Three men make up the pillars of videogame history. One was Ralph Baer, who invented the home videogame console. The other two were Nolan Bushnell & Ted Dabney, the co-founders of Atari and creators of Computer Space, the world’s first arcade videogame. I maintained very close relationships with Ralph and Ted until their deaths, and… Continue reading THE FINAL CORRESPONDENCES WITH NOLAN| The Game Scholar
The rivalry between Ralph and Nolan was legendary. Ralph invented the first videogame console, the Magnavox Odyssey, which was released in 1972. Working independently, and completely unaware of Ralph, Nolan & Ted created the first videogame arcade machine, Computer Space, which was released in 1971 and was a commercial failure. After seeing a demonstration of… Continue reading THE FINAL CORRESPONDENCES WITH NOLAN – PART 1 – RALPH BAER| The Game Scholar
In early 2006 I began work on the fourth edition of my videogame history book, Phoenix: The Fall and Rise of Videogames. I had a lot of questions about the early days of Atari and I believe I reached out to Nolan Bushnell but if I did, he never responded. So I decided to try… Continue reading THE FINAL CORRESPONDENCE WITH NOLAN PART 2 – TED DABNEY| The Game Scholar
Although I was never an athlete, I grew up in the shadow of one. My father, Ronnie Herman, was a table tennis player. He didn’t play professionally but he had dozens of trophies that sat atop our dining room breakfront. My father joined the New Jersey Table Tennis Club during the fifties, when it rented… Continue reading MY FATHER’S LEGACY| The Game Scholar
Released in July 2021 by Good Deal Games/Homebrew Heaven Kung-Fu Combat 2, my twelfth manual, was the fourth one I did for Good Deal Games. As I did with Pro Golf, Kung-Fu Combat 2 did not mimic a manual design of an established company. The use of the “Chinese” font on the first page and… Continue reading KUNG-FU COMBAT 2| The Game Scholar