Todays digital culture traces its roots to the 1980s, when the first computer generation came of age. These original techno-kids grew up with home-brew programs, secret computer access codes, and arcades where dedicated video gamers fought to extend their play by earning extra life. In that era of gleeful discovery, driven by a sense of adventure and a surge of power, kids found a world they could master, one few grownups could understand. In this fast-paced, real-life tale set in the bedrooms, computer rooms, and video arcades of the 80s, popular media chronicler David S. Bennahum takes readers back to his initiation into this electronic universe, to his discovery of PONG at age five. We follow him from video game addictionhis Bar Mitzvah gift was an Atari 800 with 48K of RAMto his ascent to master programmer with the coveted title of Super User in his high schools computer room. Bennahum reflects on how computers empowered him and his friends to create a world of their own. We see how their geekiness, grounded in roleplaying, iterative thinking, and systems analysis led to a productive, social existencethe extra life they found on the other side of the screen. Hilarious, poignant, and packed with little-known computer lore, Extra Life is a grand digital adventure set against the background of the emerging information age.
Todays digital culture traces its roots to the 1980s, when the first computer generation came of age. These original techno-kids grew up with home-brew programs, secret computer access codes, and arcades where dedicated video gamers fought to extend their play by earning extra life. In that era of gleeful discovery, driven by a sense of adventure and a surge of power, kids found a world they could master, one few grownups could understand. In this fast-paced, real-life tale set in the bedrooms, computer rooms, and video arcades of the 80s, popular media chronicler David S. Bennahum takes readers back to his initiation into this electronic universe, to his discovery of PONG at age five. We follow him from video game addictionhis Bar Mitzvah gift was an Atari 800 with 48K of RAMto his ascent to master programmer with the coveted title of Super User in his high schools computer room. Bennahum reflects on how computers empowered him and his friends to create a world of their own. We see how their geekiness, grounded in roleplaying, iterative thinking, and systems analysis led to a productive, social existencethe extra life they found on the other side of the screen. Hilarious, poignant, and packed with little-known computer lore, Extra Life is a grand digital adventure set against the background of the emerging information age.
* Prologue: Pirates Cove * Pong * Space Invaders * Experience Points * Extra Life * Atari * Dungeon * Super Users * Breaking In * Symbiosis * Cheese * Hide the Geek * Beyond Zork * Epilogue
David S. Bennahum is a contributing editor for Wired, Spin, Ligua Franca, and I.D. magazine. He is also the publisher of MEME, and online newsletter on technology and culture. Readers can contact him by email at davidsol@panix.com and view his website at http://www.extralife.org/
By seventh grade, Bennahum (now a contributing editor at Wired and Spin, among others) was well on his way to a life of petty crime, sexual experimentation, and escalating drug use. Fate intervened in the form of an Atari 800 computer with 48K of RAM‘a bar mitzvah present from his dad that opened Bennahum first to the world of (already beloved) video games and then on to computer programming and the alternate world of early cyberspace. While mercifully devoid of the exaggerated hype plaguing such books as Don Tapscott's Growing Up Digital (LJ 11/1/97), Extra Life does artfully describe Bennahum's experiences as a member of the first generation to grow up interacting naturally with computers. His description of finding himself standing in that "open field west of a big white house" will have his Generation X readers rushing to download a copy of Zork and relive some shared memories. Recommended for public libraries.‘Rachel Singer, Franklin Park P.L., IL
In this peculiar memoir of growing up at the same time as the computer, Bennahum, a contributing editor to Wired and other magazines, charts his lifelong obsession with the machine, from before he could type a four-line BASIC program to his days of amateur hacking to the time he took a trip to Microsoft's Seattle offices for a job interview. Implicitly challenging the distinction between geekiness and coolness, Bennahum tells of his early fascination with drugs, the solace he found in computers and the seductiveness of invading others' cyberprivacy. He writes as compellingly about the glee of his first hacking job as other memoirists have written about their first acid trip or incestuous relationship. Bennahum captures with poignancy the yearning he had to be a "Super User," the computer lab's star du jour, as well as the thrill of discovery when working with computers. But his memoir is marred by too many unexplained digressions, such as the all-too-casual suggestion that his sister became a "bad girl" because she didn't look for computers to rescue her. The book's largest bug lies in the fact that Bennahum spends too much time documenting when he should be enlightening. Must we really know that "Paul Haahr taught me how to play Ping-Pong with the switches," when we'd rather read his insights into such a moment? Those who grew up during the same pivotal cyber-time as the author will recognize at least some of his sentiments but find little new in them; those who didn't might assume that they didn't miss much. Author tour. (Nov.)
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