Comments on: Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost, Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System http://stevereads.com/weblog/2009/06/10/nick-montfort-and-ian-bogost-racing-the-beam-the-atari-video-computer-system/ Books and policy from an endlessly curious perspective Sun, 06 Nov 2011 16:13:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Zoltan H http://stevereads.com/weblog/2009/06/10/nick-montfort-and-ian-bogost-racing-the-beam-the-atari-video-computer-system/comment-page-1/#comment-6444 Zoltan H Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:40:37 +0000 http://stevereads.com/weblog/?p=5169#comment-6444 <p>I just finished a review of Racing The Beam - it was a fun book to read too, even if I never owned one - got a C64 a few years later. The lack of a frame buffer was interesting, personally I don't know you'd write a game like that, but that's probably because I never worked on a system like that - by the time the C64 came around computers just had them - there was still the idea of the vertical bank, but it was used for other tricks like getting more sprites on the screen or changing colours - easy way to create water effects.</p> <p>I liked how it talked as much about the environment (cultural, business practises) of the time as well as the technology. There's some interesting trivia here too: like Atari setting up different companies to avoid regulations. </p> <p>btw: "... Unspecified Bunker" - great name for a blog :)</p> <p>Link: http://www.yyztech.ca/reviews/book/racing-the-beam-the-atari-video-computer-system</p> I just finished a review of Racing The Beam – it was a fun book to read too, even if I never owned one – got a C64 a few years later. The lack of a frame buffer was interesting, personally I don’t know you’d write a game like that, but that’s probably because I never worked on a system like that – by the time the C64 came around computers just had them – there was still the idea of the vertical bank, but it was used for other tricks like getting more sprites on the screen or changing colours – easy way to create water effects.

I liked how it talked as much about the environment (cultural, business practises) of the time as well as the technology. There’s some interesting trivia here too: like Atari setting up different companies to avoid regulations.

btw: “… Unspecified Bunker” – great name for a blog :)

Link: http://www.yyztech.ca/reviews/book/racing-the-beam-the-atari-video-computer-system

]]> By: Stephen Laniel’s Unspecified Bunker » Lists of previously-read books http://stevereads.com/weblog/2009/06/10/nick-montfort-and-ian-bogost-racing-the-beam-the-atari-video-computer-system/comment-page-1/#comment-6434 Stephen Laniel’s Unspecified Bunker » Lists of previously-read books Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:17:40 +0000 http://stevereads.com/weblog/?p=5169#comment-6434 <p>[...] Nick and Bogost, IanRacing the Beam: the Atari Video Computer System (finished 10 [...]</p> [...] Nick and Bogost, IanRacing the Beam: the Atari Video Computer System (finished 10 [...]

]]> By: chris r http://stevereads.com/weblog/2009/06/10/nick-montfort-and-ian-bogost-racing-the-beam-the-atari-video-computer-system/comment-page-1/#comment-6432 chris r Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:26:53 +0000 http://stevereads.com/weblog/?p=5169#comment-6432 <p>Related (somewhat... I am not a programmer, so bear with me) is a push to bring back simulated phosphor CRT effects in old-school re-releases and 8-bit style games, as seen here:</p> <p>http://nfgworld.com/mb/thread/660 http://nfgworld.com/mb/thread/661</p> <p>The argument is that the original designers relied on the fuzzy warmth and image delay of the old TVs to give the games a warmth that a flat pixel-per-pixel re-release on modern screens completely destroys, resulting in a comparatively sterile visual experience.</p> Related (somewhat… I am not a programmer, so bear with me) is a push to bring back simulated phosphor CRT effects in old-school re-releases and 8-bit style games, as seen here:

http://nfgworld.com/mb/thread/660 http://nfgworld.com/mb/thread/661

The argument is that the original designers relied on the fuzzy warmth and image delay of the old TVs to give the games a warmth that a flat pixel-per-pixel re-release on modern screens completely destroys, resulting in a comparatively sterile visual experience.

]]> By: mrz http://stevereads.com/weblog/2009/06/10/nick-montfort-and-ian-bogost-racing-the-beam-the-atari-video-computer-system/comment-page-1/#comment-6415 mrz Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:39:39 +0000 http://stevereads.com/weblog/?p=5169#comment-6415 <p>By the way, in case you were interested in programming such a beast, or at least trying to understand how one would do so, check out these resources: http://stella.sourceforge.net/homebrew.php</p> <p>Heck, download stella and try out a few things!</p> By the way, in case you were interested in programming such a beast, or at least trying to understand how one would do so, check out these resources: http://stella.sourceforge.net/homebrew.php

Heck, download stella and try out a few things!

]]> By: mrz http://stevereads.com/weblog/2009/06/10/nick-montfort-and-ian-bogost-racing-the-beam-the-atari-video-computer-system/comment-page-1/#comment-6413 mrz Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:32:21 +0000 http://stevereads.com/weblog/?p=5169#comment-6413 <blockquote> <p>A fact that I still can’t entirely wrap my head around, after reading this book, is that the Atari 2600 had only a few hundred bytes of RAM. It had little enough RAM that the programmer had to very carefully time his graphics operations so that characters got drawn to the screen before the monitor’s electron gun arrived. </p> </blockquote> <p>Yeah, no framebuffer, only a <em>line</em>buffer! But there was also the paucity of RAM in general. The code was run straight out of the cartridge's ROM. The ROM address space was too small in some cases, so they had to do things like have multiple banks of ROM on the cartridge and switch between them at a special address in the cartridge's space. Good times!</p>

A fact that I still can’t entirely wrap my head around, after reading this book, is that the Atari 2600 had only a few hundred bytes of RAM. It had little enough RAM that the programmer had to very carefully time his graphics operations so that characters got drawn to the screen before the monitor’s electron gun arrived.

Yeah, no framebuffer, only a linebuffer! But there was also the paucity of RAM in general. The code was run straight out of the cartridge’s ROM. The ROM address space was too small in some cases, so they had to do things like have multiple banks of ROM on the cartridge and switch between them at a special address in the cartridge’s space. Good times!

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