Age, Biography and Wiki

Michael Abrash was born on 1957, is an American programmer and technical writer. Discover Michael Abrash's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is he in this year and how he spends money? Also learn how he earned most of networth at the age of 67 years old?

Popular As N/A
Occupation Programmer Technical writer
Age 67 years old
Zodiac Sign
Born 1957, 1957
Birthday 1957
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Nationality

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 1957. He is a member of famous writer with the age 67 years old group.

Michael Abrash Height, Weight & Measurements

At 67 years old, Michael Abrash height not available right now. We will update Michael Abrash's Height, weight, Body Measurements, Eye Color, Hair Color, Shoe & Dress size soon as possible.

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Dating & Relationship status

He is currently single. He is not dating anyone. We don't have much information about He's past relationship and any previous engaged. According to our Database, He has no children.

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Michael Abrash Net Worth

His net worth has been growing significantly in 2023-2024. So, how much is Michael Abrash worth at the age of 67 years old? Michael Abrash’s income source is mostly from being a successful writer. He is from . We have estimated Michael Abrash's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets.

Net Worth in 2024 $1 Million - $5 Million
Salary in 2024 Under Review
Net Worth in 2023 Pending
Salary in 2023 Under Review
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Source of Income writer

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Timeline

Michael Abrash is an American programmer and technical writer.

1980

He began writing about programming the EGA and VGA hardware of IBM PC compatibles for Programmer's Journal in the late 1980s, followed by a column for Dr. Dobb's Journal in the early 1990s.

In the latter, he introduced a way to adjust VGA mode 13h to have a resolution of 320×240 with square pixels, which he called Mode X.

He worked on the 3D rendering for Quake at id Software which he wrote publicly about.

His columns and other writings were compiled into several books on graphics programming.

He later wrote the Pixomatic software renderer for RAD Game Tools.

Abrash began writing video games the early days of the IBM PC and the Color Graphics Adapter.

Michael Abrash was a columnist in the 1980s for the magazine Programmer's Journal.

1982

Abrash started his career in 1982 writing action video games for the IBM PC, which eventually resulted in the 1990 book Zen of Assembly Language Volume 1: Knowledge.

His first commercial game was a clone of Space Invaders published by Datamost in 1982 as Space Strike.

He followed it with Cosmic Crusader (1982) and Big Top (1983), both published by Funtastic.

Working with Dan Illowsky, who had previously programmed the Apple II Pac-Man clone Snack Attack, he co-wrote Snack Attack II (1982) for the IBM PC.

1989

The articles were collected in the 1989 book, Power Graphics Programming.

1990

He is best known for his magazine articles and books on code optimization and graphics for IBM PC compatibles and for working at id Software in the mid-1990s on the rendering technology for Quake.

After working at Microsoft on graphics and assembly code for Windows NT 3.1, he was hired by id Software in the mid-1990s to work on Quake.

Some of the technology behind Quake is documented in Abrash's Ramblings in Realtime published in Dr. Dobb's Journal.

He mentions Quake as his favourite game of all time.

His second book, Zen of Assembly Language Volume 1: Knowledge (1990), is about writing efficient assembly code for the 16-bit 8086 processor, but was released after the 80486 CPU was already being used in IBM PC compatibles.

Volume 2 was never published.

In the early to mid-1990s, Abrash wrote a column about graphics programming for IBM PC compatibles for Dr. Dobb's Journal called "Ramblings in Realtime."

1991

In 1991, his colummn introduced Mode X: a 256 color 320x240 graphics mode with square pixels instead of the slightly elongated pixels of the standard 320x200 mode.

The same column covers a VGA feature allowing up to four pixels to be written at once—something which had not been widely documented outside of the VGA specification.

The article and its follow-ups ignited interest among MS-DOS game programmers.

"Ramblings in Realtime" also covered polygon drawing, 3D graphics, and texture mapping.

1994

Much of the content of Zen of Assembly Language was updated in Zen of Code Optimization: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Software That Pushes PCs to the Limit (1994),

1997

In 1997 Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book, was published.

It was a collection of Dr. Dobb's Journal articles and his work on the Quake graphic subsystem.

2000

Abrash stopped writing publicly in the 2000s until maintaining a public blog at Valve, "Ramblings in Valve Time", from April 2012 until January 2014.

2001

After Quake was released, Abrash returned to Microsoft to work on natural language research, then moved to the Xbox team until 2001.

2002

In 2002, Abrash went to RAD Game Tools where he co-wrote the Pixomatic software renderer, which emulates the functionality of a DirectX 7-level graphics card.

2005

At the end of 2005, Pixomatic was acquired by Intel.

When developing Pixomatic, he and Mike Sartain designed a new architecture called Larrabee, which now is part of Intel's GPGPU project.

2011

Gabe Newell, managing director of Valve, said that he had "been trying to hire Michael Abrash forever. [...] About once a quarter we go for dinner and I say 'are you ready to work here yet? In 2011 Abrash joined Valve.

2014

Since 2014, he has been the chief scientist of Oculus VR, a subsidiary of Meta Platforms.

On March 28, 2014, three days after Facebook announced agreements to purchase the virtual reality headset company, Oculus VR published a statement saying that Michael Abrash had joined their company as Chief Scientist.

This reunited him with id Software's John Carmack, who was chief technology officer there at the time.