Mike Abrash
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Michael Abrash is an American
programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...
and
technical writer A technical writer is a professional communicator whose task is to convey complex information in simple terms to an audience of the general public or a very select group of readers. Technical writers research and create information through a vari ...
. He has written dozens of magazine articles and multiple books on
code optimization In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...
and software-rendered graphics for
IBM PC compatible An IBM PC compatible is any personal computer that is hardware- and software-compatible with the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) and its subsequent models. Like the original IBM PC, an IBM PC–compatible computer uses an x86-based central p ...
s. He worked at
id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...
in the mid-1990s on the rendering technology for '' Quake''. He later wrote the Pixomatic software renderer for RAD Game Tools. Since 2014, he has been the chief scientist of
Oculus VR Reality Labs, formerly Oculus VR, is a business and research unit of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook Inc.) that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as the Qu ...
, a subsidiary of
Meta Platforms Meta Platforms, Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Meta owns and operates several prominent social media platforms and communication services, including Facebook, Instagram, Threads ...
. Abrash started his career in 1982 writing action video games for the IBM PC, which eventually resulted in a 1990 book, ''Zen of Assembly Language Volume 1: Knowledge'', about optimization for the 16-bit 8086 and 8088 processors. He began writing about programming the EGA and
VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the IBM PC compatible industry within three years. T ...
hardware of IBM PC compatibles for ''Programmer's Journal'' in the late 1980s, followed by a column for ''
Dr. Dobb's Journal ''Dr. Dobb's Journal'' (often shortened to ''Dr. Dobb's'' or DDJ) was a monthly magazine published in the United States by UBM Technology Group, part of UBM. It covered topics aimed at computer programmers. When launched in 1976, DDJ was the fi ...
'' in the early 1990s. In the latter, he introduced a method of adjusting VGA
mode 13h Mode 13h is the standard 256-color mode on VGA graphics hardware introduced in 1987 with the IBM PS/2. It has a resolution of pixels. It was used in computer games and art/animation software of the late 1980s and early to mid-1990s. "13h" refer ...
to have a resolution of 320×240 with square pixels, which he called
Mode X Mode X is a 256-color graphics display mode of the VGA graphics hardware for IBM PC compatibles. It was first publicized by Michael Abrash in his July 1991 column in '' Dr. Dobb's Journal'' and then in chapters 47-49 of Abrash's ''Graphics Pro ...
. He also used his ''Dr. Dobbs's'' column to write about the details of his work on ''Quake''.


Game programmer

Abrash began writing video games the early days of the
IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the List of IBM Personal Computer models, IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on ...
and the
Color Graphics Adapter The Color Graphics Adapter (CGA), originally also called the ''Color/Graphics Adapter'' or ''IBM Color/Graphics Monitor Adapter'', introduced in 1981, was IBM's first color graphics card for the IBM PC and established a De facto standard, de fac ...
. His first commercial game was a clone of ''
Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Taito for Arcade video game, arcades. It was released in Japan in April 1978, with the game being released by Midway Manufacturing overseas. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed s ...
'' published by
Datamost Datamost was an American computer book publisher and computer game company founded by David Gordon and based in Chatsworth, Los Angeles, Chatsworth, California. Datamost operated in the early 1980s producing games and other software mainly for th ...
in 1982 as ''
Space Strike ''Space Strike'' is a 1982 fixed shooter video game for IBM PC compatibles programmed by Michael Abrash and published by Datamost. ''Space Strike'' is a clone of ''Space Invaders''. Gameplay As in ''Space Invaders'', the player controls a smal ...
''. He followed it with '' Cosmic Crusader'' (1982) and '' Big Top'' (1983), both published by Funtastic. Working with Dan Illowsky, who had previously programmed the Apple II ''
Pac-Man ''Pac-Man,'' originally called in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The pla ...
'' clone ''
Snack Attack ''Snack Attack'' is a maze video game developed by Dan Illowsky for the Apple II and published by Datamost in 1981. ''Snack Attack'' is a Pac-Man clone, ''Pac-Man'' clone. Gameplay The player controls the Snacker, a small, white, fish-like char ...
'', he co-wrote ''Snack Attack II'' (1982) for the IBM PC. All of his IBM PC games were written in 8086
assembly language In computing, assembly language (alternatively assembler language or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence bet ...
. After working at
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
on graphics and assembly code for
Windows NT 3.1 Windows NT 3.1 is the first major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, released on July 27, 1993. It marked the company's entry into the corporate computing environment, designed to support large networks and to be ...
, he was hired by
id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...
in the mid-1990s to work on '' Quake''. Some of the technology behind ''Quake'' is documented in Abrash's ''Ramblings in Realtime'' published in ''
Dr. Dobb's Journal ''Dr. Dobb's Journal'' (often shortened to ''Dr. Dobb's'' or DDJ) was a monthly magazine published in the United States by UBM Technology Group, part of UBM. It covered topics aimed at computer programmers. When launched in 1976, DDJ was the fi ...
''. He mentions Quake as his favourite game of all time. After ''Quake'' was released, Abrash returned to Microsoft to work on natural language research, then moved to the
Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...
team until 2001. In 2002, Abrash went to RAD Game Tools where he co-wrote the Pixomatic software renderer, which emulates the functionality of a
DirectX 7 Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct" ...
-level graphics card. At the end of 2005, Pixomatic was acquired by
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...
. When developing Pixomatic, he and Mike Sartain designed a new architecture called Larrabee, which now is part of Intel's
GPGPU General-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU, or less often GPGP) is the use of a graphics processing unit (GPU), which typically handles computation only for computer graphics, to perform computation in applications traditiona ...
project.
Gabe Newell Gabe Logan Newell (born November 3, 1962), also known by his nickname Gaben, is an American video game developer and businessman. He is the president and co-founder of the video game company Valve Corporation. Newell was born in Colorado and ...
, managing director of
Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or Slurry, slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically Pip ...
, said that he had "been trying to hire Michael Abrash forever. '' ..' About once a quarter we go for dinner and I say 'are you ready to work here yet? In 2011 Abrash joined Valve. On March 28, 2014, three days after
Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
announced agreements to purchase the
virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...
headset company,
Oculus VR Reality Labs, formerly Oculus VR, is a business and research unit of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook Inc.) that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as the Qu ...
published a statement saying that Michael Abrash had joined their company as Chief Scientist. This reunited him with
id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...
's
John Carmack John D. Carmack II (born August 21, 1970) is an American computer programmer and video game developer. He co-founded the video game company id Software and was the lead programmer of its 1990s games ''Commander Keen'', ''Wolfenstein 3D'', ''Do ...
, who was chief technology officer there at the time.


