Computer Recreation for Everyone

This book describes the history of video games and shows their evolution to the present. We survey a variety of common vintage Atari and Coleco games that can be used as part of a computer recreation plan for the disabled, senior citizens, and anyone else who wants to have fun. We also discuss some developments resulting from some computer games that were operated with electrodes for people with persistent vegetative state, spinal chord injured, and comatose. There are also some fascinating computer simulations used with doctors to help people recover from fear of driving, fear of height, and to distract them from pain experienced from severe burns. We also survey recreational/communication games in the Middle East.

The main author Eamon P. Doherty has a doctorate in computer science from the University of Sunderland in England, but whose earlier education was in America. His thesis investigated bio-electric interfaces for the disabled. Dr. Doherty was on a CNN video with a quadriplegic spinal chord injured man and a brain injured non-verbal man. Dr. Doherty's work was also featured on a half page in the New York Times on two occasions. The secondary author, Gary Stephenson, also a Sunderland University graduate, is a consultant to the National Health Service in England on health informatics projects and has worked in the USA and through videoconferencing on computer applications for disabled people.