I just bought this as an ebook from Google and am really enjoying it. It's much, much better written than "Racing the Beam", but obviously aimed at a similar geek demographic. The descriptions of the Amiga's hardware quirks and the ways in which they were exploited by talented programmers are first rate. Maher doesn't just regurgitate material from the Internet either. To give an example of his attention to detail, the section on hardware-banging game programming techniques is backed up by his own reconstruction of DMA's Menace engine, with full C source code provided on his website. One of the best things about the book is its objectivity. Although Maher's appreciation for Amiga's design shines through, he is refreshingly candid about its shortcomings too. Like the Concorde, the Amiga was a brilliant but flawed harbinger of a future that never was.
