Michael Abrash

Michael Abrash is best known as a technical writer and one of the top optimization and 80x86 assembly language programmers, a reputation cemented by his 1990 book . Unfortunately, the original 8086 processor, the focus of the book, was several generations behind the state of the art by the time the book was published. The much anticipated second volume was never published, but the planned topics were eventually covered in Zen of Graphics Programming

Related Topics:
Optimization - Assembly language - Programmer - Zen of Graphics Programming

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His prolific writings have made their way to numerous publications such as a Dr. Dobb's Journal column on graphics programming and code optimization, The Zen and Art of Code Optimization, and his Graphics Programming Black Book, all of which were influential during their time. His most famous series of articles for Dr. Dobb's Journal, circa 1991, described an undocumented graphics mode for the IBM PC which he called Mode X.

Related Topics:
Dr. Dobb's Journal - The Zen and Art of Code Optimization - Graphics Programming Black Book - IBM PC - Mode X

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Before getting into technical writing Abrash was a game programmer, having written his first commercial game in 1982, Space Strike (unrelated to the massively multiplayer game of the same name) for the IBM PC (under DOS). Other games he wrote were Cosmic Crusader (1982) and Big Top (1983) for the same system. He returned to the game industry in the mid-1990s to work on Quake for id Software. Some of the technology behind Quake is documented in Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book. He currently works for RAD Game Tools.

Related Topics:
Game programmer - 1982 - Space Strike - IBM - PC - DOS - Cosmic Crusader - Big Top - 1983 - Game industry - 1990s - Quake - Id Software - Graphics Programming Black Book - RAD Game Tools

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