Technical writer

Michael Abrash was a columnist in the 1980s for the magazine ''Programmer's Journal''. The articles were collected in the 1989 book, ''Power Graphics Programming''. His second book, ''Zen of Assembly Language Volume 1: Knowledge'' (1990), is about writing efficient
assembly code In computing, assembly language (alternatively assembler language or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence bet ...
for the original IBM PC's
Intel 8088 The Intel 8088 ("''eighty-eighty-eight''", also called iAPX 88) microprocessor is a variant of the Intel 8086. Introduced on June 1, 1979, the 8088 has an eight-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers ...
processor, but was released after the
80486 The Intel 486, officially named i486 and also known as 80486, is a microprocessor introduced in 1989. It is a higher-performance follow-up to the Intel 386. It represents the fourth generation of binary compatible CPUs following the 8086 of 19 ...
CPU was already being used in IBM PC compatibles. Volume 2 was never published. In the early to mid-1990s, Abrash wrote a column about graphics programming for IBM PC compatibles for ''
Dr. Dobb's Journal ''Dr. Dobb's Journal'' (often shortened to ''Dr. Dobb's'' or DDJ) was a monthly magazine published in the United States by UBM Technology Group, part of UBM. It covered topics aimed at computer programmers. When launched in 1976, DDJ was the fi ...
'' called "Ramblings in Realtime." In 1991, his column introduced
Mode X Mode X is a 256-color graphics display mode of the VGA graphics hardware for IBM PC compatibles. It was first publicized by Michael Abrash in his July 1991 column in '' Dr. Dobb's Journal'' and then in chapters 47-49 of Abrash's ''Graphics Pro ...
: a 256 color 320x240 graphics mode with square pixels instead of the slightly elongated pixels of the standard 320x200 mode. The same column covers a
VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the IBM PC compatible industry within three years. T ...
feature allowing up to four pixels to be written at once—something which had not been widely documented outside of the VGA specification. The article and its follow-ups ignited interest among MS-DOS game programmers. "Ramblings in Realtime" also covered polygon drawing, 3D graphics, and texture mapping. Much of the content of ''Zen of Assembly Language'' was updated in ''Zen of Code Optimization: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Software That Pushes PCs to the Limit'' (1994). In 1997 Abrash's ''Graphics Programming Black Book'', was published. It is a collection of ''Dr. Dobb's Journal'' articles and his work on the '' Quake'' graphic subsystem. Abrash stopped writing publicly in the 2000s until maintaining a public blog at Valve, "Ramblings in Valve Time", from April 2012 until January 2014.


References


External links


Ramblings in Valve Time - A blog by Michael Abrash (archived)
*
''Ramblings in Realtime'' by Michael Abrash
detailed description of ''Quake'' graphics engine programming
PDF version

''Graphics Programming Black Book'' by Michael AbrashHTML version
an
ebook source

"40 minutes with Michael Abrash of Valve Software"
Audio interview with Michael Abrash at QuakeCon 2012 discussing Abrash's career and work at Valve {{DEFAULTSORT:Abrash, Michael American technology writers Living people Microsoft employees Valve Corporation people American video game programmers Id Software people 1957 births