ANTIC Interview 459 - Mike Lorenzen: Atari Program-Text Editor, Pitfall II

Mike Lorenzen: Atari Program-Text Editor, Pitfall II

Mike Lorenzen worked at Atari, Activision, and Accolade, creating games for the Atari 2600, Atari 8-bit, and Commodore 64 computers.

At Atari, Mike coded Golf and Circus Atari for the Atari 2600. For the 8-bit computers, he wrote MEDIT (which he told me stands for Mike's EDITor.) Atari got a lot of mileage from MEDIT, using versions of that text editor in several products: first, in Atari Program-Text Editor (which was bundled with Atari's Macro Assembler), and in two Atari Program Exchange products: APX 20075, Atari Program-Text Editor; and APX 20076: Word Processing Diskette, where it was bundled with a text formatter.

Both Program-Text Editor and Word Processing Diskette first appeared in the Winter 1981 APX catalog (the second APX catalog) with a price of $39.95 for Program-Text Editor and $49.95 for Word Processing Diskette — relatively hefty prices, considering the median price for software in that catalog was just $17.95.

At Activision, he ported Pitfall and Pitfall II Lost Caverns to the Atari 8-bit — and in that, created the undocumented Easter egg of an additional game inside: Pitfall III, which appears only in the Atari 8-bit version.

At Accolade, Mike developed the game "Psi-5 Trading Company" for the C64, which he called "the most sophisticated Commodore 64 program ever written".

This interview took place on June 4, 2026.

Software mentioned:
Macro Assembler and Program-Text Editor at AtariMania
APX 20075: Atari Program-Text Editor at AtariMania
APX 20076: Word Processing Diskette at AtariMania
Pitfall at AtariMania
Pitfall II Lost Caverns at AtariMania

People mentioned:
Scott Scheiman interview
Dale Yocum interview
Chris Crawford interview
Fred Thorlin interview
Brad Fregger on Lorenzen's overwork

More information:
Inverse ATASCII reviews APX Program-Text Editor
AtariWiki on Program-Text Editor
Psi-5 Trading Company