Blaster (arcade Game)
''Blaster'' is the first-person rail shooter video game, released for arcades by Williams Electronics in 1983. It was developed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar. A vague sequel to '' Robotron: 2084'', the game is a shoot 'em up set in outer space. The goal is to destroy enemies, avoid obstacles, and rescue astronauts in twenty levels to reach paradise. The game uses large, scaled sprites to give the impression of attackers and asteroids approaching the player's ship. It was originally written for the Atari 8-bit family–something not made public until 2004. Neither the Atari 8-bit nor the arcade machine has bitmap scaling hardware; the Atari CPU has a higher clock rate. ''Blaster'' was sold in both Duramold and, much less commonly, traditional wooden cabinets. Plot According to the opening demo: This implies, that the game takes place after the events of '' Robotron: 2084''. However, aside from a few oversized G.R.U.N.T. robots in the first stage, none of the Robotron char ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vid Kidz
Vid Kidz was a video game developer formed in 1981 by '' Defender'' programmers Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar, following their departure from Williams Electronics WMS Industries, Inc. was an American electronic gaming and amusement manufacturer in Enterprise, Nevada. It was merged into Scientific Games in 2016. WMS's predecessor was the Williams Manufacturing Company, founded in 1943 by Harry E. Williams .... Williams contracted with Vid Kidz to design games for them. Vid Kidz was disbanded in 1984. Games developed by Vid Kidz * '' Defender'' (1981) – developed by Jarvis and DeMar, but before the formation of Vid Kidz, while they were still at Williams. * '' Stargate'' (1981, AKA ''Defender II'') * '' Robotron: 2084'' (1982) * '' Blaster'' (1983) References Video game development companies Video game companies of the United States WMS Industries {{US-videogame-company-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Joystick
A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. A joystick, also known as the control column, is the principal control device in the cockpit of many civilian and military aircraft, either as a centre stick or side-stick. It often has supplementary switches to control various aspects of the aircraft's flight. Joysticks are often used to control video games, and usually have one or more push-buttons whose state can also be read by the computer. A popular variation of the joystick used on modern video game consoles is the analog stick. Joysticks are also used for controlling machines such as cranes, trucks, underwater unmanned vehicles, wheelchairs, surveillance cameras, and zero turning radius lawn mowers. Miniature finger-operated joysticks have been adopted as input devices for smaller electronic equipment such as mobile phones. Aviation Joystic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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GameCube
The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the Wii (2006). In the sixth generation of video game consoles, the GameCube competed with Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox. Flagship games include '' Super Smash Bros. Melee'', ''Luigi's Mansion'', ''Super Mario Sunshine'', ''Metroid Prime'', '' Mario Kart: Double Dash'', ''Pikmin'', ''Pikmin 2'', '' The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker'', ''Chibi-Robo!'', and ''Animal Crossing''. Development was enabled by the 1997 formation of computer graphics company ArtX, of former SGI employees who had created the Nintendo 64, and which was later acquired by ATI to produce the GameCube's GPU. In May 1999, Nintendo announced codename Dolphin, released in 2001 as the GameCube. It is Nintendo's first console to use optical discs instead of ROM cartrid ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 30 November 2000. It is the successor to the original PlayStation (console), PlayStation, as well as the second installment in the PlayStation brand of consoles. As a sixth generation of video game consoles, sixth-generation console, it competed with Nintendo's GameCube, and Microsoft's Xbox (console), Xbox. It is the List of best-selling game consoles, best-selling video game console of all time, having sold over 155 million units worldwide. Announced in 1999, Sony began developing the console after the immense success of its predecessor. The PS2 offered Backward compatibility, backward-compatibility for its predecessor's DualShock#DualShock, DualShock controller, as well as its games. The PlayStation 2 received widespread critical accla ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Starcade
''Starcade'' is an American game show where contestants competed against one another by playing arcade video games. The series originally aired on WTBS from 1982 to 1983, followed by a run in syndication for the following season. The series was first hosted by Mark Richards. Geoff Edwards replaced Richards after the first 23 shows, and continued until the show's cancellation. Broadcast history ''Starcade'' was produced by the JM Production Company to air on WTBS and later syndication by Turner Program Services (TPS). ''Starcade'' was the first video arcade game show, and set the blueprint for similar game shows like ''Video Power'', ''Nick Arcade'', and ''Arena''. The show was used to sponsor and showcase brand new coin-operated machines of the golden age of arcade video games. Shortly after the series' cancellation, a second JM-produced video arcade game show, '' The Video Game'', was aired for a brief period from 1984 to 1985. ''Starcade'' aired in repeats on the G4 netwo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Game Show
