Renegades of the Empire
by Michael Drummond · first published 1999
9mentions
6recommended by
8HN commenters
2010–2023first – last mentioned
75% recommend25% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Insider account of how a small group inside Microsoft built WinG and DirectX, covering the internal politics and corporate maneuvering; suits readers interested in Microsoft history or the origins of Direct3D.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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I thought Renegades of the Empire was a fascinating look into the internal machinations at Redmond and a bit of DirectX history too https://www.amazon.com/Renegades-Empire-Software-Revolution-...
on “Ask HN: Computer Science/History Books?” ↗I recall (albeit vaguely) reading an interesting book "Renegades of the Empire: How Three Software Warriors Started a Revolution Behind the Walls of Fortress" by Michael Drummond. My recollection of the genesis of DirectX was in fact a skunkworks project create their vision of…
on “Eric Engstrom, co-creator of DirectX, has died” ↗You'd probably enjoy the book "Renegades of the Empire" by Drummond. https://www.amazon.com/Renegades-Empire-Software-Revolution-...
on “Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return” ↗…know. If a historical account gives the details it knows correctly but leaves a bunch of details out is it still accurate? There's actually a great book written about the creation of Direct3D called Renegades of the Empire (http://tinyurl.com/3n4jnru). Having read that book I can tell you this account, while accurate in its technical details, misses a lot of other issues that were going on. For Instance... 1. The team…
on “The Tale of OpenGL vs. Direct3D” ↗…some of his notes regarding OpenGL vs. Direct3D around: http://chrishecker.com/OpenGL It seemed quite important at the time that he- who begat WinG, which begat DirectX, some of which is covered in Renegades of the Empire, which someone else mentioned, which is certainly worth reading- went on to agitate for OpenGL over Direct3D. Now there's kind of a scrapheap of history vibe off of the whole thing.
on “The Tale of OpenGL vs. Direct3D” ↗Renegades of the Empire: How Three Software Warriors Started a Revolution Behind the Walls of Fortress Microsoft http://amzn.com/dp/0609604163 TL;DR: the history of WinG and DirectX The Wikipedia entry is also worth checking…
on “Real Games for Windows (1994)” ↗The book Renegades of the Empire ( http://amzn.com/0609604163?tag=hn2013-20 [referral]) documents the history of DirectX within Microsoft. And Wild Tangent is one of the most annoying/useless pre-loaded crapware vendors -- I've never…
on “The Evolution of Direct3D” ↗…Microsoft was working on a technology called Chrome Effects that was intended to compete with VRML as the world's ultimate "Networkable Graphics" format. This history is covered in books such as <em>Renegades of the Empire</em>. This was stuff from back when Michael Abrash worked at Microsoft!
on “Microsoft picks HTML5 over Silverlight for Internet apps” ↗> what's the title? Renegades of the Empire
on “Managers, Stop Distracting Your Employees” ↗