8bit Generation is the definitive documentary series about retro computing and retro gaming: all you wanted or needed to know about the 8bit era is shown and told right here

More than 55 interviews, more than 110 machines and coin ops, 12 hours footage and tons of extra contents are the numbers of this must have for every geek out there

1. A JOURNEY TO ALTAIR 6

The idea that changed the world, really

In the late sixties forbidden is no longer a cool word. Hackers, nerds and hippies combine to really change the world and put their hands on big computers without any white coated clerk in the way. From MIT to Cambridge to San Francisco Bay Area, many young men are trying to get a computer of their own, even if they have to build one. Intel 8008 and the Altair from Popular Electronics make the dream come true and some young Bill Gates manages to put himself in the right place at the right time.

1. INSERT COIN

Avoid missing ball for high score

Nolan Bushnell and Ralph Baer are very different people: the first tall young guy is the driving force of his own visions of what entertainment industry should be, the other meticulous engineer has fought WWII and learned about electronics in the army. Which of the two invented videogames? What is sure is that Pong prototype needed a major adjustment: a bigger coin box. During the first week of test in a Sunnyvale pub the machine was permanently flooded with more quarters then it could hold and a new era had begun.

2. THE TRINITY

Is it always worth coming first? Software is the answer

Enthusiasts go pro and it’s war: in the middle seventies the garage guys are about to become millionaire overnight, but only a few survive. The two Steves found Apple, Jack Tramiel revives Commodore thanks to Chuck Peddle and Tendy follows with a huge retail chain: they all want to win the largest share and jump in hyperspace. But while they’re fighting on hardware a guy from Harvard has the idea to move the spreadsheet from the chalkboard to a computer and his choice decides the winner.

2. HOME ENTERTAINMENT

Old analog entertainment business goes digital

Creativity is the driving force of the whole Atari business, outdating its inventory before the jackals do by cloning every idea Atari comes out with. The new jackals’ killer is a general purpose console to play any game. But to cope with distribution Atari needs a big partner, and here’s Warner: “I’ve been telling people I’m a millionaire for years, now I am” says Nolan Bushnell before being shown the door by the new Warner management, who prefers to turn inventory into big money rather than to condemn it to the scrap pile.

3. COMPUTERS FOR THE MASSES

A computer in each kid’s bedroom

Jack Tramiel is not a man who is easy to defeat and he’s looking for an Apple killer to get his personal revenge. He finds his weapon in England where Sir Clive Sinclair is selling his ZX80 for less than 100£ and from there on his business philosophy would be: “computer for the masses, not for the classes”, available in department stores. The Vic20 is the Apple killer, on the shelf for less than 300$: same capabilities for one third the price. And every kid wants the new companion to play with.

3. INVASION FROM OUTER SPACE

The importance of the high strung prima donna’s

Ray Kassar comes to work in a three piece suite and starts at 7.30 am: quite afar from the Bushnell’s style. Under his command Atari jumps to two billion dollar per year and becomes the fastest growing company in history: the secret is called Space Invaders, a new life form from Japan, which puts the videogame phenomenon finally in the spotlight. But between the free minded game developers and the old school Warner management things are falling apart and out there aliens are setting up for the big invasion.

WHY BUY JUST A VIDEOGAME?

Inventing the 8bit generation

“Oh dad! I can do my homework with that, learn mathematics and statistics and mum can keep all the recipes and home accounts”. “Yes! And shoot aliens from dusk till dawn!”. Not as well trained MBA’s would do, Tramiel and Sinclair kept killing their babies in the cradle: the C64 and the ZX Spectrum killed indeed everyone else, but became the contenders of the 8bit generation with Apple II well in the background. Here’s where an entire generation learned about computers and led the way to the digital world of today.

4. THE GOLDEN AGE

Pac-Man fever and other common mass disorders

Between 1980 and 1982 the arcade fever peaks its apogee. Pac-Man is the new craze, every teen ager of the world hangs out at the local arcade trying to make it in the hi-score rank and life from then on goes definitely digital. Others in the cast: Donkey Kong, Frogger, Mrs Pac-Man, Galaxian, Missile Command, Berzerk, but Defender deserves a mention when young Steve Juraszek plays it 16 hours no stop, scoring nearly 16 million points and making it on the Time Magazine cover, for what it’s worth.

5. GATES OF HEAVEN

Standardization comes of age

IBM comes into play: is this the end of the young hackers era? Not really, it’s only the beginning. Big Blue wants to be in the new market and has the power to become leader overnight, but they need an operating system to launch a whole new standard in personal computing. They ask Bill Gates who turns them to Gary Kildall, but then something goes wrong and Bill suddenly wakes up and heads to the top of Fortune 500. “A computer on every desktop with Microsoft software in it” is no longer a dream or a nightmare: it’s real.

5. GAME OVER?

December 7 1982: the day the whole videogames world blew away

And then the kids stopped playing. They had grown a little tired: they were tired of the old games, they were tired of bad games, they suddenly wanted something else. By the end of 1982 the biggest videogame company in the world announced they will grow 15% instead of 50% and panic started: the whole home console market disappeared in the sink, while the arcade world pointed down faster and faster. Videogames were no longer cool, videogames were no longer a business, but was life still digital after all?

6. HALLO, I’M USER FRIENDLY!

Towards today’s computer world

The computer of today was born at Xerox PARC in the middle seventies, with its windows and mouse pointer and the most beloved copy/paste option, and literally stolen from there by a wild bunch headed by Steve Jobs, who was indeed welcome there with all honors. One result of this was the MacIntosh and the brand new Graphical User Interface, the other one was another sleight of hand: Microsoft Windows, although the magician was one man alone, known as Bill Gates, and this time Jobs seated in the audience.