A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or Let's Play, demonstrative and are typically directed by a game show host, host, sharing the rules of the program as well as commentating and narrating where necessary. The history of game shows dates back to the invention of television as a medium. On most game shows, contestants either have to answer questions or solve puzzles, typically to win either money or prizes. Game shows often reward players with prizes such as cash, trips and goods and services provided by the show's sponsor. History 1930s–1950s Game shows began to appear on radio and television in the late 1930s. The first television game show, ''Spelling Bee (game show), Spelling Bee'', as well as the first radio game show, ''Information Please'', were both broadcast in 1938; the first major success in the game show genre was ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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Play Meter
''Play Meter'' (initially ''Coin Industry Play Meter'') was an American trade magazine focusing on the coin-op amusement arcade industry, including jukebox and arcade game machines. It was founded in December 1974 by publisher and editor Ralph C. Lally II and it is published in physical form by Skybird Publishing on a monthly basis. Together with rival publication ''RePlay'' (founded 1975) it chronicled the arcade industry from its nascency, through market fluctuations like the video game crashes of 1977 and 1983, and the rebirth and maturation of the medium through the 1980s. It is the earliest example of video game journalism, establishing such practices as individual video game reviews and the ten-point assessment scale for video game reviews. ''Play Meter'' served as the parent organization of the first coin-op-oriented spring trade show (forerunner to North America's annual Amusement Expo). It published several bi-monthly and annual special issues throughout its history and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was established in 1894 by the American industrialist Leland Stanford when he founded Stanford University in memory of his son, Leland Stanford Jr. Palo Alto includes portions of Stanford University and borders East Palo Alto, California, East Palo Alto, Mountain View, California, Mountain View, Los Altos, California, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, California, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, California, Stanford, Portola Valley, California, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park, California, Menlo Park. At the 2010 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 68,572. Palo Alto is one of the most expensive cities in the United States in which to live, and its residents are among the most educated in the country. Howeve ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Motorola 6809
The Motorola 6809 ("''sixty-eight-oh-nine''") is an 8-bit microprocessor with some 16-bit features. It was designed by Motorola's Terry Ritter and Joel Boney and introduced in 1978. Although source compatible with the earlier Motorola 6800, the 6809 offered significant improvements over it and 8-bit contemporaries like the MOS Technology 6502, including a hardware multiplication instruction, 16-bit arithmetic, system and user stack registers allowing re-entrant code, improved interrupts, position-independent code and an orthogonal instruction set architecture with a comprehensive set of addressing modes. Among the most powerful 8-bit processors of its era, it was also much more expensive. In 1980 a 6809 in single-unit quantities was compared to for a Zilog Z80 and for a 6502. It was launched when a new generation of 16-bit processors were coming to market, like the Intel 8086, and 32-bit designs were on the horizon, including Motorola's own 68000. It was not feature competitiv ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Video Game Crash Of 1983
The video game crash of 1983 (known as the Atari shock in Japan) was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985, primarily in the United States. The crash was attributed to several factors, including market saturation in the number of video game consoles and available games, many of which were of poor quality, as well as waning interest in console games in favor of personal computers. Home video game revenues peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983, then fell to around $100 million by 1985 (a drop of almost 97 percent). The crash abruptly ended what is retrospectively considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America. To a lesser extent, the arcade game market also weakened as the golden age of arcade video games came to an end. Lasting about two years, the crash shook a then-booming video game industry and led to the bankruptcy of several companies producing home computers and video game consoles. Analysts of t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Atari 5200
The Atari 5200 SuperSystem or simply Atari 5200 is a home video game console introduced in 1982 by Atari, Inc. as a higher-end complement for the popular Atari Video Computer System. The VCS was renamed to the Atari 2600 at the time of the 5200's launch. Created to compete with Mattel's Intellivision, the 5200 wound up a direct competitor of ColecoVision shortly after its release. While the Coleco system shipped with the first home version of Nintendo's ''Donkey Kong'', the 5200 included the 1978 arcade game ''Super Breakout'' which had already appeared on the Atari 8-bit family and Atari VCS in 1979 and 1981 respectively. The CPU and the graphics and sound hardware are almost identical to that of the Atari 8-bit computers, although software is not directly compatible between the two systems. The 5200's controllers have an analog joystick and a numeric keypad along with start, pause, and reset buttons. The 360-degree non-centering joystick was touted as offering more control than ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |