Bug Voyage

by John Harris

Bugs are a fact of programming life, although their consequences have changed a lot. When a console crashes, you reset it. When an arcade game crashes, it resets itself. When your PC crashes, you might have lost an important document. If you're going to have a bug, best to experience it in a game and not Microsoft Word.

Everyone knows video games have bugs these days. Not as many people know they've always had bugs, going right back to the beginning. Pac-Man, Galaga, Defender, they had more bugs than you'd suspect, and sometimes they laid right under your nose, unnoticed for decades, until you find out how to trigger them.

That's what this book is, a spotter's guide to classic game bugs: where they are, how to find them, and how to push them out into the open, so we can pin them to cardboard and put them on display. What use is a bug to anyone if it's crawling in the walls? Let's bring out the magnifying glass and have a good look. The wing pattern on this Pac-Man kill screen is really quite exquisite.

Genres: Video Games, Nonfiction

Kindle Edition

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

John[2 spaces]Harris : Historical Fiction
John[3 spaces]Harris : Non Fiction
John[4 spaces]Harris : Treehouse
John[5 spaces]Harris : Music
John[6 spaces]Harris : Management
John[7 spaces]Harris : Child Psychology
John[8 spaces]Harris : Children's
John[9 spaces]Harris : Drama
John[10 spaces]Harris : John Harris of Bolenowe, poet and preacher
John[11 spaces]Harris : -
John[12 spaces]Harris : History, Architecture
John[13 spaces]Harris : born 1942
John[14 spaces]Harris : Reverend John Harris (1802 - 1856)
John[15 spaces]Harris : -
John[16 spaces]Harris : History
John[17 spaces]Harris : born 1937
John[18 spaces]Harris : -
John[19 spaces]Harris : Backpacker
John[20 spaces]Harris : Erotic, LGBT
John[21 spaces]Harris : born 1667
John[22 spaces]Harris : GR Author
John[25 spaces]Harris : GR Author

Reviews

[bubez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not that bad as some other readers complain, but this is highly depending on how you approach this book and it is not as typo-filled as others claim (I have probably got it from a Storybundle years ago, maybe mine could be a revised edition?).

A collection of classical gaming (mostly Galaga and Pac-man) bug knowledge "borrowed" from some bug researcher's web pages --everything's linked and stated clearly, so it's not stealing but compiling a collection I guess? Hopefully the original authors have been asked, but I can't remember if this is addressed somewhere.

Very short book, extremely technical (explanations usually involve maths or how old processors worked), the last 1/4 is a huge glossary of computer terms and explanations.

It contains more useful information about Galaga than the extremely disappointing Galaga book from Boss Fight I read last month.

[Thomas Hale · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short book about some infamous computer game bugs, that goes in detail into the computer science underpinning them. A breezy read, Harris's passion for the subject comes through and saves what could have been an extremely dry book. It feels like the kind of text that could be set to entry-level computer science or game design students.

[Ricardo Mendes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive writing, grammatical and spelling mistakes all indicate a lack of editing and contribute to muddy the subject at hand.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm always surprised when reading one of my geekier books that the author never bothered to use spellcheck or have someone else read it.

Eh. Decent concept, weak execution.