How to win at Pac-Man

[BSA Starfire]

 

 

Was scanning some stuff for Romhunter and came across this neat little book published by Penguin in 1982.

 

Here's the atari section for you enjoyment

[Lord Helmet]

I had that book back in the day. Thanks for sharing.

[Linkz1]

Nice scans....what other games are in that book?

[jboypacman]

Cool what other games are in that book? Thanks for sharing.

[Glenn Jupp]

Oh, wow. I remember having that book. Got all water damaged and fell apart and everything. Thanks for the reminder.

 

Linkz1 & jboypacman: This book was a strictly Pac-Man book.

[2600Lives]

Is that the one by the poker player Ken Uston? If so, I have the sequel to that book, Score! Beating the Top 16 Video Games. It gives such useful knowledge as arcade etiquitte, and tells you to make sure to bring the book with you to the arcade if you want to score high (as if games weren't considered geeky enough in those days, why not bring a BOOK with you to the arcade!). It's pretty stupid all around, but it does have some decent information.

[myworldplz]

Shh, pacman watches us!

 

Hehe, great scan much appreciated I need to print this and post it up on my cabinet next to my 2600! I stink at Pacman the dang yellow pie just dislikes life all together! Ah well what are you going to do? *Thinks of modding cart...*

[user42]

Here is the whole book for those that may be interested.

While not my scan, this is my re-edit of it.

 

http://sharebee.com/34ffee66

[BigFairy321]

nice

[Dauber]

Thanks!! I still have my copy, but over the years some pages fell out and have been long lost. Really fascinating reading!

[ovalbugmann]

Here is the whole book for those that may be interested.

While not my scan, this is my re-edit of it.

 

http://sharebee.com/34ffee66

 

This ebook is in .CBZ format. What program can I use to open it??

[2600Lives]

CDisplay is that program you want. It's a "comic book reader" program. Very cool, too, and easy to use. Just google it and you'll find it, it's free.

[Artlover]

It's just a .zip file that holds a bunch of jpg's. You can just as easily use an archive program like ZIP, RAR, whatever to extract it and just look at each page with a regular pic viewer.

Edited March 10, 2009 by Artlover

[Lendorien]

Oh, wow. I remember having that book. Got all water damaged and fell apart and everything. Thanks for the reminder.

 

Wow. Losing that book sounds like it was pretty traumatic for you.

 

In any case, I remember a RA I had in college. He could play Ms. Pacman on the arcade cabinet we had in the union for hours on one quarter.He said it was all about learning the paths the ghosts took.

[ovalbugmann]

Great! -Thanks for the info on .CBZ files guys.

[MrRetroGamer]

Is that the one by the poker player Ken Uston?.

 

Ken Uston wasn't a poker player. He was a BLACKJACK player (a VERY good one at that), as a member of a card counting crew (which was legal back then). I just saw a very interesting show about him in a series called Breaking Vegas on A&E. I never knew about how he came to be "The Big Player" but this show was very interesting to me (especially since of the connection to video games he had). He was originally a very straight laced business man who gave up a very good executive position at the SF stock exchange to become a high roller blackjack player. He was also a math genius, and that helped in his professional career. I think you can find clips on youtube from this show, just search for his name.

 

Ken wrote several books on video games and computers in addition to the two mentioned here, plus several on his blackjack playing. I am posting the covers from my collection here for reference.

[shadow460]

I used to have the Score! and Home Video '83 titles. For a laugh, look at the graphs in Home Video '83 and see what it says about the 5200 and CV having the largest libraries! (with adapters, of course).

 

Score! was the better of the two, and I read it so much I can recite parts of it line by line. I like the sections he writes on how you die in Frogger and Stargate:

 

Frogger:

There are more ways to lose in Frogger than any other game

 

Stargate:

I can blithely say in only one way, by getting hit by any of the enemies or their bullets.

 

His arcade etiquette tips were useful until well into the '90's, too. Then it seems arcades started changing. I remember putting quarters up on the KI2 and MK3 machines I played, but one wouldn't put quarters on a machine like DDR.