The Nostalgia Nerd's Retro Tech: Computer, Consoles and Games

Peter Leigh has done a great job at describing all of the major gaming consoles and computers from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. For each system he gives a detailed description, basic stats, pictures, and three representative games - the "must see", "must play", and "must avoid". Peter's descriptions are funny and spot on. He also brings a unique UK perspective, and describes gaming systems that were widespread not just in North America but also in Europe and Asia. As other have noted, the book did suffer from a few spelling mistakes, missing words, a duplicated paragraph (p.70), and a misplaced photo (p. 130). It feels like a second pass by an editor could have caught all of these. Perhaps a second printing could be done that corrects these boo boos. But aside from these, the book is an excellent reference that I'm sure I'll be using over and over again.

I felt compelled to write a quick review of this book, which I proudly added to my collection of books about retro gaming. I am shocked to see some very negative reviews; this book is actually one of my favorite in this genre because it is comprehensive, concise, and has some nice photography. The book is physically a little smaller than a "full sized" coffee table book, but the binding, printing, and paper stock quality is top notch. If you want a detailed history of each of these systems, sure, there are better guides (and honestly you can find more details of these systems online more than in physical print), but if you want a nice bookshelf piece for yourself or a great gift for anyone who appreciates retro gaming and computing technology, then I highly recommend this book.

This book is great. It covers quite a bit of the retro gaming consoles and also includes early computers, which is something most books of this nature ignore. The layout is very clean, clear, and concise, and the pictures are also laid out very well. If you are looking for something that goes over a lot of systems with all of the basic information then this is the book for you and I think it does that very well. If you are looking for something with substantial depth on each system I would say look elsewhere or check out a book on that system alone. Due to the amount of systems covered in this book only a brief synopsis is provided for each one, but it is a pleasure to look at.

First impressions: great, solid, colorful little tome nails the aesthetics. Content strikes me as an excellent swath of the market for the beginner, and for anyone who has a passing interest in history, tech, or business, there is a lot to learn here. Obviously a labor of love and surprisingly heavy on content; easily could have taken up a solid 60+ pages with no images and tight literary formatting. A bargain for hardcover at this price, and well packed. One does get the feeling with the font size and layout that a large format coffee table treatment was the original intent and would be the best fit. Perhaps if it sells well, we can get that along with the usual editing fixes etc.

Product as described.

I really enjoyed the format and simplicity shared with a personal touch of remembering when 😁 Well done and would love to see a deeper dive in these machines and their respective software. Especially the Micros as we didn't have a great following here in the states.

I follow Nostalgia Nerd's YouTube videos about retro computing . He is very informative and funny. When he mentioned his book, I wanted to support his efforts and bought one . As a start, the book is quite good and contains a number of retro computers and consoles all the way to X-Box. Each entry has a story and three sections about games must see, play and avoid . However, the size of book is small ( not that of a coffee table ) and the fonts used describing the games are very tiny (and usually in a dark background.) There are some computers not mentioned in the book. For example - Tangerine Oric1!/Atmos, Tatung Einstein, Grundy Newbrain, Memotech MTX, Enterprise 64/128 to name a few. I hope some of these will be included in the second edition. Overall a nice reference book , but not definitely for your coffee table.

Perfect gift for my mini nerd and his dad nerd. They love it!

Ein tolles Buch mit vielen interessanten Informationen. Habe es als Geschenk für meinen Freund gekauft - er war begeistert.

I received it on June 10th and finished it on June 11th (yes it's that good !!) What I liked about this book is not only was it written by my favorite retro tech reviewer on youtube (The Nostalgia Nerd) but also the hardback is very well made. The photos of the retro computers and games are clear. There are 39 systems in the book from around the world and each is presented in a way thats entertaining.I liked how the writer only reviewed 3 games per computer because the information he gives makes you actually want to play them. Now, there are two points which I didn't like (as shown in the photo) 1) the text is pretty small to read. I wish it was bigger - even my wife commented how small the print was. 2) On page 70, text is repeated when reviewing the Spectrum computer system (as shown in the photo). Two big paragraphs which make up half of the text on the page. Not too happy so I have emailed the author to find out if this is a printing error. In conclusion, I would say this is the best example of a retro tech review book. Others include too many games or fancy graphics but this is well lead out with facts and a perfect coffee table book.

This was a really fun read. It's by no means complete, but gives highlights of the best systems, accessories, etc. Highly recommended for the price.

Muy bien editado, de buena calidad, muchas fotos y texto necesario. Me gusta el enfoque y la manera de enfocar la nostalgia de esos productos que formaron (o forman aún) parte de nuestras vidas

Il libro è una raccolta commentata di PC, console e controller dagli anni 70' in avanti. Ogni modello è riportato con diverse illustrazioni. Per i PC sono riportati sempre tre applicativi (in genere giochi), uno da vedere, uno da provare e uno da evitare. Ogni PC è corredato da una scheda di descrizione che ne elenca le caratteristiche principali come PCU, RAM ecc. Quindi carino da avere e utile come sinottico della tecnologia passata. Consigliato per gli appassionati