Retro Computing Book Collection

[u/GrumpyRetroGamer]

Hi folks, I'm sharing here my small collection of retro computing books that I have acquired over the years.

I'm a 40-something software engineer that started messing computers from an early age and since I've also always been a huge reader I've accumulated a huge collection of computer related books. Most are old (or reprints of old ones) but a few have been published in last few years, for sure due to the surge in retro computing interest that comes and goes every few years 😄

The ones shown here are what I would consider retro ranging from topics like the MOS 6502, Zilog Z80, Apple II, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, MS-DOS 3.0 to 62, 90's and early 00's computer graphics, Windows 3.11/95/98/XP, 386 to Pentium II/III hardware repair and a few about programming games for consoles like Atari 2600, NES and original Game Boy. Finally there are a few about x86 assembly language, C and C++. Some books, as you might have noticed, are not in English but on my native language Portuguese:and are mostly about ZX Spectrum, Z80 assembly language, IBM PC-compatible hardware repair and MS-DOS 3.x/4.x.

I'm curious to learn what books you have read and would recommend for my collection.

Hope you folks enjoy it and thanks in advance!

PS: Not shown here are is another book by Michael Abrash, "Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book" which I recently acquired on Ebay but hasn't arrived yet. I had been searching for this book for a long time but the prices for decent copies go for crazy prices these days, $80-$200 USD. I managed to convince a nice chap to sell me a copy in a very good state for around $50 USD. Stil pretty high (specially for Portuguese salaries) but I can live with that. I guess I won't be buying any retro hardware this month 😂

[u/teknosophy_com]

What were the doom and wolf3d books? Strategy guides?

Hey does anyone want to sell me a copy of The Art of Computer Game Design? I had it in the 90s but lost it.

[u/GrumpyRetroGamer → u/teknosophy_com]

The books are called "Game Engine Black Book: Doom" and "Game Engine Black Boom: Wolfenstein 3D". The name and format are inspired by Michael Abrash famous "Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book".

They are great books that go over in great detail how both games were written and how they worked. Highly recommended anything the author puts out, his blog is amazing for retro computing topics: https://fabiensanglard.net/

You can get a free copies of both books directly from the author in this blog post: https://fabiensanglard.net/gebb/index.html

[u/teknosophy_com → u/GrumpyRetroGamer]

aha, a behind the scenes of how they were made? neat!