Breakout

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Author :
Publisher : Steel Gear Press
ISBN 13 : 195793204X
Total Pages : 349 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (579 download)

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Book Synopsis Breakout by : Jamie Lendino

Download or read book Breakout written by Jamie Lendino and published by Steel Gear Press. This book was released on 2023-08-17 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Atari 8-bit computers are the first machines that truly bridged the divide between video game players and home computer enthusiasts. The Atari 400 and 800 signaled the start of a new era in computing. Breakout: How Atari 8-Bit Computers Defined a Generation is the first book to cover what made Atari's groundbreaking computer line great: its excellent graphics and sound, flexible programming environment, and wide support from the burgeoning home computer community. For those of us coming of gaming age in the 80s, Atari games were simply amazing—and you'll find out what made these titles so much fun to play. Breakout also explores the Atari 8-bit platform as it stands today, with a robust enthusiast and modding community, the increasing value of Atari computers and peripherals, and how to get started with one now or get your old one running again. With fully revised and updated sections on emulation, mods, and add-ons, plus new community sites, podcasts, and detailed write-ups of 170 Atari 8-bit games (60 more than before), this second edition of Breakout is a must-buy for every vintage computer or gaming enthusiast.

Atari Projects

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Author :
Publisher : Lulu.com
ISBN 13 : 0578556421
Total Pages : 123 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (785 download)

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Book Synopsis Atari Projects by : Jason Moore

Download or read book Atari Projects written by Jason Moore and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2019-08-09 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The goal of this book is to provide a series of fun projects to make it easy for beginners and experts alike to get the most out of their Atari 8-bit retro-computing hobby. Most projects are designed to be completed in less than an hour and are ideal for the weekend hobbyist. The format of each project is a how-to that lists the pre-requisites, the time estimate for completion, some introductory information, a step by step guide, and some comments. The projects are presented in a sequential order that could be followed by someone new to the hobby. The book starts with projects related to purchasing and working with Atari computers and peripherals followed by chapters on software, BASIC programming, and useful resources. Included are projects on original hardware and software as well as projects covering recent developments in technology such as flash memory devices and emulators that can enhance the Atari experience.

Starflight: How the PC and DOS Exploded Computer Gaming

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Author :
Publisher : Steel Gear Press
ISBN 13 : 1957932015
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (579 download)

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Book Synopsis Starflight: How the PC and DOS Exploded Computer Gaming by : Jamie Lendino

Download or read book Starflight: How the PC and DOS Exploded Computer Gaming written by Jamie Lendino and published by Steel Gear Press. This book was released on 2022-03-14 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No one saw it coming. At its launch in 1981, IBM’s original Personal Computer was an expensive business machine—not a gaming behemoth of the kind you saw from Apple, Atari, Commodore, and Tandy. But by 1990, the PC had trampled all its competitors and become the gaming juggernaut it remains to this day. How did this happen? What did the PC do that the ostensibly superior Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, and Apple IIGS, couldn’t? In Starflight: How the PC and DOS Exploded Computer Gaming 1987–1994, author Jamie Lendino tells the full story, starting with the PC’s humble CGA and monochrome origins, moving through early ill-fated (if influential) failures such as the PCjr and Tandy 1000, and diving deep into the industry-shattering innovations in processing, graphics, sound, software, and distribution that gave the PC (and the gamers who loved it) unprecedented power and reach. Along the way, Lendino explores more than 110 of the PC’s most entertaining and important games, revealing how they paved the way for PC supremacy while also offering players new levels of challenge and fun. From groundbreaking graphic adventures (King’s Quest, The Secret of Monkey Island), innovative role-playing games (Ultima, Might and Magic), and sprawling space combat epics (Wing Commander, X-Wing) to titanic strategy titles (Civilization, X-Com), first-person shooters (Stellar 7, Doom), wide-ranging simulations (Stunts, Falcon 3.0), and hard-driving arcade action games (Arkanoid, Raptor), you’ll discover every detail of how the PC’s games catapulted it into the computer gaming stratosphere. Whether you were there at the time—experiencing first-hand the transition of EGA to VGA and single-voice beeps and boops to sweepingly symphonic Roland MT-32 sound, and discovering historic titles upon their release—or you’re only now discovering the wonders of the era, Starflight: How the PC and DOS Exploded Computer Gaming 1987–1994 is a fresh, dynamic, and impossible-to-put-it-down look at the years when PC gaming—and computer gaming itself—changed forever.

