Imagine That!: The story of one of the first African Americans to work in the design of video games and personal computers

by Edward L. Smith, Edward L. Smith

The inspirational story of Ed Smith, an African American who grew up in the slums of Brownsville, Brooklyn to become one of the first of his race to work in the design of video games and personal computers in the 1970s. Learn how Ed became a part of the engineering team that developed the MP1000 video game and The Imagination Machine personal computer. Discover how Ed came of age while growing up in Brownsville during the sixties, his resilience enduring the crime and drug ravaged neighborhood of his youth culminating in his unexpected journey through computer technology.

263 pages, Paperback

Published January 27, 2020

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read, that spent equal time covering Ed's life outside of the world of technology to give context and weight to what he accomplished. It's a relatively quick read, and if you have even a passing interest in it, I'd definitely recommend it!

It does have the feel of self-published work, but that's not a knock against it. Gives a more personal feel to the story.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's two things to talk about with this book: The content, and the editing. On the content front, it's a fascinating memoir about a pioneer in the video game and tech world and how he escaped a bad New York neighborhood and childhood struggles to have a successful career (and noting how him being able to do so stem from choices he made as a young teen). If you're interested in the story of the APF MP1000 and Imagination Machine, Ed goes into pretty good detail as he remembers it about those parts of his career. It's a breezy read, and an interesting one particularly if you're interested in game history.

On the editing front: I will note up front that I'm reading the first edition, and I'm told that the book is being edited for the second. But as is there are errors throughout the book - some are general aspects of game history, like the name of Atari's founder, some are grammatical, etc. - and while this doesn't detract from the book's content I do feel like this story deserves a bit better. It should also be noted that Benj Edwards did not have much to do with this book's first edition (though he is editing the second) despite having his name on the goodreads page.