KANSAS CITY, MO — January 1, 2008 — Lane Roathe, cofounder of Ideas From the Deep and former managing editor at Softdisk, will be the keynote speaker at KansasFest 2008. At Softdisk, a monthly magazine of original software for the Apple II, Mr. Roathe teamed with John Romero and John Carmack to create the internal gaming division, producing such hits as Dangerous Dave, Catacombs, and Star Axe.
“When I found out KansasFest was still going and I hadn’t known, I could’ve kicked myself,” said Lane, who last attended KFest in 1991. “To be invited back — and as keynote speaker, at that! — is an honor and pleasure.”
Mr. Roathe begin his career as a programmer when he created Blue Mountain Micro where he wrote and distributed games and utilities, including the Disk Utility Program and Copy Protection Notebook, for the Apple II. Later, at Tristar Computer Solutions, he cut his teeth on Alpha Micro mini computers. He then moved to UpTime, where he wrote the shell that drove the monthly Apple IIe and IIgs disk magazines. At UpTime, he met John Romero, with whom he’d later formed Ideas From the Deep, a company that has worked on titles such as Dark Castle, Zappa Roidz, Write Away!, Bugdom, Nanosaur and more. He performed a similar function at Softdisk, where he met John Carmack. Carmack, Romero, and Roathe would later work together to create Commander Keen, id Software’s first title. Roathe’s career has continued to envelop all aspects of programming and management. His current position is Director of Technology for Method Solutions, a video game production company that develops exciting and exceptional video games on consoles, PCs and wireless phone handsets. Roathe also continues as president, cofounder, and lead developer for Ideas From the Deep, which provides software publishing, development and contracting services, and specializes in platform independent development titles and libraries.
KansasFest 2008 is set for Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri, from July 22nd through July 27th.
KansasFest, the Apple II summer gathering also known as KFest, was originally hosted by Resource Central, has been brought to you by the KFest Committee since 1995. Any and all Apple II and Macintosh users, fans, and friends are invited to attend this year’s “summer camp for geeks”; you’ll be glad you did!
CONTACT:
KansasFest 2008
kfest-help@kfest.org
https://www.kansasfest.org/