Born in the early 1970s, I've experienced only a few world-changing events along the lines of the automobile, the telephone, and the television. Sure, I was around the campus computer cluster when NCSA Mosaic was installed in 1994, but the Internet didn't make a grand entrance. (The UC Museum of Paleontology, a prominent early Web site, was only so interesting.) The World Wide Web doesn't compare with 1981, when my brother and I got an Atari 2600 for Christmas. Before Atari, no video games at home. After Atari, video games all the time. Males of a certain age will regale you with tales of long mornings roping cattle in Stampede and the distinctive thumb cramp that the joystick delivered. But enough nostalgia for now. Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost, two professors of media studies, have written a book, Racing the Beam, that approaches the beloved machine from a new angle: What was it like to program for the Atari 2600? Read more @ Slate.com...
And as a bonus, a very interresting documentary about video games including Atari and Nintendo.
And as a bonus, a very interresting documentary about video games including Atari and Nintendo.