Faster Than Light: The Atari ST and the 16-Bit Revolution

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Author :
Publisher : Steel Gear Press
ISBN 13 : 1732355215
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (323 download)

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Book Synopsis Faster Than Light: The Atari ST and the 16-Bit Revolution by : Jamie Lendino

Download or read book Faster Than Light: The Atari ST and the 16-Bit Revolution written by Jamie Lendino and published by Steel Gear Press. This book was released on 2019-06-17 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Power Without the Price.” Every Atari fan remembers that slogan from the 1980s as the rallying cry for 16-bit computing in the form of the Atari ST. This groundbreaking computer brought previously unimagined power to the home user for the first time—and transformed an industry or two along the way. Author Jamie Lendino offers a fresh, vital look at the history of the Atari ST, guiding you from its inauspicious genesis at the center of a company known for its gaming consoles to its category-defining triumphs in music, desktop publishing, and video gaming. And he doesn’t stop there: He then leaps to the present to pull back the veil on the thriving software and mod communities that aren’t just keeping it alive today, but taking it to places its creators never could have imagined. Whether you’re a longtime devotee who wants to relive the magic of the machine that unleashed the wonders of Dungeon Master, Time Bandit, and Starglider, an intrepid DIYer on the hunt for new ideas and resources to take your homebrew system to the next level, or a newcomer hungry to learn the ins and outs of one of the most important computers ever created, this book will get you there just as the ST did its long-ago digital pioneers: Faster Than Light.

Transparent Designs

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Author :
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 1421443538
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (214 download)

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Book Synopsis Transparent Designs by : Michael L. Black

Download or read book Transparent Designs written by Michael L. Black and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2022-03-29 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The author traces the emergence in the late 1970s and early 1980s of the belief that personal computers should be easy to use. He asks readers to consider the consequences of a computational culture grounded in the assumption that the average person does not need to know much, if anything, about the internal operations of the computers we have come to depend on"--

Game History and the Local

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Author :
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030664228
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (36 download)

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Book Synopsis Game History and the Local by : Melanie Swalwell

Download or read book Game History and the Local written by Melanie Swalwell and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-05-24 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together essays on game history and historiography that reflect on the significance of locality. Game history did not unfold uniformly and the particularities of space and place matter, yet most digital game and software histories are silent with respect to geography. Topics covered include: hyper-local games; temporal anomalies in platform arrival and obsolescence; national videogame workforces; player memories of the places of gameplay; comparative reception studies of a platform; the erasure of cultural markers; the localization of games; and perspectives on the future development of ‘local’ game history. Chapters 1 and 12 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Adventure: The Atari 2600 at the Dawn of Console Gaming

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Author :
Publisher : Ziff Davis
ISBN 13 : 1732355207
Total Pages : 277 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (323 download)

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Book Synopsis Adventure: The Atari 2600 at the Dawn of Console Gaming by : Jamie Lendino

Download or read book Adventure: The Atari 2600 at the Dawn of Console Gaming written by Jamie Lendino and published by Ziff Davis. This book was released on 2018-06-04 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sprawl of Adventure. The addictiveness of Breakout. The intensity of Space Invaders. Once upon a time, you could only experience this kind of excitement at the arcade. But in 1977 that changed forever. You, and maybe a friend or a sibling, could instantly teleport from your own living room to a dazzling new world—with nothing more than a small plastic cartridge. This was the promise of the Atari 2600—and it was delivered in ways no one ever expected. No, the games it put on your TV weren’t what you saw when you plunked in your quarters at the convenience store or in the noisy, smoky business on the other side of town. But they brought the arcade home—and it hasn’t left since. With Adventure: The Atari 2600 at the Dawn of Console Gaming, Jamie Lendino takes you to the front lines of the home gaming revolution, exploring the history of the world-changing console and delves into the coin-op ports and original titles that still influence gaming today. Before your next trip to a magical universe with your Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or Nintendo Switch, see how the home gaming industry truly began.

