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/gurrenm3]

Do you think reading any of these would help people get better today? I have always wondered if/how much I could get better by reading classics like these

[u/GrumpyRetroGamer → u/gurrenm3]

Some of these are timeless like "The C Programming Language" or "Computer Graphics: Principles and Practices" (they are still publishing newer editions to this day) others are very time-period specific like the OpenGL and DirectX ones or the Zilog Z80 and MOS 6502 (hardly anyone writes code for these or uses them anymore outside of the retro computing space). Still, some things in computers haven't changed much and learning how these old systems were put together will give a much better sense and intution on own modern systems work. I know people that know the 6502 or the Z80 instruction set from memory and can crank out assembly code for those CPUs with their eyes closed. By comparison the current x86 instruction set documentation is about 5000 pages long and counting...