The Little Book that speaks volumes...
So what is this little book? Well, it's a 15.5cm square, hardback, interactive gallery book that's small enough to carry around and is 326 full-colour pages. It's got easy-to-read sections on the sound chips in the arcades, consoles and home micros and consoles and coin-ops. The plan is to release 4 volumes in total - this crowdfunding is for Volume that covers 1977-1981 chips and games from 1977 to the mid-90s, with Midway's classic coin-ops such as NARC looking pretty.
It's packed with fun facts and beautiful screenshots from games east and west, all linked to YouTube through QR codes and hyperlinks. Find your favourites and hear the arcade OST (for instance, Spy Hunter!) or discover hidden treasures! Volume 1 is ready to print - once the target has been hit, off to Spain it will go!!
So for Volume 1, the following systems are covered:
Atari VCS, Bally Astrocade, Odyssey^2, Atari HCS (400/800/XL/XE), Intellivision, Colecovision, Master System, VIC-20, BBC Micro, Aquarius, MSX1, ORIC, Vectrex, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum 128, Tandy 1000, Speccy Beepers!
This volume also has special features on speech synthesis in the arcade and at home. For the technically minded, there's also great expert articles that make sense of concepts such as noise-generation and beeper sample playback.
What is actually in the book...
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Written by Chris Abbott and Andrew Laggan.
Front Cover by Toni Galvez.
Layout and Design by Ian Flory.
Technical sections by Mike Clarke, David Knapp and David Youd.
Proofreading by Nate Lawson, Andrew Fisher, David Youd, Mike Clarke and Thomas Finnerup.
Additional material by Allister Brimble, Andrew Fisher, Barry Leitch, Martin Galway, Toni Galvez, Gari Biasillo, and Marco Breddin.
Additional research by David Youd, David Knapp, Russell F. Howard, Richard Karsmakers, Daniel Martinsson and John Carehag.
Dedicated to the memory of Ben Daglish, Richard Joseph, Anthony Lees and Paul Hadrill.
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Initial reaction to Volume 1:
"Reading this book I can hear that unique and nostalgic sound of the early 80s arcades, plus it's got lots of pretty pictures, it's a copper-bottomed winner!" - Graeme Norgate, ex-Rare composer"
"Such a good read. I found myself flitting back and forwards, rereading interesting bits more than once and searching out my own memory triggers!" - Anna Black, writer and retro expert
"
Wow! The detail and depth of this work are impressive!" - Koen De Brabander, Amicom Retro Books
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Coming later:
Volume 2 (Arcade games from Atari, Sega, Capcom and more, NES and expansions, C64, Amiga, Atari ST, Apple IIGS, MSX2)
Volume 3 (SNES, Mega Drive, PC Gaming and more)
Volume 4 (including the golden age of arcades with Capcom and Midway, and generation 5 and 6 home consoles such as Saturn, N64, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Dreamcast, GameCube and Xbox).
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