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A review by ninj
Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System by Ian Bogost, Nick Montfort
4.0
More technical than I was expecting. At times, that made it a little dry, but it was definitely enriching, and seeing how the technical limitations in the system translated into design, gameplay and graphical choices was quite interesting. That explanation also means you get a deeper appreciation for the latter games explored in the book as they pushed beyond the obstacles earlier games halted at.
The book's authors themselves are not above sliding in passing references to classics in computing fiction, with lines such as "This sometimes allowed dramatic effects to be displayed to viewers who, plugging in a joystick, found the television above the port to be the color of sky"
And the heroics - David Crane crammed 255 screens of jungle for Pitfall! in 50 bytes, and went from single-life-single-try to 3 lives with display, "For the 'lives' indicator I added vertical tally marks to the timer display. That probably only cost 24 bytes, and with another 20 hours of 'scrunching' the code I could fit that in"
The book's authors themselves are not above sliding in passing references to classics in computing fiction, with lines such as "This sometimes allowed dramatic effects to be displayed to viewers who, plugging in a joystick, found the television above the port to be the color of sky"
And the heroics - David Crane crammed 255 screens of jungle for Pitfall! in 50 bytes, and went from single-life-single-try to 3 lives with display, "For the 'lives' indicator I added vertical tally marks to the timer display. That probably only cost 24 bytes, and with another 20 hours of 'scrunching' the code I could fit that in"