- Paperback: 984 pages
- Publisher: Sams; 1 edition (12 Dec 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0672328208
- ISBN-13: 978-0672328206
- Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 18.8 x 5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 802,279 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
&a>breaks new ground in game development by bridging the alien worlds of hardware and software together for the first time!
The Black Art of Video Game Console Design is written for the programmer and/or hobbyist interested in software game development, but also wants to understand the hardware games are implemented on. This book assumes no prior knowledge of Electrical Engineering or Computer Architecture, but takes you on a breathtaking journey from atomic semiconductor theory to the design and construction of basic video game consoles that you can build and write your own games for! Included in the book is the entire design of numerous embedded game systems including the XGameStation systems and much more.
The Black Art of Video Game Console Design with 800+ pages covers everything you need to know to design your own game console including:
• Basic atomic physics and semiconductor theory primer.
• Introduction to circuit analysis; current, voltage, and resistance.
• Analog design using discrete components.
• Digital electronics and Boolean algebra.
• Physical hardware construction and prototyping techniques.
• Combinational logic and advanced integrated circuit building blocks.
• Finite state machine design.
• Computer architecture and design.
• Understanding and using microprocessors and microcontrollers.
• Developing software for embedded systems.
• Designing video (NTSC/VGA), audio, and input device systems.
• Interfacing and communications.
• The complete design and discussion of numerous game systems including the XGameStations!
Register your book at informit.com/register and download the following additional resources (previously on bundled CD):
• PCB and circuit simulation tools.
• All necessary data sheets.
• Demos and source code.
• Complete designs to numerous embedded systems including the XGameStations.
From the Back Cover
Written by Computer Scientist Andre' LaMothe, the world's best selling game programming author, The Black Art of Video Game Console Design breaks new ground in game development by bridging the alien worlds of hardware and software together for the first time!
The Black Art of Video Game Console Design is written for the programmer and/or hobbyist interested in software game development, but also wants to understand the hardware games are implemented on. This book assumes no prior knowledge of Electrical Engineering or Computer Architecture, but takes you on a breathtaking journey from atomic semiconductor theory to the design and construction of basic video game consoles that you can build and write your own games for! Included in the book is the entire design of numerous embedded game systems including the XGameStation systems and much more.
The Black Art of Video Game Console Design with 800+ pages covers everything you need to know to design your own game console including:
• Basic atomic physics and semiconductor theory primer.
• Introduction to circuit analysis; current, voltage, and resistance.
• Analog design using discrete components.
• Digital electronics and Boolean algebra.
• Physical hardware construction and prototyping techniques.
• Combinational logic and advanced integrated circuit building blocks.
• Finite state machine design.
• Computer architecture and design.
• Understanding and using microprocessors and microcontrollers.
• Developing software for embedded systems.
• Designing video (NTSC/VGA), audio, and input device systems.
• Interfacing and communications.
• The complete design and discussion of numerous game systems including the XGameStations!
CD-ROM Contains
• PCB and circuit simulation tools.
• All necessary data sheets.
• Demos and source code.
• Complete designs to numerous embedded systems including the XGameStations.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating.,
By
This review is from: The Black Art of Video Game Console Design (Paperback)
Andre LaMothe is a wonderful communicator, he makes sense of a highly technical subject and has the ability to actually make reading his books enjoyable, which is impressive considering the complexity of his subject. Andre's enthusiasm is infectious and he's one of those rare technical authors you'd love to meet.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best book I have ever had,
By
This review is from: The Black Art of Video Game Console Design (Paperback)
Five stars are not enough to rate this book. The author can explain the concepts in such a clear way that only passionate and knowledge teachers can. I have a few more electronics books, and this one I really stands out.It enable us to build our own hardware and make us imagine the times when Wozniak built the first apples. Thank you Andre LaMothe!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.5 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews) 16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Black Art No More....,
By Richard Benson "Game Programmer" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Black Art of Video Game Console Design (Paperback)
Some background on me:I have a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. I'm also a professional software engineer in the video game industry. In my education, I had a few classes on electronics/digital circuits and I loved it. I started doing my own circuits outside of class and buying digital ICs to add to my toolkit. Over the years, I'd lost touch with that side of myself and the joy that it gave me. Then I found this book, "The Black Art of Video Game Console Design". This book is basically an abridged EE (Electrical Engineering) degree with a focus on video game consoles! And the kicker is that you're being instructed by one of the most "readable" authors around. By "readable", I mean that the author has a way of teaching you things as if it was your friend, sitting next to you, turning complicated subjects into an easy-to-understand, entertaining, data stream. The information is clear and the tone is upbeat and occasionally humourous. As I read through the book, I was hitting everything that I learned in months and months in the classroom, but without all the fuss and only the relevant information. Resistors, capacitors, diodes, truth tables, timing diagrams, etc, it's all there. Then, the author jumped into complicated areas such as joysticks, sound, microprocessors, assembly language, the NTSC (standard TV) video signal (just to name a few). Finally, there we were at the pinnacle of the mountain, the culmination of all our learning, and here's where the real "Black Art" of the book kicks in, the full process of designing a video game console. In today's hardware driven world, this book should be on every game programmer's shelf, whether they're a hobbyist or a seasoned veteran. 20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A monumental work, but beware!,
