The Atari VCS (also known as the 2600) is a console from a lost era, made to recreate simple ball-and-paddle games , most of the time working in a way greatly different than its designers intended. When it first appeared, its biggest competition was the forgotten Coleco Telstar series; when it stopped production, the SNES was well underway. During the fifteen years of its life it went from simple tank games to simulating expensive framebuffer hardware, presenting a surprisingly full-featured RPG, representing large exploratory environments, and much more. This book is a celebration, of the earliest days of gaming, of the skill of programmers forced to learn on the job, of making due with what you have, and of doing things far, far beyond what's expected of you.
Description:
The Atari VCS (also known as the 2600) is a console from a lost era, made to recreate simple ball-and-paddle games , most of the time working in a way greatly different than its designers intended. When it first appeared, its biggest competition was the forgotten Coleco Telstar series; when it stopped production, the SNES was well underway. During the fifteen years of its life it went from simple tank games to simulating expensive framebuffer hardware, presenting a surprisingly full-featured RPG, representing large exploratory environments, and much more. This book is a celebration, of the earliest days of gaming, of the skill of programmers forced to learn on the job, of making due with what you have, and of doing things far, far beyond what's expected of you.