6. MARIO, MARIO, MARIOOO

Far East invasion: shall an Italian plumber save our future?

In 1983, when the world of videogame was stone cold, Nintendo released Mario Bros for the arcades: the character was ready to take off, but the world wasn’t. The Famicom was doing great in Japan but nobody wanted to hear about a new console in the USA and they needed a killer application desperately. Guerrilla marketing and Super Mario Bros have been the answer for the Nintendo Entertainment System and the kids are ready for videogames once again. Life is still digital after all and so it’s been ever since.

Guests

Dave Bradley. IBM engineer; member of the team that developed the IBM 5150 PC, the first IBM personal computer; claimed as the inventor of the CTRL+ALT+CANC

Dan Bricklin. Creator of Visicalc, the first spreadsheet; it was the Apple II killer application

Al Charpentier. Developer of the MOS Technology VIC chip for the Commodore VIC-20

Alan Cooper. Creator of Visual BASIC and Gary Kildall partner at Digital Research

Chris Curry. Ex Sinclair Research employee; founder of Acorn Computers, a British company that produced the Atom and BBC Micro

John Draper. Hacker; phone phreaker; inventor of the Blue Box, a device for free phone calls; developer of EasyWriter, one of the first word processors in computer history

Jay Elliot. former Apple employee and Steve Jobs biographer

Federico Faggin. Italian computer scientist, co-designer of the Intel 4004, the first microprocessor in computer history

Lee Felsenstein. Computer engineer; Homebrew Computer Club “Master of Ceremony”; developer of the Osborne1, the first portable computer in history

Andy Finkel. Videogame programmer; VIC 20 and Commodore 64 library manager

Paul Freiberger. Journalist and writer, co-author of the book Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer. The movie Pirates of the Valley is based on the book

Richard Garriott. Videogame programmer; creator of the cult role-playing saga Ultima

John Grant. Sinclair Research programmer, he designed the software for the ZX80 and the ZX81

Rupert Goodwins. Programmer for Sinclair Research and Amstrad

Bil Herd. Brilliant engineer of the second half of Commodore life involved in the C128 and Amiga projects

Andy Hertzfeld. Apple programmer; Mac wiz: member of the team which designed the original Macintosh

David House. Intel Inside line production manager; board council member of the Computer History Museum located in Mountain View, Silicon Valley

Dan Kottke. Long time Steve Jobs companion and former Apple employee

Lee Krueger. Classic 8-bit machines collector

Al Lowe. A Sierra-On-Line programmer, developer of the Leisure Suite Larry cult series.

Jeff Minter. British programmer; founder of Llamasoft

Chuck Peddle. Designer of the MOS Technology 6502, one of the most versatile microprocessor in computer history

Alvy Ray Smith. Pixar co-founder

John Roach. Radio Shack CEO; he was the leading force behind the TRS80 home computer

Severo Ornstein. Computer scientist at Xerox Parc; internet pioneer

Michael Swaine. Journalist and writer, co-author of the book Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer.

Larry Tesler. Xerox PARC and LIsa team

Michael Tomczyk. Commodore VIC-20 marketing and product manager

Jack Tramiel. Jewish entrepreneur, Commodore’s founder; he was the leading force behind the VIC-20 e C64 models; he later bought the Atari home computer division from Warner

Leonard Tramiel. Jack Tramiel’s son, a long time Commodore manager

Stan Veit. Founder of the Computer Mart retail chain

Jim Westwood. Sinclair’s long time assistant, chief engineer at Sinclair Research Ltd

Steve Wozniak. Appple co-founder; he designed the Apple I, the first Apple personal computer, and the Apple II, one of the best selling computer in hist

Guests

Al Alcorn. Creator of Pong, the first commercial success of Atari

Minoru Arakawa. President of Nintendo of America from the early 80's to 2002

Ralph H Baer. 'Father of tv games', creator of the Brown Box, the first home videogame console

Nolan Bushnell. Atari founder; tech visionary, pioneer of arcade videogames and home entertainment industry. In 2010 he joins back the company's Board of Directors (Atari S.A.).

David Crane. Atari programmer and Activision co-founder; creator of Outlaw, Pitfall e Ghostbusters 

Walter Day. Twin Galaxies founder, the most famous arcade of the videogame golden age

Joe Decuir. Atari engineer; co-developer of the Atari 2600 system

Manny Gerard. Warner Bros former vice president, he managed the Atari purchase by Warner Bros

Eugene Jarvis. Creator of cult videogames like Defender and Robotron: 2084

Steve Juraszek. Top videogame player; when he was 15 years-old he got a score of 15,963,100 points with Defender. Time Magazine covered him in January 1982

Ray Kassar. Atari CEO 1978-1983

Steven Kent. Videogame journalist; he wrote the seminal book The ultimate history of videogames

Dennis Koble. Atari developer; Imagic co-founder, the 2^nd third-party software house; co-developer of cult videogames like Atlantis e Frogger

Chris Kohler. Videogame journalist, contributor of Wired magazine; japanese videogames expert; author of the book Power up

Billy Mitchell. Top videogame player; Pac-Man and Donkey Kong recordman; he runs a restaurant in Florida and produces sauces

Tomohiro Nishikado. Creator of Space Invaders

Alexey Pajitnov. Engineer programmer from Russia; creator of Tetris

Henk Rogers. The man who discovered Tetris in the U.S.S.R. and brought it to the worldwide consciousness

David Rolfe. Developer of the Mattel Intellivision system; creator of videogames like Exidy and Star Fire

Ed Rotberg. Programmer of Atari's coin-op division; creator of Tank

Steve Russell. Programmer and computer scientist; creator of Space War!, one of the first videogame in computer history

Howard Scott Warshaw. Atari developer, creator of games like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Yar's Revenge and the flop E.T. The Extra Terrestrial