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Author:   Jaroslav Svelch
Publisher:   MIT Press Ltd
Imprint:   MIT Press
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9780262549288

ISBN 10:   026254928
Pages:   400
Publication Date:   19 September 2023
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword xi Preface xiii Acknowledgments xvii A Note on Translations and Pronunciation xix Introduction xxi 1 Micros in the Margins: Computer Technology in the State Socialist Society 1 Toward Normalization 3 Beyond the Quiet Life 5 A Revolution That Was Normalized 9 The State of the Computer Industry 12 Electronization Programs of the 1980s 15 Men, Women, and Machines 18 Side Roads to Micros 21 Who Needs a Home Computer? 27 Farm Computers and the Courageous Clone 31 2 Hunting Down the Machine: Trajectories of Microcomputer Domestication 35 A Machine That Obeys 39 Wandering Programmers 42 Spectacle from the West 45 Importing the Standard 47 The Shiny Side of Retail 50 A Room of Its Own 53  3 Our Amateur Can Work Miracles: Infrastructures of Hobby Computing 63 Cybernetics for Youth 66 Repurposing the Paramilitary 71 Activist Meshworks 74 Tolerating the Man’s World 77 Build Your Own Peripherals 81 Amateur Entrepreneurs 85 Starting a Computer Fanzine 87 Samizdat Research Institute 90 4 Who’s Afraid of Gameplay? Czechoslovak Discourses on Computer Games 99 Playing with Computers 102 Forbidden Pleasures 104 Bringing Games under Control 109 Computer Game Advocates 112 The Appreciation of Tomahawk 116 5 Lighting Up the Shadows: Informal Distribution of Game Software 123 From Yugoslavia with Cracks 126 The Unregulated (Non)medium 133 Lightning-Fast Sneakernet 135 Homemade Tape Culture 139 (Mis)understanding Games 143 A Cottage Arcade Industry 147 6 Bastard Children of the West: Establishing a Domestic Coding Culture 153 Czechoslovak Homebrew Scene 157 Ports and Conversions 164 What Became of Flappy 167 Forging the Shooter 171 Second Lives of Indiana Jones 174 Hacking Games 178 7 Empowered by Games: Games as a Means of Self-Expression and Activism 185 Hello World! 190 Adventure in Your Home 192 Spreading Unofficial Culture 196 Small Subversions 199 A Protest of Sorts 204 Taking to the Streets 206 Conclusion 215 Bricoleurs and Tacticians 218 We Have Always Been Indie 219 Toward Comparative Histories 221 Preserving the Peripheral 223 Epilogue: After the Curtain Fell 227 Computers and Games in Transition 229 A Belated Cottage Industry 232 Homebrew Lives On 234 The Game Industry Today: Adventures, Army, and Automation 235 Where Are They Now? 238 Appendix: Important Dates 241 Glossary 243 Notes 247 Bibliography 315 Index 345

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Author Information

Jaroslav Svelch is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Studies at Charles University, Prague, and Lecturer in the Department of Game Design at the Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. He is the author of Gaming the Iron Curtain- How Teenagers and Amateurs in Communist Czechoslovakia Claimed the Medium of Computer Games.

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