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Retro Gaming Hacks
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Description
Whether you're just discovering Tetris or you've been a Pong junkie since puberty, Chris Kohler's Retro Gaming Hacks is your indispensable new guide to classic games. Kohler has compiled the how-to information that used to take weeks of web surfing to find and presents it in highly readable Hacks style.

Serving up 85 hard-nosed hacks for reviving the classic games, including tips on hacking ancient hardware, home-brewing classic software, and adapting today's equipment for retro games, Retro Gaming Hacks hands you the joystick.

Full Description
Table of Contents
  1. Chapter 1 Playing Retro Games

    1. Hacks 1–14: Introduction

    2. Buy Retro Games

    3. Collect Original "Pong" Systems

    4. Buy and Run an Atari 2600

    5. Buy and Run Later Classic Consoles

    6. Play with Power: Set Up an NES

    7. Make Your NES Work Like New

    8. Take Your NES Games on the Go

    9. Buy a Famicom from Japan

    10. Buy Retro Games from Japan

    11. Find, Fix, Play, and Emulate the Vectrex

    12. Collect Classic Handhelds

    13. Buy Your Own Arcade Hardware

    14. Find the Holy Grails

    15. Find Classic Games for Cheap

  2. Chapter 2 Playing Neo-Retro Games

    1. Hacks 15–19: Introduction

    2. Play Retro Games in All-in-One Joysticks

    3. Play Retro Games on Current Consoles

    4. Play Retro Games on Older Systems

    5. Play Contemporary Classics

    6. Find and Play Hidden Classics

  3. Chapter 3 Playing Arcade Games on Your Computer

    1. Play Arcade Games Under Windows

    2. Run Arcade Games on a Mac

    3. Play Arcade Games Under Linux

    4. Run MAME on the Xbox

    5. Find Legal, Free MAME ROMs

    6. Buy Legal MAME ROMs

    7. Care for Your ROMs

    8. Buy or Make Classic MAME Controllers

    9. Add Sound to Your MAME Experience

    10. Add Cabinet Art to MAME

    11. Build a MAME Cabinet

    12. Make a Self-Booting MAME Disc

    13. Play MAME Anywhere

  4. Chapter 4 Playing Classic Console Games

    1. Hacks 33–52: Introduction

    2. Emulate the Earliest Game Systems

    3. Emulate the Atari 2600

    4. Emulate the Intellivision

    5. Emulate the Colecovision

    6. Emulate the Atari 7800

    7. Emulate the Nintendo Entertainment System on a PC

    8. Run NES Emulators on the Mac

    9. Run NES Emulators Under Linux

    10. Emulate 16-Bit Systems in Windows

    11. Emulate Other Classic Systems on the Mac

    12. Emulate Other Classic Systems in Linux

    13. Emulate the Game Boy on Your PC

    14. Play Games on a Smartphone or PDA

    15. Play Homebrews on Your GBA

    16. Play Classic Systems on the GBA

    17. Emulate Other Classic Portables

    18. Retro-Hack the GP32

    19. Retro-Hack the Dreamcast

    20. Use Console Controllers on your PC

    21. Use USB Gamepads Under Linux

  5. Chapter 5 Playing with Early Personal Computers

    1. Hacks 53–62: Introduction

    2. Run the Apple ][

    3. Trick Out Your Apple ][

    4. Emulate the Apple ][

    5. Become an Apple Guru

    6. Run a Commodore 64

    7. Emulate the Commodore 64

    8. Emulate Other Classic Computers

    9. Type in Classic Computer Games

    10. Find Classic Computer Games

    11. Emulate Classic Computers on the Dreamcast

  6. Chapter 6 Playing with Text Adventures

    1. Hacks 63–67: Introduction

    2. Play Interactive Fiction in One Minute

    3. Download and Play Text Adventures

    4. Play the Best: Infocom Adventures

    5. Get Covered in MUDs

    6. Write Text Adventures with INFORM

  7. Chapter 7 Playing with DOS

    1. Hacks 68–71: Introduction

    2. Run DOS Without Microsoft

    3. Run DOS Games

    4. Rediscover Classic DOS Games

    5. Write a DOS Game

  8. Chapter 8 Playing at Game Design

    1. Design Games with ZZT

    2. Use Freeware Game Creation Tools

    3. Design Web-based Flash Games

    4. Create Your Own Atari 2600 Homebrew Games

    5. Program for the Game Boy Advance

    6. Add Tiles and Sprites to Your GBA Game

    7. Put Your Homebrews on Cartridges

    8. Create Packaging for Homebrew Games

    9. Create Your Own Adventure Game

  9. Chapter 9 Playing Around with Other Neat Stuff

    1. Hacks 81–85: Introduction

    2. Learn the Patterns of Pac-Man

    3. Show Off with Super Mario

    4. Hack the Leisure Suit Larry Games

    5. Play Retro Versions of Modern Games

    6. Remix Your Retro Sounds

  1. Colophon

View Full Table of Contents
Product Details
Title:
Retro Gaming Hacks
By:
Chris Kohler
Publisher:
O'Reilly Media
Formats:
  • Print
  • Safari Books Online
Print Release:
October 2005
Pages:
512
Print ISBN:
978-0-596-00917-5
| ISBN 10:
0-596-00917-8
Customer Reviews
About the Author
  1. Chris Kohler

    Chris Kohler is a video game journalist and editor who has written for several publications in the past decade, including Wired, Animerica magazine, and Nintendo Official Magazine UK. After graduating from Tufts University with a degree in Japanese, Chris attended Kyoto Seika University on a Fulbright Fellowship, and completed major research for a book tentatively titled Super Mario Nation: The Cinematic Japanese Video Game. At Tufts, he taught a for-credit undergraduate course titled "A History of Video Games" and continues to study Japanese at an advanced level.

    View Chris Kohler's full profile page.

Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects.

The image on the cover of Retro Gaming Hacks shows two Atari 2600 joysticks. These joysticks, which were released with the original Atari console in 1977, have become icons of console gaming. While the ergonmics of the joysticks may be questionable, their simple utilitarian design-one button to shoot and one stick to move-offers a sturdy control device for gamers everywhere.

Philip Dangler was the production editor and proofreader for Retro Gaming Hacks. Derek Di Matteo was the copyeditor. Darren Kelly and Claire Cloutier provided quality control. Nancy Crumpton wrote the index.

Ellie Volckhausen designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is an original photograph by Kevin Thomas. Karen Montgomery produced the cover layout with Adobe InDesign CS using Adobe's Helvetica Neue and ITC Garamond fonts.

David Futato designed the interior layout. This book was converted by Keith Fahlgren to FrameMaker 5.5.6 with a format conversion tool created by Erik Ray, Jason McIntosh, Neil Walls, and Mike Sierra that uses Perl and XML technologies. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Helvetica Neue Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano, Jessamyn Read, and Lesley Borash using Macromedia FreeHand MX and Adobe Photoshop CS. This colophon was written by Philip Dangler.

  • Book cover of Retro Gaming Hacks