Racing The Beam
The Atari Video Computer System
Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost
review by Zube (zube@stat.colostate.edu)
Created:  Jan  5, 2010
Updated:  Jan 11, 2010
http://www.stat.colostate.edu/~zube/racingthebeam.txt

The first in the Platform Studies series, _Racing The Beam_ considers
the Atari 2600 from a unique perspective.  The book answers four
questions:

* What is the architecture of the Atari 2600 and what are its limits?
* How did these limits constrain the designers and their designs?
* What kinds of innovation were realized, despite the limits?
* How did knowledge of the system and subsequent programs evolve over time?

Ignoring the bits at the front and back (two explanations of the
Platform Studies concept and the _After the Crash_ chapter), the main
part of the book considers the 2600 hardware and six games:  Combat,
Adventure, Pac-Man, Yars' Revenge, Pitfall! and Star Wars: The Empire
Strikes Back.  Both the hardware and the games are discussed in some
detail, certainly more than any other mainstream book to date.  There
are small sections of code, references to registers and the strobing
thereof and detailed, yet understandable figures.  The example of how
the 2600 renders video line by line is particularly well done.

This is an in-depth book, to be sure, but because of its scope, many
readers are apt to be a little disappointed.  Engineers, assembly
language programmers or those wishing to learn the details of how to
program the 2600 are likely to complain that the book doesn't go deep
enough on the technical side.  In contrast, readers coming from the
other direction (such as those that enjoyed the literary bent of
Montfort's previous work, _Twisty Little Passages_) may be put off by
many of the more technical explanations.  Still, much of this
disappointment arises from unreasonable expectations.  Given the goals
for the Platform Studies series ("to promote the investigation of
underlying computing systems and how they enable constrain, shape and
support the creative work that is done on them"), _Racing the Beam_
walks a fine line between the technical and non-technical and gets away
with most of it.

There are a few minor issues, including some errors: 

* The last line of p. 35 should read: 
  "NUSIZ1 to %00000011 (three copies -- close)".

* In the Pitfall! chapter, "It is possible to stand on the heads of the 
  crocs only while their mouths are open" (p. 110) should probably read, 
  "It is possible to stand on the mouths of the crocs only when they are 
  closed."

* There was no release of SW: The Empire Strikes Back for the Atari 5200.

Also, for several code snippets and figures, some additional
explanation would have been most welcome.  Finally, the SW: The Empire
Strikes Back chapter is the least technical of the game chapters,
dealing far more with licensing and its effects on game development
than technical aspects of the game.  Still, these issues rise only to
the level of nitpicking.

One small but serious irritation is the set of bad puns sprinkled
throughout the text (e.g. linking Pac-Man and "fruit ripe for the
picking" or linking Asteroids and being "between a rock and a hard
place").  I expect such silliness in other, less scholarly, less good
books, but it's wildly out of place here.

Overall though, _Racing the Beam_ is a thoughtful, insightful and
meticulously detailed book, one that I enjoyed immensely, especially
after the recent dreck of video game writing I've had to wade through.
It goes up on the top shelf, next to Crawford and Kent and Koster.

Highly Recommended.