Usborne Guide to Computer and Video Games

By Ian Graham

Subjects: Asteroids, Juvenile literature, Scramble, Floppy Disk, The Turk, Chess, Swarm, Hints, Strategy, Cassette, Arcade Games, Galaxian, Coin Operated, Hobbies, Video games, Pac-Man, Lunar Rescue, CoinOp, Frogger, Qix, Field Goal, gamebook, Strategy Guide, Amusment Machines, Reviews, Space Invaders, Phoenix, Battlezone, Cartridge, Missile Command, Electronic games, Computers, Field Goal (video game), Arcade Video Games, Electroinc Toys, Tips, Stratos (video game)

Description: This is a illustrated educational guide, which explains how electronic toys, computers, and video game operate. There are explanations of computer chips, central processing unit, RAM, Random Access Memory, ROM, Read Only Memory, Displays, Controls, cartridges, floppy disks, cassete tapes. It has imaginative descriptions of comparing a computer to a office building with robots filing, accessing, and transferring data to other locations in the building. There is a explanation of how a video game is created, from design, to the computer software, the microchip, design. It then describes how computers calculate, with games like chess, and even a brief description of the fake chess machine called "The Turk", and history of computer and video games. There are explanations on sound effects, and voice samples in toys, and games. There are tips at winning 11 arcade video games in sections called "How to Win at". This book originally sold for £1.65 in the UK.