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Title: Zap by Scott Cohen ISBN: 0-7388-6883-3 Publisher: Xlibris Corporation Pub. Date: 01 December, 1984 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.36 (11 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Fun To Read In Retrospect
Comment: Cohen's book does a great job documenting the founding of Atari and introducing readers to the colorful personalities who worked there. At the time of its original publication (1984), it was one of the first books to do so (if not the first). Now, however, there are several books that chronicle the same events: Leonard Herman's Phoenix, and Steven Kent's The First Quarter, for example. These latter books are also more comprehensive than Zap!, since they don't focus only on Atari but include the history of Nintendo, Sega, Sony and others.
In retrospect, it is fun to read the author's predictions when he wrote the book in the fall of 1983. The videogame market had not yet collapsed completely. Nintendo had not arrived, and Warner had not sold off Atari. Cohen discusses Atari's potential bright future with telecommunications projects, the likelihood that computers will make videogame systems obsolete, possible competition with Nolan Bushnell, and videodisk arcade games becoming the wave of the future. Now that we are actually in the future, we know that none of these things came to fruition.
Zap! is still a good reference and an interesting read for those who are curious about the beginnings of the videogame industry's once-dominant company, Atari. However, since the manuscript was written some 18 years ago, don't expect a lot of revelations or anecdotes that haven't already been written about in many subsequent books.
Rating: 2
Summary: GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS
Comment: The good news? This book is finally back in print for the first time since it's original publication back in 1984. The bad news? It was poorly written and edited then and it still is today. At the very least you'd figure someone would have had the sense to run this thing through Spellcheck before republication. Alas, that wasn't the case. While not the most focused book, it is the only one I've found that is devoted entirely to Atari. Anyway, I enjoyed most of this book, especially the parts about Nolan Bushnell, Chuck E. Cheese, and Pizza Time Theather. More in-depth information about some of Atari's groundbreaking (for the time and home market) games would have made this book so much better. I can only hope that someone else (maybe Nolan himself) will one day do this pioneer company a little justice in print. Until then, this will have to do. Game over.
Rating: 2
Summary: Not what I expected
Comment: Altough a good read, and well investigated, I was expecting to read about the Rise and Fall of Atari, not the Rise and Fall of Noland Bushnell and the other people that worked there.
I expected to read about all Atari Products, both the good ones and all the flops they made, and the ones that never made public light. I expected a trip down memory lane. I expected too see at least a couple of pictures and photos to complement the book and what it talked about...
Yet, the book mostly talks about Nolan Bushnell, the guy who founded Atari, and it talks about the VCS. The Atari 5200, Atari 400 and Atari 800 are mentioned briefly (1 or 2 instances), there is no talk about all the other computers that followed (XE, XL, etc), the Atari's ST, the Lynx, the Jaguar, the Atari Portfolio (remember those?)...
ZAP! The Rise and Fall of the People at Atari, or ZAP! The Rise and Fall of the Atari VCS is a more accurate title.
I know the book was written in 1984, but it could have been revised... even as today, Atari is still kicking a little making video games alone.
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Title: The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World by Steven L. Kent ISBN: 0761536434 Publisher: Prima Lifestyles Pub. Date: 06 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: ARCADE FEVER The Fan's Guide to The Golden Age of Video Games by John Sellers ISBN: 0762409371 Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers Pub. Date: August, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner ISBN: 0375505245 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic by Brad King, John Borland ISBN: 0072228881 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media Pub. Date: 19 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.99 |
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Title: High Score! The Illustrated History of Electronic Games by Rusel DeMaria, Johnny L. Wilson ISBN: 0072224282 Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill Pub. Date: 27 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.99 |
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