A great piece, originally published in the December 1982 issue of IEEE Spectrum, on the secrets of Space Invaders:
“The speeding up of the space invaders was just a function of the way the machine worked,” he explained. “The hardware had a limitation—it could only move 24 objects efficiently. Once some of the invaders got shot, the hardware did not have as many objects to move, and the remaining invaders sped up. And the designer happened to put out a sound whenever the invaders moved, so when they sped up, so did the tone.”
More on Space Invaders: Playing Space Invaders With Real Fire And Lasers, Space Invaders with Drones, and The Smallest Space Invaders Game in the World (Maybe)
