Adventure The Atari 2600 At The Dawn Of Console Gaming

Author : Jamie Lendino
Publisher : Ziff Davis
Page : 278 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2018-06-04
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9781732355200

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

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.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 34 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2024-07-03
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9780525573494

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by Anonim Pdf

Author : Jamie Lendino
Publisher : Steel Gear Press
Page : 435 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2020-09-27
Category : Computers
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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

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.

Author : Jimmy Russell
Publisher : Andrews UK Limited
Page : 21 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2012-03-12
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9781782344957

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101 Amazing Atari 2600 Facts by Jimmy Russell Pdf

In this, the first title in Jimmy Russell's Games Console History series, we learn 101 amazing facts about Atari's seminal 2600, the first truly popular home family computer games system. The facts cover many areas, including the history, the hardware, game titles both rare and popular and some incredible information you probably never knew! Everyone from retro gamers who were there at the time to n00bz who think a PlayStation is Old School will find this excellent eBook jam packed full of fascinating trivia!

Author : Mark J. P. Wolf
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 1173 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2021-05-24
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9798216161820

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Encyclopedia of Video Games [3 volumes] by Mark J. P. Wolf Pdf

Now in its second edition, the Encyclopedia of Video Games: The Culture, Technology, and Art of Gaming is the definitive, go-to resource for anyone interested in the diverse and expanding video game industry. This three-volume encyclopedia covers all things video games, including the games themselves, the companies that make them, and the people who play them. Written by scholars who are exceptionally knowledgeable in the field of video game studies, it notes genres, institutions, important concepts, theoretical concerns, and more and is the most comprehensive encyclopedia of video games of its kind, covering video games throughout all periods of their existence and geographically around the world. This is the second edition of Encyclopedia of Video Games: The Culture, Technology, and Art of Gaming, originally published in 2012. All of the entries have been revised to accommodate changes in the industry, and an additional volume has been added to address the recent developments, advances, and changes that have occurred in this ever-evolving field. This set is a vital resource for scholars and video game aficionados alike.

Author : Jamie Lendino
Publisher : Steel Gear Press
Page : 386 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2022-03-14
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9781957932019

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

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.

Author : Raiford Guins
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 281 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2020-11-12
Category : Design
ISBN : 9781474284530

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Atari Design by Raiford Guins Pdf

Drawing from deep archival research and extensive interviews, Atari Design is a rich, historical study of how Atari's industrial and graphic designers contributed to the development of the video game machine. Innovative game design played a key role in the growth of Atari – from Pong to Asteroids and beyond – but fun, challenging and exciting game play was not unique to the famous Silicon Valley company. What set it apart from its competitors was innovation in the coin-op machine's cabinet. Atari did not just make games, it designed products for environments. With “tasteful packaging”, Atari exceeded traditional locations like bars, amusement parks and arcades, developing the look and feel of their game cabinets for new locations such as fast food restaurants, department stores, country clubs, university unions, and airports, making game-play a ubiquitous social and cultural experience. By actively shaping the interaction between user and machine, overcoming styling limitations and generating a distinct corporate identity, Atari designed products that impacted the everyday visual and material culture of the late 20th century. Design was never an afterthought at Atari.

Author : Jamie Lendino
Publisher : Steel Gear Press
Page : 325 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2019-06-17
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9781732355217

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

“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.

Author : Jamie Lendino
Publisher : Steel Gear Press
Page : 349 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2023-08-17
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9781957932040

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Breakout by Jamie Lendino Pdf

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.

Author : Tim Lapetino
Publisher : Dynamite Entertainment
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2016-10-26
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781524101060

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Art Of Atari by Tim Lapetino Pdf

Atari is one of the most recognized names in the world. Since its formation in 1972, the company pioneered hundreds of iconic titles including Asteroids, Centipede, and Missile Command. In addition to hundreds of games created for arcades, home video systems, and computers, original artwork was specially commissioned to enhance the Atari experience, further enticing children and adults to embrace and enjoy the new era of electronic entertainment. The Art of Atari is the first official collection of such artwork. Sourced from private collections worldwide, this book spans over 40 years of the company's unique illustrations used in packaging, advertisements, catalogs, and more. Co-written by Robert V. Conte and Tim Lapetino, The Art of Atari includes behind-the-scenes details on how dozens of games featured within were conceived of, illustrated, approved (or rejected), and brought to life! Includes a special Foreword by New York Times bestseller Ernest Cline author of Armada and Ready Player One, soon to be a motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg. Whether you're a fan, collector, enthusiast, or new to the world of Atari, this book offers the most complete collection of Atari artwork ever produced!

Author : Howard Scott Warshaw
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2020-12-14
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0986218669

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Once Upon Atari by Howard Scott Warshaw Pdf

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.

Author : Michael Z. Newman
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 266 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780262035712

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Atari Age by Michael Z. Newman Pdf

The cultural contradictions of early video games: a medium for family fun (but mainly for middle-class boys), an improvement over pinball and television (but possibly harmful) Beginning with the release of the Magnavox Odyssey and Pong in 1972, video games, whether played in arcades and taverns or in family rec rooms, became part of popular culture, like television. In fact, video games were sometimes seen as an improvement on television because they spurred participation rather than passivity. These “space-age pinball machines” gave coin-operated games a high-tech and more respectable profile. In Atari Age, Michael Newman charts the emergence of video games in America from ball-and-paddle games to hits like Space Invaders and Pac-Man, describing their relationship to other amusements and technologies and showing how they came to be identified with the middle class, youth, and masculinity. Newman shows that the “new media” of video games were understood in varied, even contradictory ways. They were family fun (but mainly for boys), better than television (but possibly harmful), and educational (but a waste of computer time). Drawing on a range of sources—including the games and their packaging; coverage in the popular, trade, and fan press; social science research of the time; advertising and store catalogs; and representations in movies and television—Newman describes the series of cultural contradictions through which the identity of the emerging medium worked itself out. Would video games embody middle-class respectability or suffer from the arcade's unsavory reputation? Would they foster family togetherness or allow boys to escape from domesticity? Would they make the new home computer a tool for education or just a glorified toy? Then, as now, many worried about the impact of video games on players, while others celebrated video games for familiarizing kids with technology essential for the information age.

Author : Diana Deverell,Richard Freeborn,Teel James Glenn,David H. Hendrickson,E. Chris Ambrose,Annie Reed,Blaze Ward,Deb Miller,Karen Keeley,Jose Bogran,Paul A. Barra,David Hagerty
Publisher : Kydala Publishing, Inc.
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2024-09-21
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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Adventure by Diana Deverell,Richard Freeborn,Teel James Glenn,David H. Hendrickson,E. Chris Ambrose,Annie Reed,Blaze Ward,Deb Miller,Karen Keeley,Jose Bogran,Paul A. Barra,David Hagerty Pdf

Action-Adventure tales to lead you to places you’ve never been — and hope you make it back. Make a wildfire your ally. Tread softly with the French Resistance during WWII. Extract an informant from the dangers of the Babylonian streets. Sail the Atlantic, float down a river, or take a fishing boat far out to sea. And you can always fight the Phoenicians with the least lucky Viking ever born. Join the adventure and you’ll never look back.

Author : Jamie Lendino
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2019-06-17
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1957932066

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Faster Than Light by Jamie Lendino Pdf

Author : Nick Montfort,Ian Bogost
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 193 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2020-02-25
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780262539760

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Racing the Beam by Nick Montfort,Ian Bogost Pdf

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.