20 GOTO 10 is a book of numbers that describes the many facets of computing history, focusing on the golden age of old computers and retro games and consoles of the 1980s and 90s. It covers the hardware, software, and social history of the era showing how they're linked through numbers, such as 48K, C90, and 35899.
Each entry starts with a number, and by choosing a related number you'll create a unique adventure through the book and into a web of forgotten geek lore and incredible facts. With luck, you'll find a way to arrive at the number used to grant infinite lives in Jet Set Willy!
Whether you're interested in machines from the mainstream such as Sinclair, Acorn, Atari, Famicom, Sega, Nintendo, Sony, and Commodore, or the lesser known cabal of Dragon, Tandy, Oric, Amstrad, DEC, Jupiter, Vectrex, TI, and NewBrain (or even the virtually unheard of COSMAC Elf 2000) you'll see how numbers underpin more that the internal workings of these machines.
So, from the mysterious numbers which disabled the break key, to the speed of cassette tapes, detouring by the reason why a single digit might require seven bytes of memory, this book provides a mindful perspective on the nostalgia genre from someone that was there. So, whether you're interested in home computers, game consoles, or handheld devices, there'll certainly be some new old information to learn!
Instead of a conventional "write three chapters and a synopsis" I decided to experiment with a Crowdfunding campaign, which I hoped would build a community around the book, before publication. It did! This meant readers were engaged with the idea during the writing process, giving suggestions for stories and inclusions. It is a far better book because of it!
As part of the research I also created a repository of the data I collated.
Marquis de Geek