Attract Mode: The Rise and Fall of Coin-Op Arcade Games

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Author :
Publisher : Steel Gear Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 435 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Attract Mode: The Rise and Fall of Coin-Op Arcade Games by : Jamie Lendino

Download or read book Attract Mode: The Rise and Fall of Coin-Op Arcade Games written by Jamie Lendino and published by Steel Gear Press. This book was released on 2020-09-27 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From their haunts in the shadowy corner of a bar, front and center at a convenience store, or reigning over a massive mall installation bursting with light, sound, and action, arcade games have been thrilling and addicting quarter-bearers of all ages ever since Pong first lit up its paddles. Whether you wanted a few minutes’ quick-twitch exhilaration or the taste of three-initial immortality that came with topping the high score screen, you could get it from the diverse range of space shooters, dot-eating extravaganzas, quirky beat-’em-ups, and more that have helped define pop culture for more than four decades. In Attract Mode: The Rise and Fall of Coin-Op Arcade Games, author Jamie Lendino celebrates both the biggest blockbusters (Pac-Man, Star Wars: The Arcade Game) and the forgotten gems (Phoenix, Star Castle) of the Golden Age of coin-op gaming, and pulls back the curtain on the personalities and the groundbreaking technologies that brought them to glitzy, color-drenched life in the U.S., Japan, and all over the world. You’ll start your journey exploring the electromechanical attractions and pinball games of the early 20th century. Next, you’ll meet the earliest innovators, who used college computers and untested electronics to outline the possibilities of the emerging form, and discover the surprising history behind the towering megahits from Nintendo, Sega, and others that still inform gaming today. Then you’ll witness the devastating crash that almost ended it all—and the rebirth no one expected. Whether you prefer the white-knuckle gameplay of Robotron: 2084, the barrel-jumping whimsy of Donkey Kong, or the stunning graphics and animation of Dragon’s Lair, Attract Mode will transport you back to the heyday of arcade games and let you relive—or experience for the first time—the unique magic that transformed entertainment forever.

Once Upon Atari

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780986218668
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (186 download)

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Book Synopsis Once Upon Atari by : Howard Scott Warshaw

Download or read book Once Upon Atari written by Howard Scott Warshaw and published by . This book was released on 2020-12-14 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONCE UPON ATARI is an intimate view into the dramatic rise and fall of the early video game industry, and how it shaped the life of one of its key players. This book offers eye-opening details and insights, delivered in a creative style that mirrors the industry it reveals. An innovative work from one of the industry's original innovators.This is a detailed look behind the scenes of the early days of video games, with particular attention to the causative factors leading up to the video game crash of the early 1980s. It is also the journey of one industry pioneer, and how his experience creating some of the world's most noted pieces of interactive entertainment reverberates throughout his life. It is a compelling and dramatic tale of innocence, greed, exuberance, hubris, joy, devastation and ultimately redemption, told in a fresh voice and an unorthodox style.

Hackers

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Publisher : "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
ISBN 13 : 1449393748
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (493 download)

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Book Synopsis Hackers by : Steven Levy

Download or read book Hackers written by Steven Levy and published by "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". This book was released on 2010-05-19 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 25th anniversary edition of Steven Levy's classic book traces the exploits of the computer revolution's original hackers -- those brilliant and eccentric nerds from the late 1950s through the early '80s who took risks, bent the rules, and pushed the world in a radical new direction. With updated material from noteworthy hackers such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Stallman, and Steve Wozniak, Hackers is a fascinating story that begins in early computer research labs and leads to the first home computers. Levy profiles the imaginative brainiacs who found clever and unorthodox solutions to computer engineering problems. They had a shared sense of values, known as "the hacker ethic," that still thrives today. Hackers captures a seminal period in recent history when underground activities blazed a trail for today's digital world, from MIT students finagling access to clunky computer-card machines to the DIY culture that spawned the Altair and the Apple II.

