By Jerry Bonner — originally published in July 2026 — Issue #13
It all started with a game… as these things usually do.
Blue Max was the game. I bought it at the tail end of my Christmas vacation in 1983. I had just enough money left over from my paper route Christmas tips to afford its hefty $39.95 price tag. Once I got the game home, I played it into the ground because, quite simply, it was an excellent WWI approximation of Sega’s Zaxxon, which I had fallen in love with in the arcades a year or so earlier.
When my birthday rolled around a couple months later, my dad took me to a mom and pop “electronics” store so I could pick out a new game. I chose the game Shamus simply because it was made by the same company that made Blue Max and, as mentioned, I loved me some Blue Max.
That company was called Synapse Software. It didn’t matter that I barely understood what a “synapse” was at twelve-years-old, the name sounded cool… their ads in the computer magazines of the day were cool, too… but most of all, they made some damn cool video games.
But it didn’t start out that way. Not unless you find titles like FileManager 800, Disk Manager, and SynAssembler scintillating.
The funny thing, though, about many early software companies is that they weren’t founded by computer science prodigies in garages.
Well, OK… some of them were, but Synapse was not.
The company’s co-founder, Ihor Wolosenko, began life a long way from the computer industry. Born in Austria to Ukrainian parents following World War II, he eventually settled in New York, where his interests leaned more toward psychology, science fiction, photography, and theater rather than programming. After college he built a successful photography business before relocating to Berkeley, CA where he immersed himself in Tibetan Buddhism, counseling, and a then-emerging discipline called neuro-linguistic programming.
Computers entered the picture almost accidentally.
“I saw Star Raiders on an Atari,” Wolosenko recalled in a 1983 interview in Antic Magazine. “I asked if the Apple could play Star Raiders. They said ‘no,’ so I knew I wanted the one with Star Raiders.”
Like many of us, he bought an Atari 800 and became obsessed. The difference is that most of us merely putzed around with games, but Wolosenko used that Star Raiders impetus to start a software company of his own.
But the company’s first major product wasn’t a game at all. After meeting Federal Reserve executive and programmer Ken Grant through local Atari user groups, the pair collaborated on a database package that became FileManager 800. Wolosenko focused on usability, documentation, interface design, and user experience while Grant handled the underlying architecture.
Even then, the philosophy that would define Synapse was already taking shape as Wolosenko wasn’t interested in merely making software that worked… he wanted software that felt friendly.
He later explained that he delayed FileManager‘s release repeatedly because he refused to ship it until it was “completely easy to use, completely friendly.” And that attention to polish would soon become Synapse’s calling card.
As the company expanded, Wolosenko began attracting talented programmers from across the rapidly growing Atari community:
Mike Potter arrived with the Defender/Choplifter hybrid, Protector.
Steve Hales came aboard to rescue a troubled project that eventually became the puzzling shooter, Slime.
Cathryn Mataga showed up with what was essentially a Berzerk clone, but Wolosenko took one look at it and said no. Not because it wasn’t good, but because it wasn’t original. “I don’t want to put out just a reproduction of another game,” he explained. “I don’t think it’s kosher.”
That project eventually evolved into my aforementioned twelfth birthday gift, Shamus.
And that’s when everything changed. Shamus dropped for the Atari home computers in 1982 and instantly established Synapse as one of the elite software publishers of the era.
Part robot fragging arcade game, part maze exploration adventure, it combined frantic action with a surprising amount of personality. The title’s trench coat wearing detective hero felt distinct at a time when most protagonists were little more than geometric shapes.
For me, though, Shamus represented something else… something beyond a happy birthday. It represented trust. Blue Max had already earned my loyalty. Shamus confirmed it because when you saw that Synapse logo on a box in the early ’80s, you knew there was an excellent chance you were about to have a rollicking good time behind the keyboard and/or joystick.
And that wasn’t accidental. Former Synapse programmer Steve Hales believes the company’s secret weapon was Wolosenko himself.
“The secret was Ihor Wolosenko” Hales said in an interview in the seminal 1997 book, Halcyon Days. “He is a very dynamic persona, very creative, and, at the time, very passionate about games. You could consider him a Steve Jobs equal, but for the games business. Every product that Synapse produced had Ihor’s touch.”
That right there is a bold statement… but when you take a long hard look at Synapse’s output, it’s hard to argue because between 1982 and 1984, Synapse seemed incapable of releasing a bad game.
