Michael Abrash

Michael Abrash
As Oculus VR Chief Scientist on stage at Facebook's F8 2015
Born1957 (age 66–67)[1]
Occupation(s)Programmer
Technical writer
EmployerOculus VR (2014–present)
TitleChief scientist

Michael Abrash is an American programmer and technical writer. He has written dozens of magazine articles and multiple books on code optimization and software-rendered graphics for IBM PC compatibles. He worked at id Software in the mid-1990s on the rendering technology for Quake. He later wrote the Pixomatic software renderer for RAD Game Tools. Since 2014, he has been the chief scientist of Oculus VR, a subsidiary of Meta Platforms.[2]

Abrash started his career in 1982 writing action video games for the IBM PC, which eventually resulted in a 1990 book, Zen of Assembly Language Volume 1: Knowledge, about optimization for the 16-bit 8086 and 8088 processors.[3] 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 method of adjusting VGA mode 13h to have a resolution of 320×240 with square pixels, which he called Mode X. He also used his Dr. Dobbs's column to write about the details of his work on Quake

  1. ^ Abrash, Michael (April 1, 1997). "Some Things I've Learned About Win32 Game Programming". Dr. Dobb's.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Oculus01 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference zenassembly was invoked but never defined (see the help page).