The source repository agrees that it was published in 1997. https://github.com/jagregory/abrash-black-book
In The Challenge of Separating All Things Seen from All Things Unseen (1997)jagregory
abrash-black-book
CSS2014–2026
jagregory / abrash-black-book
abrash-black-book
Markdown source for Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book
23Distinct people
28Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
4.9KGitHub stars
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What it is
Markdown source for Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book
GitHub
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Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 10:01:16 PM UTC.
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Mentions over time
HN mentions by year28 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2014-01-30 10:44:59 UTC to 2026-08-07 07:33:26 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 1 | 5 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book
This is the source for an ebook version of Michael Abrash's Black Book of Graphics Programming (Special Edition), originally published in 1997 and released online for free in 2001 (original link now broken, Internet Archive link).
Reproduced with blessing of Michael Abrash, converted and maintained by James Gregory.
The GitHub releases list has an EPUB and Mobi version available for download, and you can find a mirror of the HTML version at www.jagregory.com/abrash-black-book.
How does this differ from the previously released versions?
The book is now out of print, and hard to come by. Last time I checked, it was going for over $200 on eBay.
The version which Michael and Dr. Dobbs released in 2001 was a collection of PDF files. That version is still available (original link now broken, Internet Archive link). However, the structure (multiple files) and the format (PDF) result in a poor user experience on an ebook reader or other mobile device.
This version has been thoroughly cleaned of artifacts and condensed into something which can easily be converted into an ebook-friendly format. You can read this version online at GitHub, or download any of the EPUB or Mobi releases. You can clone the repository and generate your own version with pandoc if necessary.
Contributing
Changes are welcome, especially conversion-related ones. If you spot any problems while reading, please submit an issue and I'll correct it. Pull requests are always welcome.
Some larger changes could be made to improve the content. I'd love to see some of the images converted to a vector representation so we can provide higher-resolution versions. Formulas and equations could be typeset with MathJax.
Generating your own ebook
You need to have the following software installed and on your PATH before you begin:
pandoc version 2.0 or greater for Markdown to HTML and EPUB conversion.
kindlegen for Epub to Mobi conversion.
To generate an e-reader friendly version of the book, you can use make with one of the following options:
html - build an HTML5 single-page version of the book
epub - build an EPUB3 ebook
mobi - build a Kindle-friendly Mobi
all - do all of the above
Once complete, there will be an out directory with a black-book.epub, a black-book.mobi and an html directory with a black-book.html file.
Note: Generating a Mobi requires an EPUB to already exist. Also, Mobi generation can be slow because of compression. If you want a quick Mobi conversion you can just run kindlegen out/black-book.epub.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
2 sourcesBlack Book of Graphics Programming, Special Edition (1997)
229 points · Open discussion