Creating Q*BERT book

demogo

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Hi folks,

This was brought up here a year or two ago by others, but I bought this book when it was released and it sat on my shelf until a week ago when I finally had the time to read it.

This is a *really* interesting book that goes into a lot of detail about the times and what it was like to be an arcade game developer in the early 80's and all the way through the 90's. It talks about the HW and SW that they had available to work with, many other games and development efforts at multiple arcade game companies, as well as the state of computers and programming (to a lesser degree).

This is a surprisingly easy to read book that captured my attention far more than I thought it would. The author, Warren Davis, the designer of Q*BERT is maybe 10 years older than me, but I too was ramping up on programming in a serious way at that time, so I really appreciated his comments and found myself frequently nodding in agreement.

If you haven't picked this book up, you should! It's a fun read and I learned a lot.
 
Here's the pre-order thread I made back in July of 2021. Wow, has it been that long ago?
I'm sure the pre-order price was more than the price I've quoted today.

 
Here's the pre-order thread I made back in July of 2021. Wow, has it been that long ago?
I'm sure the pre-order price was more than the price I've quoted today.

Heh, I paid $25 for it on pre-order, and it was well worth it. It hit on so many things that were interesting to me, games that I really liked playing, what the work environments were like, programming, and peeks at games that were developed but not released.

I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed this book.

I'm a very long time role playing game player as well and bought a few books on the early history of that figuring I'd really like them because I was friends with some of the key figures, but those just turned out to be "meh".

This book was really quite fun to read.
 
I just finished mine yesterday. Excellent read indeed! It's actually a bit of a page turner.

I picked it up in person from Warren Davis at CAX this year…finally! I've been trying to get one at the show since 2022.

He signed it and even mentioned that I "finally got a copy". 🤣
 
Hi folks,

This was brought up here a year or two ago by others, but I bought this book when it was released and it sat on my shelf until a week ago when I finally had the time to read it.

This is a *really* interesting book that goes into a lot of detail about the times and what it was like to be an arcade game developer in the early 80's and all the way through the 90's. It talks about the HW and SW that they had available to work with, many other games and development efforts at multiple arcade game companies, as well as the state of computers and programming (to a lesser degree).

This is a surprisingly easy to read book that captured my attention far more than I thought it would. The author, Warren Davis, the designer of Q*BERT is maybe 10 years older than me, but I too was ramping up on programming in a serious way at that time, so I really appreciated his comments and found myself frequently nodding in agreement.

If you haven't picked this book up, you should! It's a fun read and I learned a lot.
Mine arrived today! Was unaware of this book until this thread.
 
Warren Davis is cool guy. And it's even better to hear his stories about the business!

I first met him earlier this year at the Long Island Retro Gaming Expo in NY. He gave a Q*Bert presentation (which was awesome, BTW) and then I chatted with him briefly after the presentation. A couple weeks later at the RetroWorld Gaming Expo in CT, I was in charge of the arcade section and when I was walking around I bumped into him again. I hung out with him at his booth for a little bit (between fixing games and such). Again, he was a pleasure to talk to. Looking forward to seeing him again next year at future events.

Del
 
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