Developers on TV: K-Byte

K-byte sign

K-Byte was a software developer and electronics manufacturer based in Troy, Michigan, near Detroit, with a manufacturing facility in the northern Michigan town of Gaylord. In the field of video games, Atari, CBS, and Epyx were among its biggest clients. It was one of two high-tech companies in the state profiled in a series of reports that aired on Detroit television station WXYZ in 1983.

In this report, you'll meet the charismatic president of K-Byte, Patrick Flynn. You'll also hear about the company's growth and the wealth of talent it was able to attract. Yes, the future looked quite rosy for this up-and-coming high-tech firm.

But there was a stumbling block: In 1986, K-Byte filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. According to the Gaylord Herald Times, "Flynn said his company suffered when some of its customers went out of business without paying their bills."

K-Byte was then bought out by Tampa, Florida-based electronics company Reptron. Under Reptron, K-Byte moved away from software development and focused on manufacturing.

I don't recall any specific clients being blamed for K-Byte's bankruptcy, but I've wondered if one of them was Atari. K-Byte was making games for Atari's Atarisoft division and from what I understand, these contracts were fairly lucrative. (Atarisoft published games for non-Atari platforms.)

This was back in the days when Warner owned Atari and was spending money like drunken sailors. Under these Atarisoft contracts, K-Byte and other companies were responsible not only for developing the games, but also for manufacturing and packaging them, something K-Byte was uniquely qualified to do. In fact, it would appear K-Byte was manufacturing games for other Atarisoft contractors. (The K-Byte name can be seen on PCBs of games the company did not develop.) I would think K-Byte stood to make some money if things had gone as planned.

Instead, parts of Atari, Inc., including Atarisoft, were sold to Jack Tramiel. InfoWorld reported on the problems some contractors had getting money they were owed. One wonders if K-Byte had similar issues.

Other items of note: Dr. Keith Dreyer is showing off some sort of music software; I know nothing else about it. (Dr. Dreyer would go on to be a prominent radiologist in Boston.)

Dr. Keith Dreyer

Two unreleased games are shown: One seems to be the Commodore 64 version of Donkey Kong Junior; I have no idea what the other game is.

Donkey Kong Junior on the Commodore 64

Unknown game

The name Ice Castles was mentioned; this was a working title for Atari's I, Robot, but this may be a reference to Crystal Castles. (K-Byte developed the C64 version.)

Did you notice the Atari 800s being used to develop C64 games? A source once told me they programmed on Atari hardware, then ported the code over with hardware that was designed internally.