FRENZY: The ColecoVision Games That Brought the Arcade Home
In the brutal console wars of the early 1980s, the ColecoVision brought something no one else did: unmatched arcade fidelity. Its pack-in cartridge of Donkey Kong was so real, you could smell the burning oil. Zaxxon played with blistering speed and Venture with compelling depth. And because of its steering wheel and accelerator pedal, Turbo was as realistic as racing games got.​
ADVENTURE: The Atari 2600 at the Dawn of Console Gaming (SECOND EDITION)
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.
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SPACE BATTLE: The Mattel Intellivision and the First Console War
From the tense foreboding of Night Stalker to the competitive thrill of NFL Football, Mattel’s Intellivision rocketed into homes across the U.S. in the early 1980s and transformed video gaming. It packed superb arcade action and thrilling family entertainment into one 16-bit system with the industry’s first voice synthesis and controls unlike any other console.
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BREAKOUT: How Atari 8-Bit Computers Defined a Generation (SECOND EDITION)
The Atari 400 and 800 signaled the start of a new era in computing. Breakout is the first book to cover what made Atari’s groundbreaking computer line great—and it's now in a thoroughly expanded and revised edition with new mods, add-ons, community sites, podcasts, and detailed write-ups of 60 more Atari 8-bit games than before.
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Read a free first-edition excerpt on TechCrunch
STARFLIGHT: How the PC and DOS Exploded Computer Gaming
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.
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ATTRACT MODE: The Rise and Fall of Coin-Op Arcade Games
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.
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FASTER THAN LIGHT: The Atari ST and the 16-Bit Revolution
“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.
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