FREAX – the biggest book ever written about the history of the computer demoscene. The book tells the complete history of the Commodore 64 and the Amiga, both about the machines and about the underground subcultures around them, from the cracker- and warez-scene to the demoscene, from hacking and phreaking to the ASCII art scene. Interviews with scene celebrities, former key persons of the computer industry, citations from contemporary magazines and fanzines make the narrative history of the big adventure complete. The book contains 350 pages and is illustrated with 480 color photos and screenshots. This is the comprehensive guide to the golden era of home computers.

The second novel in the extraordinary, ground-breaking, genre-busting new trilogy from master of fantasy Robin Jarvis

Digital interactive audio is the future of audio in media - most notably video games, but also web pages, theme parks, museums, art installations and theatrical events. Despite its importance to contemporary multi-media, this is the first book that provides a framework for understanding the history, issues and theories surrounding interactive audio. Karen Collins presents the work of academics, composers and sound programmers to introduce the topic from a variety of angles in order to provide a supplementary text for music and multimedia courses. The contributors cover practical and theoretical approaches, including historical perspectives, emerging theories, socio-cultural approaches to fandom, reception theory and case study analyses. The book offers a fresh perspective on media music, one that will complement film studies, but which will show the necessity of a unique approach when considering games music.

I began to write this book over twenty years ago. My purpose was to tell the true story about how IBM made too many companies successful by standing down rather than competing. As a Senior IBM Systems Engineer, I saw it all happen. The $ Trillion dollar PC marketplace is the biggest example of IBM's major losses. Yet, the PC was just one of many industry sub-segments over the years in which IBM failed miserably. We need more than ten fingers to count them all. This book tells all the great stories about how industries came into being and entrepreneurs often in their early twenties became billionaires. This book tells you which companies did the best; which regular guys became industry moguls; and who has the money today. Among other things, it tells us all who owes IBM the biggest thank you’s. This book in many ways is about Big Blue’s misgivings about being too successful in too many IT product areas. IBM Executives over the years from the CEO on down were all paid very well to manage all aspects of the company’s business. Unfortunately each and every CEO after the Watsons and T. Vincent Learson, focused on just one aspect of IBM – its mainframe business. So the IBM Chieftains lost just about every other opportunity including the PC. They simply handed very crafty “entrepreneurs,” the whole game. IBM created many industry billionaires simply by not watching its assets. Microsoft alone has four documented billionaires on its list which is topped by Bill Gates, the richest man in the world at $102 billion. Additionally, there are over 12,000 other Microsoft employees on the millionaire’s list. IBM paid for all of the zillionaires. In Chapter 1, I show each and every billionaire and a number of millionaires. I then go on in sixty-nine chapters to tell you the essence of the full Microsoft / IBM story along with many other stories of IBM squandering many other real business opportunities. These are enjoyable to read but hard to believe. You are going to love this book, designed by an IBM insider and told with respect for IBM and with the truth that all of these great stories deserve. You will not want to put this book down. Kelly not only gives the facts about the new billionaires; he also provides a history lesson about the entire industry that will capture your imagination. You’ll learn how all these billionaires got their money. The book begins with the introduction of the first computer and it takes you on a ride through all of the major events that occurred during each IBM CEO’s tenure. The story thus begins with Thomas Watson Sr, as CEO and continues chapter by chapter to the state of the computer industry today. Kelly does it all in 69 easy-to-read enjoyable chapters. Few books are must-read but Thank You IBM! will quickly be at the top of your list and America’s most read list.

In this book, Harley Hahn demystifies Emacs for programmers, students, and everyday users. The first part of the book carefully creates a context for your work with Emacs. What exactly is Emacs? How does it relate to your personal need to work quickly and to solve problems? Hahn then explains the technical details you need to understand to work with your operating system, the various interfaces, and your file system. In the second part of the book, Hahn provides an authoritative guide to the fundamentals of thinking and creating within the Emacs environment. You start by learning how to install and use Emacs with Linux, BSD-based Unix, Mac OS X, or Microsoft Windows. Written with Hahn's clear, comfortable, and engaging style, Harley Hahn's Emacs Field Guide will surprise you: an engaging book to enjoy now, a comprehensive reference to treasure for years to come. What You Will Learn Special Emacs keys Emacs commands Buffers and windows Cursor, point, and region Kill/delete, move/copy, correcting, spell checking, and filling Searching, including regular expressions Emacs major modes and minor modes Customizing using your .emacs file Built-in tools, including Dired Games and diversions Who This Book Is For Programmers, students, and everyday users, who want an engaging and authoritative introduction to the complex and powerful Emacs working environment.

Open source software, also known as free software, now offers a creative platform with world-class programs. Just ask the people who have completed high-quality projects or developed popular web 2.0 sites using open source desktop applications. This phenomenon is no longer underground or restricted to techies—there have been more than 61 million downloads of the Audacity audio editor and more than 60 million downloads of the GIMP for Windows photographic tool from SourceForge.net alone. Crafting Digital Media is your foundation course in photographic manipulation, illustration, animation, 3D modelling, publishing, recording audio and making music, DJ’ing, mixing and mastering audio CDs, video editing and web content delivery. Every technique described in the book can be achieved on GNU/Linux, but many of the applications covered run on Windows and Mac OS X as well. New to GNU/Linux and a little daunted? Don’t worry—there’s a step-by-step tutorial on Ubuntu for either temporary use or permanent installation. If you are a creative type who wants to get started with open source software or an existing GNU/Linux user looking to explore this category of programs, this is the book for you! Realize your own personal projects and creative ambitions with the tools this book will place at your fingertips.

How culture uses games and how games use culture: an examination of Latin America's gaming practices and the representation of the region's cultures in games. Video games are becoming an ever more ubiquitous element of daily life, played by millions on devices that range from smart phones to desktop computers. An examination of this phenomenon reveals that video games are increasingly being converted into cultural currency. For video game designers, culture is a resource that can be incorporated into games; for players, local gaming practices and specific social contexts can affect their playing experiences. In Cultural Code, Phillip Penix-Tadsen shows how culture uses games and how games use culture, looking at examples related to Latin America. Both static code and subjective play have been shown to contribute to the meaning of games; Penix-Tadsen introduces culture as a third level of creating meaning. Penix-Tadsen focuses first on how culture uses games, looking at the diverse practices of play in Latin America, the ideological and intellectual uses of games, and the creative and economic possibilities opened up by video games in Latin America—the evolution of regional game design and development. Examining how games use culture, Penix-Tadsen discusses in-game cultural representations of Latin America in a range of popular titles (pointing out, for example, appearances of Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue in games from Call of Duty to the tourism-promoting Brasil Quest). He analyzes this through semiotics, the signifying systems of video games and the specific signifiers of Latin American culture; space, how culture is incorporated into different types of game environments; and simulation, the ways that cultural meaning is conveyed procedurally and algorithmically through gameplay mechanics.