Racing the Beam

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Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262539764
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

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Book Synopsis Racing the Beam by : Nick Montfort

Download or read book Racing the Beam written by Nick Montfort and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the relationship between platform and creative expression in the Atari VCS, the gaming system for popular games like Pac-Man and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. The Atari Video Computer System dominated the home video game market so completely that “Atari” became the generic term for a video game console. The Atari VCS was affordable and offered the flexibility of changeable cartridges. Nearly a thousand of these were created, the most significant of which established new techniques, mechanics, and even entire genres. This book offers a detailed and accessible study of this influential video game console from both computational and cultural perspectives. Studies of digital media have rarely investigated platforms—the systems underlying computing. This book, the first in a series of Platform Studies, does so, developing a critical approach that examines the relationship between platforms and creative expression. Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost discuss the Atari VCS itself and examine in detail six game cartridges: Combat, Adventure, Pac-Man, Yars' Revenge, Pitfall!, and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. They describe the technical constraints and affordances of the system and track developments in programming, gameplay, interface, and aesthetics. Adventure, for example, was the first game to represent a virtual space larger than the screen (anticipating the boundless virtual spaces of such later games as World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto), by allowing the player to walk off one side into another space; and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was an early instance of interaction between media properties and video games. Montfort and Bogost show that the Atari VCS—often considered merely a retro fetish object—is an essential part of the history of video games.

Home Computers

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Author :
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 0262044013
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

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Book Synopsis Home Computers by : Alex Wiltshire

Download or read book Home Computers written by Alex Wiltshire and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2020-05-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A celebration of the early years of the digital revolution, when computing power was deployed in a beige box on your desk. Today, people carry powerful computers in our pockets and call them “phones.” A generation ago, people were amazed that the processing power of a mainframe computer could be contained in a beige box on a desk. This book is a celebration of those early home computers, with specially commissioned new photographs of 100 vintage computers and a generous selection of print advertising, product packaging, and instruction manuals. Readers can recapture the glory days of fondly remembered (or happily forgotten) machines including the Commodore 64, TRS-80, Apple Lisa, and Mattel Aquarius—traces of the techno-utopianism of the not-so-distant past. Home Computers showcases mass-market success stories, rarities, prototypes, one-offs, and never-before-seen specimens. The heart of the book is a series of artful photographs that capture idiosyncratic details of switches and plugs, early user-interface designs, logos, and labels. After a general scene-setting retrospective, the book proceeds computer by computer, with images of each device accompanied by a short history of the machine, its inventors, its innovations, and its influence. Readers who inhabit today's always-on, networked, inescapably connected world will be charmed by this visit to an era when the digital revolution could be powered down every evening.

Console Wars

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Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062276719
Total Pages : 683 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (622 download)

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Book Synopsis Console Wars by : Blake J. Harris

Download or read book Console Wars written by Blake J. Harris and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 683 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now a documentary on CBS All Access. Following the success of The Accidental Billionaires and Moneyball comes Console Wars—a mesmerizing, behind-the-scenes business thriller that chronicles how Sega, a small, scrappy gaming company led by an unlikely visionary and a team of rebels, took on the juggernaut Nintendo and revolutionized the video game industry. In 1990, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the video game industry. Sega, on the other hand, was just a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But that would all change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a man who knew nothing about videogames and everything about fighting uphill battles. His unconventional tactics, combined with the blood, sweat and bold ideas of his renegade employees, transformed Sega and eventually led to a ruthless David-and-Goliath showdown with rival Nintendo. The battle was vicious, relentless, and highly profitable, eventually sparking a global corporate war that would be fought on several fronts: from living rooms and schoolyards to boardrooms and Congress. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, no-holds-barred conflict that pitted brother against brother, kid against adult, Sonic against Mario, and the US against Japan. Based on over two hundred interviews with former Sega and Nintendo employees, Console Wars is the underdog tale of how Kalinske miraculously turned an industry punchline into a market leader. It’s the story of how a humble family man, with an extraordinary imagination and a gift for turning problems into competitive advantages, inspired a team of underdogs to slay a giant and, as a result, birth a $60 billion dollar industry. A best book of the year: NPR, Slate, Publishers Weekly, Goodreads

Bits and Pieces

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 0190496096
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis Bits and Pieces by : Kenneth B. McAlpine

