A good book, if you were a ZX Spectrum gamer, is It's Behind You, which is free to download, and is basically the story of how Bob Pape converted the arcade game R-Type to the Spectrum (which incidentally is one of the best converting (or 'porting', as they say now) jobs ever, as the Spectrum version was stagering considering the machine's limitations). Get it from:

http://bizzley.com/

It's an interesting and well written book, and shows just how wrong we young gamers were in imagining our beloved Spectrum games being written by well paid and already rich programmers who worked in futuristic offices and had the best job in the world...

badmojo wrote:

What’s your must-read computer related book? It doesn’t have to be non-fiction.

This is what I’ve read lately:

Masters or DOOM – this was so well written that I think even people who have no interest in id would enjoy it.

It was well written, but came across as sycophantic sometimes, such as calling Carmac and Romero "The ultimate programmer" and the "The ultimate gamer" respectively. On the other hand, the author didn't gloss over the gross disappointment that Daikatana turned out to be, so he presumably intended to be impartial.

Not remotely relevant now but interesting nevertheless.

Kerr Avon wrote:

A good book, if you were a ZX Spectrum gamer, is It's Behind You, which is free to download, and is basically the story of how Bob Pape converted the arcade game R-Type to the Spectrum (which incidentally is one of the best converting (or 'porting', as they say now) jobs ever, as the Spectrum version was stagering considering the machine's limitations). Get it from:

http://bizzley.com/

It's an interesting and well written book, and shows just how wrong we young gamers were in imagining our beloved Spectrum games being written by well paid and already rich programmers who worked in futuristic offices and had the best job in the world...

That's an excellent book, exactly the kind of retro-computer material I like to read. I read and enjoyed it all, lots of technical info too for those interested.

I've had some hits and misses lately, but I'm currently reading "The Ultimate History of Video Games" by Steven Kent and it's a great read.

I'm also working on Service Games: The Rise and Fall of SEGA: Enhanced Edition. It's OK, but tending towards boring.

For your historic history list I'll recommend Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet, from 1996. I read that some years ago and it helped make a framework for what had been scattered tales for me.

At bedside is a bookmark-filled copy of The Information by James Gleick. This is a Great Read, and I'm just about ready for the second dive into it.

Most recent would be Buro Destruct's self-titled retrospective from 1999. Think you'll dig these scans listing their website and shop hardware.

Don't forget Accidental Empires - the book that was the basis for the Triumph of the Nerds TV Series.

Only thing is a lot of the stories are now well known folklore, but still - def check out the TV series.

I recently finished 'Service Games: The Rise and Fall of SEGA: Enhanced Edition', which was worthwhile if you're specifically interested in Sega, but I couldn't really recommend it otherwise. The author was clearly quite pleased with himself and had a hard time remaining objective - he also repeated himself constantly which caused the book to be 20% longer than it needed to be. I was most disappointed with the nearly total lack of information about Sega in Australia, where both the SMS and the Mega Drive did very well.

I'll have to look into reading Service Games, as I use to work at Namco and they were our most hated rivals (pretty much like Coke vs Pepsi). I'll always be a SEGA fanboy, but I can't help but see them as the enemy from years of corporate warfare, 🤣.

I scored a big box full of computer magazines from the 90's, from 386 to pentium mmx i have a LOT to read (60+ and some games magazines as well). I'm dutch and the magzaines are english and german versions so it takes a bit longer 🤣

Amazed about the prices of the systems back then, didn't remember stuff beeing THAT expensive. Mid-end 468 dx4-100 was around 7000 and a high-end machine around 11000 mark (should not be a big difference to dollars back then).

Kodai wrote:

I'll have to look into reading Service Games, as I use to work at Namco and they were our most hated rivals (pretty much like Coke vs Pepsi). I'll always be a SEGA fanboy, but I can't help but see them as the enemy from years of corporate warfare, 🤣.

Off-topic, but what'd ya do there? 😀

I managed the primary (ie showroom) North American arcade. It was a few miles up the road from NOA (Namco Operations America / Namco of America) corporate HQ. So I had to do a thousand extra things that the rest of the chain never had to contend with, but I always knew what was going on at corporate and what we were doing in both arcade division as well as home. Also got to help pick what arcade games to buy for the whole chain, as I was being groomed for corporate position. Instead I ended up going with my original background which was IT.

Kodai wrote:

I managed the primary (ie showroom) North American arcade. It was a few miles up the road from NOA (Namco Operations America / Namco of America) corporate HQ. So I had to do a thousand extra things that the rest of the chain never had to contend with, but I always knew what was going on at corporate and what we were doing in both arcade division as well as home. Also got to help pick what arcade games to buy for the whole chain, as I was being groomed for corporate position. Instead I ended up going with my original background which was IT.

Cool, thanks. I've worked with the MAME development team off-and-on for fifteen years, so I'm interested in things like this. 😀

I'm about half way through 'Open: How Compaq Ended IBM's PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing' and loving it. It's written by one of the original founders in a humble, conversational style and is a fascinating read so far. Non technical though - more of a high level 'these were our ideas, this is how we got the funding, this is how we marketed it' take on it. I find that whole Big Blue / Microsoft story to be very interesting, and this book adds another dimension to it.

meljor wrote:

I scored a big box full of computer magazines from the 90's, from 386 to pentium mmx i have a LOT to read (60+ and some games magazines as well). I'm dutch and the magzaines are english and german versions so it takes a bit longer 🤣

Amazed about the prices of the systems back then, didn't remember stuff beeing THAT expensive. Mid-end 468 dx4-100 was around 7000 and a high-end machine around 11000 mark (should not be a big difference to dollars back then).

mark as in D-Mark? During the 90s the exchange rate varied between 1.35 and 2 D-Mark/US$.
From what year are the ads you are referencing? For 1995 that sound a bit high, but I don't remember exact prices.

I stand corrected, you are absolutely right, the dollar was pretty high. Still a lot of money for pc's and parts back in the 90's.

Recently finished a few books I began reading a decade ago but put down one day and forgot about...

Who Says Elephants Can't Dance - Louis V Gerstner, the story of how he turned round IBM. Obviously more about managing a big company than about the technology but interesting nonetheless.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar - Eric S Raymond, a set of essays about the early days of Open Source, how and why it works, and the fact that Linus is a nice guy. Evangelical in places, but thought-provoking.

Bandwagon Effects in High Technology Industries by Jeffrey Rohlfs - a sort of economics textbook essentially extending standard economic thinking about firm behaviour to cover markets with networking effects, interlinking and complementary products; and including a slew of case studies [fax, phone, VCRs, CDs, internet...]. Interesting but best on CDs, VCRs, and television. Was a bit thin on computing and the internet. Published 2001.

'Open: How Compaq Ended IBM's PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing' was a fine read but was too high level and non-technical at the end of the day. For example, the author failed to even acknowledge existence of AMD, let alone factor in their influence on the history of the early clones.

I've moved on to 'Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything'. Why do these damn books have such long names? Written by Steven Levy (of Hackers fame), it's a detailed history of the Macintosh. It's not objective at all - the author was a Mac convert from the outset - but it's well written and full of interesting stories about the people involved, Apple, and the computer industry in general.

PC Hardware Library. An in depth guide from Socket 1 to early Slot 1 hardware. A vast wealth of jumper configurations and layouts at my finger tips, for the low price of free!

I recently picked up a copy of Peter Norton's DOS 5 Guide. It was the first book I read that really helped me understand computers and OS's. How they work and what the different hardware terms meant at at the time.

Cool! What look is Pete going for in that photo? Anxious Marty McFly?