By Adam Luoranen - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Black Art of Video Game Console Design (Paperback)
Andre LaMothe is an amazing guy, no question about it. He tends to write huge books, and the amount of material he fits into them is superlative. He's obviously got a passion for what he does, and that passion is certainly revealed in his writing style. He's a guy who never lost that simple love of video games.Perhaps it's his sheer enthusiasm that makes him seem to sometimes write too quickly. A few minutes spent with The Black Art Of Video Game Console Design brings this tendency to light: I don't know how long it took to write this book, but I imagine the author was under some pressure to get it finished before some kind of deadline, because there are the typical signs of a book that didn't get properly edited. There are occasional typos and punctuation glitches, but more worrisome is the potential for factual errors. For example, an early and very glaring inaccuracy is the claim on page 66 that most electronics solder is 60% tin and 40% flux. In reality, typical solder is 60% tin and 40% *LEAD*, not flux; the flux burns and evaporates away from the solder once the solder has been melted. Yeah, it's a small detail, but any technical editor should have caught that one a mile away. On a larger scale, however, LaMothe's enthusiasm propels the book forward at a speed not typically seen in how-to books. Comprising almost a thousand pages, this is already a pretty massive book, but the amount of material LaMothe crams into that space is remarkable. The first few chapters are something you have to see to believe, each chapter condensing basically an entire college electronics class' worth of material into around 50 pages. While this means that, in a sense, the book is a good value because it provides a lot of material, this compression obviously comes at a price: Some concepts were just not meant to be explained in a single paragraph, and the book falters multiple times trying to explain something as quickly as possible when the concept would really have benefited from some elaboration. The result is a book that often makes me wonder what audience would most benefit from it. The first few chapters are all about electronics, and are written on a level that would benefit someone with literally no background in electronics at all. However, the focus of the book is on console design, not EE, and there are better books out there for the person who just wants to learn electronics. This, combined with the fact that you really can't (and probably shouldn't try) to learn the entire field of electronics in one night, leads me to believe that anyone approaching this book should probably have some thorough grounding in electronics technology before you actually start reading the book. Once you get past the first half and into the really game-focused material, the book comes into its own, but a majority of the material here would be better read elsewhere. So ultimately, this is a book with a HUGE amount of material that you can learn a lot from, and if you really want to buy just one book, it's hard to find a better value than this. But if you want a truly broad-based education in electronics, you'll need to do some heavy supplementing with other books before you can get the most benefit out of this one. 10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely amazing!,
By JMorris - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Black Art of Video Game Console Design (Paperback)
In today's world of high-tech computer games, the art of gaming hardware is a lost art...reserved for those with millions of dollars and a PhD in Electronic Engineering. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would get to learn it.But Andre' changed all that. With this book, I have been able to learn all about the black art of electronics and gaming consoles. I have no PhD, no degree in any kind of electronics...and yet I now feel like I know enough to jump into my own console projects after reading this book. Andre' is brilliant in the way that he writes with the average reader in mind. None of this "high-tech" speak where the author seems like he's trying to impress himself with all he knows...Andre' tells it like it is...and suprisingly enough, it wasn't as difficult to learn as I thought it was. He starts out with basic electronic theory, then moves into the art of Analog programming (its a bit of a brain-buster at first, but analog electronics always were...when you get into the digital realm, you'll see how much easier it is). He then jumps into digital theory and explains chips, logic gates, etc. And to keep the pace flowing he throws in fun chapters about how to solder or how printed circuit boards are made. Then he gets into the good stuff: he talks about microchips and microcontrollers, RAM and ROM, and everything that a computer contains. He even teaches you how to software render a TV's NTSC signal! Then my favorite chapter...he takes all that you've learned thus far and shows you how to make simple computers based on the old Z80 chips and 6502 chips (the NES and Atari2600 were both based on this). And last but not least, he takes you thorough the building of his personally designed system, the XGameStation. After all is said and done, you come out of it with an extensive knowledge of game console hardware design. Simply amazing! For goodness sakes, get this book! It will blow your mind! |
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