I understand, acknowledge, and respect what you're saying and where you're coming from, and I'm sure you guys understand the same with me. Like I said, my main reason for the gripe (and it was the only gripe out of the entire book) was that taking the time elsewhere in the book to define genres, etc. but not present your definition of video game, which Matt stated now should be in the 2nd edition. I'm not the only one who defines or looks at the term as I do, which is why I felt it's important to state your position and why. Regarding the language evolving thing, I didn't address that before but I feel the issue is actually the opposite of how you guys are using it as an example - that people are taking a term that's evolved to something else today and putting something previous in that context in hindsite. I.E. taking the context of "gay" now and laying it back on the 1930's version would provide an incorrect context and descriptive on what was being addressed in that 1930's version. Just as taking the current usage of "dork" and laying that context over the earlier version of "whale penis" would do. That's exactly what I was referring in my position on people taking the current pop-culture infused version of "video game" and going back and applying it over the earlier accurate technical definition in hindsite - it leads to technology confusion. The same way some kid not knowing what "gay" meant back in the 30's would get a chuckle watching an old musical auotmatically thinking it meant it's current "homosexual" context. Which is why you have to be clear whether you intend the 1930's version of of "gay" or the current homosexual context, the original penis version of dork or the current mental capacity insult, and the original technical discriptive version of video game vs the current generic one - especially for a term that's not even 40 years old yet. That whale penis thing did bring an interesting question to mind though - does San Diego really mean a whale's vagina in German? ;)
Just need to address your above statement as well (and this has nothing to do with the definition of video game we were talking about, so that's not what I'm getting at here as this is purely a technical discussion) - a vector and raster are not both video displays. What they both are (the actual commonality you were aiming for) is CRT displays, however CRT itself != video. As you know a CRT display is simply a vaccum tube with one or more electron guns that light up a florescent screen. A vector CRT display directly manipulates the beam to draw points, lines, etc. A video CRT moves the beam in a clock like manner to produce rasters filling the screen with an image, and includes additional circuitry for decoding a video signal. Video itself is explicitly tied to representing the transmission of still images (transfered in succession to create animation). I.E. the transmission of a signal encoded image, decoded and displayed on a screen. A vector CRT does not deal with any of that. And those are not definitions that have evolved or changed over time as "video game" has, they're readily available in any dictionary, encyclopedia or video electronics book.
I understand, acknowledge, and respect what you're saying and where you're coming from, and I'm sure you guys understand the same with me. Like I said, my main reason for the gripe (and it was the only gripe out of the entire book) was that taking the time elsewhere in the book to define genres, etc. but not present your definition of video game, which Matt stated now should be in the 2nd edition. I'm not the only one who defines or looks at the term as I do, which is why I felt it's important to state your position and why. Regarding the language evolving thing, I didn't address that before but I feel the issue is actually the opposite of how you guys are using it as an example - that people are taking a term that's evolved to something else today and putting something previous in that context in hindsite. I.E. taking the context of "gay" now and laying it back on the 1930's version would provide an incorrect context and descriptive on what was being addressed in that 1930's version. Just as taking the current usage of "dork" and laying that context over the earlier version of "whale penis" would do. That's exactly what I was referring in my position on people taking the current pop-culture infused version of "video game" and going back and applying it over the earlier accurate technical definition in hindsite - it leads to technology confusion. The same way some kid not knowing what "gay" meant back in the 30's would get a chuckle watching an old musical auotmatically thinking it meant it's current "homosexual" context. Which is why you have to be clear whether you intend the 1930's version of of "gay" or the current homosexual context, the original penis version of dork or the current mental capacity insult, and the original technical discriptive version of video game vs the current generic one - especially for a term that's not even 40 years old yet. That whale penis thing did bring an interesting question to mind though - does San Diego really mean a whale's vagina in German? ;)
Just need to address your above statement as well (and this has nothing to do with the definition of video game we were talking about, so that's not what I'm getting at here as this is purely a technical discussion) - a vector and raster are not both video displays. What they both are (the actual commonality you were aiming for) is CRT displays, however CRT itself != video. As you know a CRT display is simply a vaccum tube with one or more electron guns that light up a florescent screen. A vector CRT display directly manipulates the beam to draw points, lines, etc. A video CRT moves the beam in a clock like manner to produce rasters filling the screen with an image, and includes additional circuitry for decoding a video signal. Video itself is explicitly tied to representing the transmission of still images (transfered in succession to create animation). I.E. the transmission of a signal encoded image, decoded and displayed on a screen. A vector CRT does not deal with any of that. And those are not definitions that have evolved or changed over time as "video game" has, they're readily available in any dictionary, encyclopedia or video electronics book.