Download or read book Bits and Pieces written by Kenneth B. McAlpine and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bits and Pieces tells the story of chiptune, a style of lo-fi electronic music that emerged from the first generation of video game consoles and home computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Through ingenuity and invention, musicians and programmers developed code that enabled the limited hardware of those early 8-bit machines to perform musical feats that they were never designed to achieve. In time, that combination of hardware and creative code came to define a unique 8-bit sound that imprinted itself on a generation of gamers. For a new generation of musicians, this music has currency through the chipscene, a vibrant musical subculture that repurposes obsolete gaming hardware. It's performative: raw and edgy, loaded with authenticity and driven by a strong DIY ethic. It's more punk than Pac-Man, and yet, it's part of that same story of ingenuity and invention; 8-bit hardware is no longer a retired gaming console, but a quirky and characterful musical instrument. Taking these consoles to the stage, musicians fuse 8-bit sounds with other musical styles - drum'n'bass, jungle, techno and house - to create a unique contemporary sound. Analyzing musical structures and technological methods used with chiptune, Bits and Pieces traces the simple beeps of the earliest arcade games, through the murky shadows of the digital underground, to global festivals and movie soundtracks.

Assembly Language Programming for the Atari Computers

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Author :
Publisher : McGraw-Hill Companies
ISBN 13 : 9780070106796
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (67 download)

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Book Synopsis Assembly Language Programming for the Atari Computers by : Mark Chasin

Download or read book Assembly Language Programming for the Atari Computers written by Mark Chasin and published by McGraw-Hill Companies. This book was released on 1984-01-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduces Assembly Language Programming for the Atari Computers

Making Games for the Atari 2600

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Author :
Publisher : Puzzling Plans LLC
ISBN 13 : 1541021304
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (41 download)

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Book Synopsis Making Games for the Atari 2600 by : Steven Hugg

Download or read book Making Games for the Atari 2600 written by Steven Hugg and published by Puzzling Plans LLC. This book was released on 2016-12-22 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Atari 2600 was released in 1977, and now there's finally a book about how to write games for it! You'll learn about the 6502 CPU, NTSC frames, scanlines, cycle counting, players, missiles, collisions, procedural generation, pseudo-3D, and more. While using the manual, take advantage of our Web-based IDE to write 6502 assembly code, and see your code run instantly in the browser. We'll cover the same programming tricks that master programmers used to make classic games. Create your own graphics and sound, and share your games with friends!

Masters of Doom

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Author :
Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN 13 : 0812972155
Total Pages : 361 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (129 download)

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Book Synopsis Masters of Doom by : David Kushner

Download or read book Masters of Doom written by David Kushner and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2004-05-11 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Masters of Doom is the amazing true story of the Lennon and McCartney of video games: John Carmack and John Romero. Together, they ruled big business. They transformed popular culture. And they provoked a national controversy. More than anything, they lived a unique and rollicking American Dream, escaping the broken homes of their youth to co-create the most notoriously successful game franchises in history—Doom and Quake—until the games they made tore them apart. Americans spend more money on video games than on movie tickets. Masters of Doom is the first book to chronicle this industry’s greatest story, written by one of the medium’s leading observers. David Kushner takes readers inside the rags-to-riches adventure of two rebellious entrepreneurs who came of age to shape a generation. The vivid portrait reveals why their games are so violent and why their immersion in their brilliantly designed fantasy worlds offered them solace. And it shows how they channeled their fury and imagination into products that are a formative influence on our culture, from MTV to the Internet to Columbine. This is a story of friendship and betrayal, commerce and artistry—a powerful and compassionate account of what it’s like to be young, driven, and wildly creative. “To my taste, the greatest American myth of cosmogenesis features the maladjusted, antisocial, genius teenage boy who, in the insular laboratory of his own bedroom, invents the universe from scratch. Masters of Doom is a particularly inspired rendition. Dave Kushner chronicles the saga of video game virtuosi Carmack and Romero with terrific brio. This is a page-turning, mythopoeic cyber-soap opera about two glamorous geek geniuses—and it should be read while scarfing down pepperoni pizza and swilling Diet Coke, with Queens of the Stone Age cranked up all the way.”—Mark Leyner, author of I Smell Esther Williams