Magazines that had a lot of personality and humour running through them Magazines were a massive part of UK computing culture in the 1980s and Britsoft brought it all back. The first couple of sections of the book gave me itchy fingers Although I have a technical Computer Science background my work has taken me in a different direction and I haven t coded in a very long time Stories of starting off with a BBC BASIC program and slowly refactoring parts of the code into assembly language in line with the BASIC made me want to go and explore again I never learned much assembly the first time around in our age of massive computing power it doesn t feel as relevant any but there would still be some joy and satisfaction in it. It is very interesting to look at the industry arc of hundreds of one person bedroom developers in the early 1980s turning into smaller numbers of ever larger teams.
Which were eventually culled when the consoles came along at the turn of the 1990s It hadn t occurred to me that the rise of mass mobile platforms such as Android and iOS coupled with Internet distribution means that we once again have a large number of single person developers who are able to get their games and applications out there We ve come full circle. If you have any interest in the history of computer games or home computing in the UK then I strongly recommend this book English I purchased this book having not seen the documentary associated with it I wondered if that would be detrimental to my enjoyment of it.
Britsoft An Oral History is a collective story of the early British games industry Composed of interviews with thirty five people who shaped the modern videogame including David Braben Elite Peter Molyneux Populous Rob Hubbard Commando and Jeff Minter Attack of the Mutant Camels it documents a vibrant period of invention in Britain s cultural history the start of a new form of entertainment created on ZX Spectrums Commodore 64s Amigas and Atari STs in bedrooms and living rooms. The book is a companion piece to the 2014 documentary From Bedrooms to Billions and draws from the hundreds of hours of interview footage to find new untold stories and craft an original narrative Through the voices of programmers musicians journalists and business people it traces the making of games such as Dizzy Elite Paradroid and Kick Off and the birth of publishers magazines and software houses from Codemasters to Zzap 64. Britsoft An Oral History is edited by Alex Wiltshire former editor of videogame Bible Edge and designed by London based studio Julia It includes rarely seen archive images such as candid period photographs and magazine ads which perfectly set the Britsoft scene. Interviewees Peter Molyneux David Braben Archer Maclean David Darling Jeff Minter Charles Cecil David Perry Geoff Crammond Julian Gollop Julian Rignall Dino Dini Mo Warden Rob Hubbard Martin Kenwright Fred Gray Martin Galway Mel Croucher Mike Montgomery Rod Cousens Sean Cooper Malcolm Evans Steve Turner Tim Tyler Nigel Alderton Jon Hare Gary Penn Eugene Evans Oliver Frey the Oliver twins Peter Stone and Richard Leinfellner Chris Anderson Shahid Ahmad Andrew Braybrook Geoff Brown BritsoftAn Oral HistoryA fascinating story of the rise and fall of the British games industry of the 1980s My only warning would be to readi it with a magnifying glass on standby there s some insanely tiny and light green text on pretty much every page English Originally posted at and immaculately presented this book was a delight from the moment it landed on my doorstep to when I finished the last page It documents the history of the UK home computer and gaming industry through a variety of first hand accounts from people who played key roles at the time. At the age of nine I was given my first home computer an Acorn Electron and it changed my life Looking back and reading this book I think I was probably just a few years too young to be hit by the first wave of computers such as the Acorn Atom ZX80 ZX81 etc when they came out By the time I started programming in 1986 the games industry was already well established. My dad worked at an airport cargo terminal and used to be given sample copies of magazines that were being imported or exported he used to bring the computer titles home for me to read which I did so avidly even when I didn t have any experience whatsoever of the machines they were covering Despite being an Acorn owner I have so many fond memories of reading both Zzap 64 and Your Sinclair but I don t think it has been The interviews are edited in such a way that it very much flows like an ongoing conversation It s a fascinating and fairly funny look at the very early development of an area of the gaming industry I wasn t previously familiar with Some of the stories like Peter Molyneux s tale of owning a bean company that was accidentally sent Commodore consoles which he then kept and developed for are particularly absurd and interesting The editors do a good job of selecting interview subjects who are representative of a wide range of trajectories with some of them reaching great heights of success while others careers are halted by financial failure. My only complaint is that I wish the book were edited thoroughly There are several sections where interviewees begin saying or less the same thing in different ways for many pages in a row and those sections got a bit dull All in all it s a great book though and I m unaware of another book that tackles the subject with this level of personal detail English Wow this is an outstanding book Contains content from 35 game industry founders Their interviews are broken up into short topic sections which are interleaved with the content from the other interviewees all of which are chronologically ordered However each short section contains forward and backward page references yes a doubly linked list so you can also easily skip pages to focus on any given author. I ve talked with a few famous 8 bit game developers over the years and had never received a satisfactory answer to the question why did you drop out of the business when 16 bit came along Britsoft shows the various ways the deck was stacked against bedroom developers from making the jump to later systems. Not sure what kind of person decides that footnotes in a florescent green 7ish point font on white paper is a good design choice English One of the best books I ve read on computer history. The book uses a neat trick the passages are laid out in such a format that you can either read it chronologically jumping from one interviewee to the next as the years progress or you can follow each specific developer throughout the years An interesting exercise to say the least. Apart from that the book is choke full of interesting tidbits and inside information so you get to learn a lot What s important however is that it oozes sentiment It really grows on you and you can feel the struggle excitement triumph and eventual sadness. A real must read for any retro enthusiast English Surprisingly great oral history if inevitably repetitive Probably best if you re already familiar with the rough history and personalities of British videogames and want a lot detail about the business deals and mechanics of how it all got set up English
| BritsoftAn Oral History By Read-Only Memory |
| 9780957576827 |
| English |
| 424 |
| Hardcover |
., To begin with this is a beautiful book Great paper lovely fonts although the lime green used for the footnotes is a big hard to read great layout and a quality binding. This book was put together from the material used for the From Bedrooms to Billions documentary As such it s 100% passages from interviews with notable developers the era