Nick Montfort
Author of The New Media Reader
About the Author
Nick Montfort is Professor of Digital Media at MIT. He is the author of Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction and The Future and the coauthor of Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System and 10 PRINT CHRS(205.5+RND(1)); GOTO 10 (all published by the MIT Press).
Image credit: Scott Rettberg , November 12, 2000
Series
Works by Nick Montfort
The First Numbers 1 copy
The trivial program "yes" 1 copy
No code : null programs 1 copy
Troper/Schematorium 1 copy
Book and Volume 1 copy
El futuro 1 copy
Associated Works
The Routledge Companion to Experimental Literature (Routledge Literature Companions) (2012) — Contributor — 11 copies
New Narratives: Stories and Storytelling in the Digital Age (Frontiers of Narrative) (2011) — Contributor — 8 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1972
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Places of residence
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- Education
- University of Texas, Austin ( [1995])
Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( [1998])
Boston University ( [2001])
University of Pennsylvania - Occupations
- Associate professor of digital media
computer scientist
author
poet - Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Members
Reviews
El futuro by Nick Montfort
61000
I like the writing style but found the book inconsistent with its treatment of future. Clearly a vast challenging subject but the author chooses to look at it from a limited set of views without fully explaining any one in particular.
Overall I think the problem is the format, its impossible to address a subject as vast in a small booklet.
Overall I think the problem is the format, its impossible to address a subject as vast in a small booklet.
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/racing-the-beam-the-atari-video-computer-system-...
I know very little about computer games, and still less about the early history of the Atari system; but sometimes it does you good to read about a field of human endeavour with which you are completely unfamiliar. This is a tremendous analysis of how coding is affected by external factors, especially the way in which the business of game development is financed and structured, but also from learning about player preferences and making crazy bets about game features which turn out to pay off (or not).
This slim volume looks in depth at six games, only one of which I had heard of – Combat, Adventure, Pac-Man, Yars’ Revenge, Pitfall and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, but also in passing at the other games developed before or at the same time in each case, to paint a picture of the intellectual moment in which the writing of the game took place. There is a modest amount of machine code, but a lot of analysis of how ideas get turned into player experience. I don’t think I have retained very much of the information, but I come away struck by the cultural profundity of the whole enterprise. Recommended even for those like me who are not immersed in the subject.… (more)
I know very little about computer games, and still less about the early history of the Atari system; but sometimes it does you good to read about a field of human endeavour with which you are completely unfamiliar. This is a tremendous analysis of how coding is affected by external factors, especially the way in which the business of game development is financed and structured, but also from learning about player preferences and making crazy bets about game features which turn out to pay off (or not).
This slim volume looks in depth at six games, only one of which I had heard of – Combat, Adventure, Pac-Man, Yars’ Revenge, Pitfall and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, but also in passing at the other games developed before or at the same time in each case, to paint a picture of the intellectual moment in which the writing of the game took place. There is a modest amount of machine code, but a lot of analysis of how ideas get turned into player experience. I don’t think I have retained very much of the information, but I come away struck by the cultural profundity of the whole enterprise. Recommended even for those like me who are not immersed in the subject.… (more)
Super interesting in a nostalgic way, but stretching the analysis of one piece of code a little bit too much (or too academically).
Lists
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 21
- Also by
- 19
- Members
- 1,052
- Popularity
- #24,492
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 24
- ISBNs
- 33
- Languages
- 2