome, just minutes from the M1.
1:16.8	It's actually got over 600 free car parking spaces as well.
1:19.8	So pop along, get yourself some great bargains, doors open at 10.30am and all the details at
1:24.3	Doncaster Gaming Market.com.
1:27.9	Hello, and welcome to the Retro Hour podcast, episode number 505, your weekly dose of retro gaming
1:34.0	and technology news with me, Dan Wood, me Ravi Abbott, and me Joe Fox.
1:38.4	And great to be joining us for the podcast that lands every Friday and, of course, celebrates everything
1:42.6	there is about the golden age of video games and technology.
1:46.8	And we'll lay you know what's been going on in the world of retro gaming and tech from over the last week.
	...

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