The overlooked history of an early appropriation of digital
technology: the creation of games though coding and hardware hacking by
microcomputer users.
From the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, low-end microcomputers
offered many users their first taste of computing. A major use of these
inexpensive 8-bit machines--including the TRS System 80s and the
Sinclair, Atari, Microbee, and Commodore ranges--was the development of
homebrew games. Users with often self-taught programming skills devised
the graphics, sound, and coding for their self-created games. In this
book, Melanie Swalwell offers a history of this era of homebrew game
development, arguing that it constitutes a significant instance of the
early appropriation of digital computing technology.
Drawing on interviews and extensive archival research on homebrew
creators in 1980s Australia and New Zealand, Swalwell explores the
creation of games on microcomputers as a particular mode of everyday
engagement with new technology. She discusses the public discourses
surrounding microcomputers and programming by home coders; user
practices; the development of game creators' ideas, with the game Donut
Dilemma as a case study; the widely practiced art of hardware hacking;
and the influence of 8-bit aesthetics and gameplay on the contemporary
game industry. With Homebrew Gaming and the Beginnings of Vernacular
Digitality, Swalwell reclaims a lost chapter in video game history,
connecting it to the rich cultural and media theory around everyday life
and to critical perspectives on user-generated content.
