Michael Abrash

Michael Abrash
Michael Abrash as Oculus VR Chief Scientist on stage at Facebook's F8 2015
Residence	Washington, US
Occupation	Programmer, technical writer
Employer	Oculus VR
Title	Chief Scientist

Michael Abrash is a programmer and technical writer specializing in code optimization and 80x86 assembly language, a reputation cemented by his 1990 book Zen of Assembly Language Volume 1: Knowledge and a monthly column in Dr. Dobb's Journal in the early 1990s. A later book, Zen of Graphics Programming, applied these ideas to 2D and 3D graphics prior to the advent of hardware accelerators for the PC. Though not strictly a game programmer, Abrash has worked on the underlying technology for games, such as Quake, for much of his career.

He frequently begins a technical discussion with an anecdote that draws parallels between a real-life experience he has had and the article's subject matter. His prose encourages readers to think outside the box and to approach solving technical problems in an innovative way.

Abrash first bought a microcomputer while doing postgraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Before getting into technical writing, Abrash was a game programmer in the early days of the IBM PC. His first commercial game was a clone of Space Invaders published by Datamost in 1982 as Space Strike. He co-authored several PC games with Dan Illowsky who had previously written the successful Pac-Man clone Snack Attack for the Apple II. Abrash and Illowsky worked together on the Galaxian-like Cosmic Crusader (1982), maze game Snack Attack II (1982), and platform game Big Top (1983).