There was Fort Apocalypse, Hales’ helicopter rescue masterpiece inspired partly by a dream and partly by the film Blue Thunder, but I always called it “Super Choplifter” because “Fort Apocalypse” reminded me of a crappy Paul Newman movie, “Fort Apache – The Bronx.” There also was Necromancer, one of the strangest fantasy games ever released, where players grew armies of walking trees before battling an evil wizard. And then there was Alley Cat, Rainbow Walker, Pharaoh’s Curse, Drelbs, Blue Max, and a good many others.
What made these games special wasn’t simply technical excellence. They were weird. Wonderfully weird.
Necromancer sounds like something spawned out of a metal band’s LSD induced fever dream.
The puzzling but enchanting Drelbs remains almost impossible to adequately explain to anyone who hasn’t played it.
Alley Cat turns chasing mice, knocking over fishbowls, and raiding birdcages into one of the most entertaining games ever made.
The industry wasn’t yet locked into rigid genres and focus-tested formulas, and because of this developers could simply ask, “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?” and then spend six months making that “cool” happen.
That creative freedom extended to Synapse’s presentation. The company’s box art, largely created by artist Tim Boxell, developed a distinctive personality all its own, akin to Roger Dean’s fantastic album covers for Yes, Uriah Heep, and many others. According to Hales, Boxell’s artwork perfectly captured Synapse’s identity: “Slightly on edge, always irreverent.”
The covers looked different. The advertisements looked different. The games felt different. Everything about Synapse suggested a company run by people who genuinely loved what they were doing and had serious skin in the game, which, according to Wolosenko, was exactly the point: “I do it because it’s fun to do,” he said in 1983. “When it stops being fun I won’t do it anymore.”
Unfortunately, the Video Game Crash of 1983 didn’t give a rat’s ass how much fun anyone was having.
In 1983, though, Synapse was indeed thriving, occupying a 22,000 square foot office, employing dozens of programmers, and the company was shipping between half a million and a million dollars worth of software every month.
Then came a series of decisions that, while perfectly logical at the time, ultimately proved disastrous.
Seeking growth beyond games, Synapse reinvigorated its interest in business software. The company partnered with Atari to produce spreadsheets, database programs, and communications software… then Atari famously fell down and went BOOM.
Warner sold the company to Jack Tramiel. Contracts became uncertain and payments stopped arriving because that’s how Jack rolled. And, suddenly, Synapse found itself facing a catastrophic cash flow crisis.
As Hales explained in that 1997 interview, Synapse had effectively bet the company on a business arrangement that vanished overnight… and the result was a death spiral from which there was no recovery.
One of the great tragedies of Synapse’s collapse is that it happened just as the company was attempting something genuinely ambitious, but it needed to be purchased by Broderbund to ultimately see this ambition through.
Several developers, including Cathryn Mataga and Steve Hales, believed the future lay in interactive fiction. Together they launched the audacious Electronic Novels line, hoping to push beyond what Infocom was doing by creating richer, more sophisticated story experiences across multiple platforms.
The problem? They were right… and they were wrong.
“We figured we could create games much more compelling and complex,” Hales recalled. “We built some great games in about twelve months, but the market crashed, and nobody was interested in Interactive Fiction when we shipped.”
Timing, as the saying goes, is indeed everything.
Today, Synapse occupies a fascinating place in gaming history. Unlike Activision, Electronic Arts, or Sierra, it didn’t survive long enough to become a household name. Its run was brief… but what a run it was.
The famous author Jack London once wrote: “Let us burn brightly, like meteors across the night sky, leaving behind us a trail of light and inspiration for those who come after us.” In my mind, that 120-year-old quote defines Synapse Software because for a few glorious years, Synapse represented everything that was exciting about early home computing: creativity, experimentation, technical innovation, and just enough weirdness to keep things interesting.
Maybe that’s why those old games still resonate: Not because they were perfect, but because they felt personal and handcrafted. They felt like they were made by people with their hair on fire who were flying by the seat of their pants… but totally having the best time of their lives while doing so.
And honestly? The modern game industry could definitely use a good bit more of that these days.
If I am ever lucky enough to own a video game company, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be resurrecting the mantle of Synapse Software… and I will throw down with anyone, legally or otherwise, who tries to stop me.