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1972 In Video Gaming
1972 saw the release of the first commercially successful video arcade game, ''Pong'', and the first video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey. Events *''Pong'' was the first commercially successful video arcade game. It was first displayed in a prototype cabinet in a bar, Andy Capp's Tavern. *Following the poor sales of ''Computer Space'', Nolan Bushnell leaves Nutting Associates to move his coin-op engineering and design firm with Ted Dabney in to a full-fledged company. When officially incorporating, Bushnell discovers that a roofing company had already been using their name (Syzygy). In its place, the new corporation is named "Atari". *May 24 – Magnavox unveils the Magnavox Odyssey, the first video game console, at a Burlingame, California convention. Nutting Associates, manufacturer of ''Computer Space'', sends Nolan Bushnell to observe the launch. Bushnell reports back that he found the device underwhelming, and expresses no concern over the competition. Best-selling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pong
''Pong'' is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released in 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, but Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney were surprised by the quality of Alcorn's work and decided to manufacture the game. Bushnell based the game's concept on an electronic ping-pong game included in the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console. In response, Magnavox later sued Atari for patent infringement. ''Pong'' was the first commercially successful video game, and it helped to establish the video game industry along with the Magnavox Odyssey. Soon after its release, several companies began producing games that closely mimicked its gameplay. Eventually, Atari's competitors released new types of video games that deviated from ''Pong'''s origi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arcade Cabinet
An arcade cabinet, also known as an arcade machine or a coin-op cabinet or coin-op machine, is the housing within which an arcade game's electronic hardware resides. Most cabinets designed since the mid-1980s conform to the Japanese Amusement Machine Manufacturers Association (JAMMA) wiring standard. Some include additional connectors for features not included in the standard. Parts of an arcade cabinet Because arcade cabinets vary according to the games they were built for or contain, they may not possess all of the parts listed below: *A display output, on which the game is displayed. They may display either raster or vector graphics, raster being most common. Standard resolution is between 262.5 and 315 vertical lines, depending on the refresh rate (usually between 50 and 60 Hz). Slower refresh rates allow for better vertical resolution. Monitors may be oriented horizontally or vertically, depending on the game. Some games use more than one monitor. Some newer cabinets h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mainframe Computer
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and large-scale transaction processing. A mainframe computer is large but not as large as a supercomputer and has more processing power than some other classes of computers, such as minicomputers, servers, workstations, and personal computers. Most large-scale computer-system architectures were established in the 1960s, but they continue to evolve. Mainframe computers are often used as servers. The term ''mainframe'' was derived from the large cabinet, called a ''main frame'', that housed the central processing unit and main memory of early computers. Later, the term ''mainframe'' was used to distinguish high-end commercial computers from less powerful machines. Design Modern mainframe design is characterized less b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BASIC Programming Language
BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of General-purpose programming language, general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. Dartmouth BASIC, The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College in 1963. They wanted to enable students in non-scientific fields to use computers. At the time, nearly all computers required writing custom software, which only scientists and mathematicians tended to learn. In addition to the program language, Kemeny and Kurtz developed the Dartmouth Time Sharing System (DTSS), which allowed multiple users to edit and run BASIC programs simultaneously on remote terminals. This general model became very popular on minicomputer systems like the PDP-11 and Data General Nova in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Hewlett-Packard produced an entire computer line for this method of operation, introducing the HP2000 series in the late 1960s and continuing sales int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer And Video Game Genre
A video game genre is an informal classification of a video game based on how it is played rather than visual or narrative elements. This is independent of setting, unlike works of fiction that are expressed through other media, such as films or books. For example, a shooter game is still a shooter game, regardless of where or when it takes place. A specific game's genre is open to subjective interpretation. An individual game may belong to several genres at once. History Early attempts at categorizing video games were primarily for organizing catalogs and books. A 1981 catalog for the Atari VCS uses 8 headings: Skill Gallery, Space Station, Classics Corner, Adventure Territory, Race Track, Sports Arena, Combat Zone, and Learning Center. ("Classics", in this case, refers to chess and checkers.) In Tom Hirschfeld's 1981 book ''How to Master the Video Games'', he divides the games into broad categories in the table of contents: ''Space Invaders''-type, ''Asteroids''-type, maze, ref ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interactive Fiction
'' Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the form of interactive narratives or interactive narrations. These works can also be understood as a form of video game, either in the form of an adventure game or role-playing game. In common usage, the term refers to text adventures, a type of adventure game where the entire interface can be " text-only", however, graphical text adventures still fall under the text adventure category if the main way to interact with the game is by typing text. Some users of the term distinguish between interactive fiction, known as "Puzzle-free", that focuses on narrative, and "text adventures" that focus on puzzles. Due to their text-only nature, they sidestepped the problem of writing for widely divergent graphics architectures. This feature meant that i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregory Yob
Gregory Yob (June 18, 1945 – October 13, 2005) was an American computer game designer. Early life Gregory was born in Eugene, Oregon. An article about his experiment on simulating gravitational fields with droplets of water on a soap bubble was published in ''Scientific American'' in December 1964, under ''The Amateur Scientist''. Career His one published game, '' Hunt the Wumpus'' (1975), written while he was attending University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, is one of the earliest adventure games. While living in Palo Alto, California, Yob came across logic games on a mainframe computer named '' Hurkle'', ''Snark'', and ''Mugwump''. Each of these games was based on a 10 × 10 grid, and Yob recognized that a puzzle game on a computer could have a far more complex structure. He created the world for ''Wumpus'' in the shape of a dodecahedron, in part because as a child he made a kite with that shape. In the late 1980s he designed Comfort House. He wrote: "Comfort House is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Alcorn
Allan Alcorn (born January 1, 1948) is an American pioneering engineer and computer scientist best known for creating ''Pong'', one of the first video games. Atari and ''Pong'' Alcorn grew up in San Francisco, California, and attended the University of California, Berkeley, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences in 1971. He worked for the pioneering video company Ampex, where he met Ted Dabney and several other people that would end up being constants through the Atari, Inc., Apple, Cyan Engineering and Pizza Time Theater (now known as Chuck E. Cheese's) companies. Alcorn was the designer of the video arcade game ''Pong'', creating it under the direction of Nolan Bushnell and Dabney. ''Pong'' was a hit in the 1970s. In addition to direct involvement with all the breakout Atari products, such as the Atari 2600, Alcorn was involved at some of the historic meetings of Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs (at that time an Atari em ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arcade Game
An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade video games, Pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games or merchandisers. Types Broadly, arcade games are nearly always considered games of skill, with only some elements of games of chance. Games that are solely games of chance, like slot machines and pachinko, often are categorized legally as gambling devices and, due to restrictions, may not be made available to minors or without appropriate oversight in many jurisdictions. Arcade video games Arcade video games were first introduced in the early 1970s, with ''Pong'' as the first commercially successful game. Arcade video games use electronic or computerized circuitry to take input from the player and translate that to an electronic display such as a monitor or telev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Retail Store
Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and then sells in smaller quantities to consumers for a profit. Retailers are the final link in the supply chain from producers to consumers. Retail markets and shops have a very ancient history, dating back to antiquity. Some of the earliest retailers were itinerant peddlers. Over the centuries, retail shops were transformed from little more than "rude booths" to the sophisticated shopping malls of the modern era. In the digital age, an increasing number of retailers are seeking to reach broader markets by selling through multiple channels, including both bricks and mortar and online retailing. Digital technologies are also affecting the way that consumers pay for goods and services. Retailing support services may also include the provision ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sports Video Game
A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport (such as ''FIFA'', ''Pro Evolution Soccer'' and ''Madden NFL''), whilst others emphasize strategy and sport management (such as ''Football Manager'' and ''Out of the Park Baseball''). Some, such as ''Need for Speed'', ''Arch Rivals'' and '' Punch-Out!!'', satirize the sport for comic effect. This genre has been popular throughout the history of video games and is competitive, just like real-world sports. A number of game series feature the names and characteristics of real teams and players, and are updated annually to reflect real-world changes. The sports genre is one of the oldest genres in gaming history. Game design Sports games involve physical and tactical challenges, and test the player's precision and accuracy. Most sports games ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
