Michael Abrash is a programmer and technical writer specializing in code optimization , assembly language programming for the 80x86 architecture. The reputation of a specialist was entrenched in him after the appearance in 1990 of his book Zen of Assembly Language Volume 1: Knowledge [1] . This topic was continued later in his new book Zen of Graphics Programming [2] . He often begins his technical speeches with a joke showing the parallel between his real experience and the topic of his speech. The style of its presentation makes readers think differently (outside the box) and look for a completely new approach to solving technical problems.
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Game Programmer
Before Abrash became a technical writer, he was a game programmer at the dawn of the IBM PC . His first commercial game was Space Strike , released in 1982. He co-authored several games with Dan Illowsky, who had previously written Snack Attack for Apple II . Abrash and Illowski worked together on Cosmic Crusader (1982), Big Top (1983), and Snack Attack II [3] .
After working at Microsoft on graphics and assembly in Windows NT 3.1, he returned to the video game industry and joined id Software to work on Quake in the mid-1990s. In those days, Michael also took part in the development of Doom . Some of the technologies used in Quake are described in Abrash’s book “Ramblings in Realtime” published in the journal Dr. Dobb [4] . After Quake was released, Abrash returned to Microsoft, where he worked on natural language recognition, then joined the Xbox team until 2001.
In 2002, Abrash got a job at RAD Game Tools , where he was one of the creators of the rendering software that emulates the functionality of DirectX 7 -level graphics cards and was used in Unreal Tournament 2004 . At the end of 2005, Pixomatic was acquired by Intel . During the development of Pixomatic, Abrash and Mike Sartain designed the Larrabee architecture, which Intel now uses in GPGPU technology [5] .
Gabe Newell , Valve's director, said he “tried to hire Michael Abrash all the time.” About once a quarter, we went to lunch together, and I asked: “Are you ready to join us?” ” [6] . In 2011, Abrash joined Valve [7] .
In 2014, Abrash left Valve and joined the OculusVR virtual reality device company (a few months earlier, id Software programmer John Carmack, with whom Abrash worked on Quake, joined the company).
Technical Writer
Michael Abrash in the 1980s led one of the headings in the Programmer's Journal. In 1989, these articles were compiled in Power Graphics Programming.
His second book, Zen of Assembly Language (1990), focused on writing efficient assembler code for 16-bit Intel 8086 processors , but after its publication a new Intel 80486 processor was already available [8] . The planned second part of the book on graphics programming was never released. The key point of the Zen of Assembly Language was that performance should always be measured, and the book included a tool for that called Zen Timer to check if theoretical code optimization worked.
Most of the content of Zen of Assembly Language has been updated in Zen of Code Optimization: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Software That Pushes PCs to the Limit (1994), and new material has appeared [9] . The presentation of the phased improvement of the program demonstrated how the modernization of the algorithm can improve productivity up to 100 times. On the other hand, rewriting in assembler can only improve performance up to 10 times.
In 1997, Abrash's book, Graphics Programming Black Book, [10] [11] was published. This was a collection of articles from the journal Dr. Dobb's and developments regarding the graphics subsystem Quake .
Notes
- ↑ Abrash, Michael. Zen of Assembly Language: Knowledge. - Scott Foresman Trade, 1990. - ISBN 0-673-38602-3 .
- ↑ Abrash, Michael. Zen of Graphics Programming: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Fast PC Graphics. - Coriolis Group; Bk & Disk edition, 1994-01-15. - ISBN 1-883577-08-X .
- ↑ Hague, James The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers . Archived on October 2, 2012.
- ↑ Abrash, Michael Ramblings in Realtime . www.drdobbs.com (February 1, 1996). Date of treatment July 10, 2010. Archived October 2, 2012.
- ↑ Abrash, Michael A First Look at the Larrabee New Instructions (LRBni) . www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design (April 1, 2009). Date of treatment July 10, 2010. Archived October 2, 2012.
- ↑ Walker, John RPS Exclusive: Gabe Newell Interview . Rock, Paper, Shotgun (November 21, 2007). Date of treatment January 22, 2010. Archived October 2, 2012.
- ↑ Crossley, Rob Valve hires world-class development trio . Develop (May 13, 2011). Date of treatment May 16, 2011. Archived October 2, 2012.
- ↑ Hague, James Five Memorable Books About Programming . prog21.dadgum.com (February 18, 2008). Date of treatment July 10, 2010. Archived October 2, 2012.
- ↑ Abrash, Michael. Zen of Code Optimization: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Software That Pushes PCs to the Limit. - Coriolis Group Books, 1994-12-08. - ISBN 1-883577-03-9 .
- ↑ Michael Abrash, Michael. Graphics Programming Black Book. - Coriolis Group Books, 1997. - ISBN 1-57610-174-6 .
- ↑ Abrash, Michael Graphics Programming Black Book . www.drdobbs.com/high-performance-computing (November 1, 2001). Date of treatment July 10, 2010. Archived October 2, 2012.
Links
- Ramblings in Valve Time , Michael Abrash's Blog.
- Ramblings in Realtime by Michael Abrash , a detailed description of the graphics engine used in Quake ( PDF version ).
- “Graphics Programming Black Book” by Michael Abrash , an alternative source for download.
- Another source of his Graphics Programming Black Book , "Graphics Programming Black Book."
- Byte.com's copy of "Graphics Programming" (Active February 2008) , "Graphics Programming."
- Black Book Special Edition , "Black Book Special Edition."
- 40 minutes with Michael Abrash of Valve Software " , audio interview with Michael Abrash at QuakeCon 2012, a discussion of his work at Valve.