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Dungeon Master II
''Dungeon Master II: The Legend of Skullkeep'', also released as ''Dungeon Master II: Skullkeep'', is the sequel to the dungeon crawler role-playing video game '' Dungeon Master''. It was released in 1993 in Japan and in 1995 in other countries. It is available for DOS, Amiga, Macintosh, Sega CD, PC-9801, PC-9821, and FM Towns. A Sega Mega Drive version was planned but never released. Platform comparison Graphics: There are many graphical differences between the DOS and Amiga versions. For example, the title and endgame animations are very different. Items graphics also change: the Amiga version, while marked as an AGA game, is actually running in 32 color ECS mode (evident by the fact that it runs on Amiga 600 computers with 2MB RAM) colors, whereas the DOS version has 256 color VGA graphics. While the PC-9821 has 256 color graphics, the PC-9801 version uses dithered graphics to fit within the PC-9801's palette. Screen layouts: The Macintosh version includes two screen l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
FTL Games
FTL Games (Faster Than Light) was the video game developer, video game development division of Software Heaven Inc. FTL created several popular video games in the 1980s. Despite the company's small size, FTL products were consistently number-one sellers and received the highest critical acclaim and industry awards. FTL was founded by Wayne Holder in 1982. Holder started Software Heaven and FTL as its game division after founding Oasis Systems, which specialized in Spell checker, spell checking software. He hired Bruce Webster, with whom he graduated from high school, to head FTL. After Webster left FTL in 1984, Doug Bell (game designer), Doug Bell joined FTL and served as the Technical Director until FTL ceased operations in 1996. The games FTL released several games throughout its relatively short history. Most went on to become best sellers and some even set new standards for games of their genres. ''SunDog'' Holder and Webster co-designed FTL's first game, ''SunDog: Frozen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master System. Sega released it in 1988 in Japan as the Mega Drive, and in 1989 in North America as the Genesis. In 1990, it was distributed as the Mega Drive by Virgin Mastertronic in Europe, Ozisoft in Australasia, and Tec Toy in Brazil. In South Korea, it was distributed by Samsung as the Super Gam*Boy and later the Super Aladdin Boy. Designed by an Research and development, R&D team supervised by Hideki Sato and Masami Ishikawa, the Genesis was adapted from Sega's Sega System 16, System 16 arcade board, centered on a Motorola 68000 processor as the central processing unit, CPU, a Zilog Z80 as a sound controller, and a video system supporting hardware Sprite (computer graphics), sprites, Tile-based video game, tiles, and scrolling. It plays a List ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PC Gamer US
''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries. The magazine features news on developments in the video game industry, previews of new games, and reviews of the latest popular PC games, along with other features relating to hardware, mods, "classic" games and various other topics. Review system ''PC Gamer'' reviews are written by the magazine's editors and freelance writers, and rate games on a percent scale. In the UK edition, no game has yet been awarded more than 96% (''Kerbal Space Program'', '' Civilization II'', ''Half-Life'', ''Half-Life 2'', ''Minecraft'', ''Spelunky'' and ''Quake II''). In the US edition, no game has yet received a rating higher than 98% (''Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri'', ''Half-Life 2'', and ''Crysis''). In the UK edition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MOD (file Format)
MOD is a computer file format used primarily to represent music, and was the first module file format. MOD files use the “.MOD” file extension, except on the Amiga which doesn't rely on filename extensions; instead, it reads a file's header to determine filetype. A MOD file contains a set of ''instruments'' in the form of samples, a number of ''patterns'' indicating how and when the samples are to be played, and a list of what patterns to play in what order. History The first version of the format was created by Karsten Obarski for use in the Ultimate Soundtracker, tracker software released for the Amiga computer in 1987. The format has since been supported by hundreds of playback programs and dozens of other trackers. The original version of the MOD format featured four channels of simultaneous audio playback, corresponding to the capabilities of the original Amiga chipset, and up to 15 instruments. Later variations of the format have extended this to up to 32 chann ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MIDI
MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and related audio devices for playing, editing, and recording music. The specification originates in the paper ''Universal Synthesizer Interface'' published by Dave Smith and Chet Wood of Sequential Circuits at the 1981 Audio Engineering Society conference in New York City. A single MIDI cable can carry up to sixteen channels of MIDI data, each of which can be routed to a separate device. Each interaction with a key, button, knob or slider is converted into a MIDI event, which specifies musical instructions, such as a note's pitch, timing and loudness. One common MIDI application is to play a MIDI keyboard or other controller and use it to trigger a digital sound module (which contains synthesized musical sounds) to generate sounds, which t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Video Graphics Array
Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can now refer to the computer display standard, the 15-pin D-subminiature VGA connector, or the 640×480 resolution characteristic of the VGA hardware. VGA was the last IBM graphics standard to which the majority of PC clone manufacturers conformed, making it the lowest common denominator that virtually all post-1990 PC graphics hardware can be expected to implement. IBM intended to supersede VGA with the Extended Graphics Array (XGA) standard, but failed. Instead, VGA was adapted into many extended forms by third parties, collectively known as Super VGA, then gave way to custom graphics processing units which, in addition to their proprietary interfaces and capabilities, continue to implement common VGA graphics modes and interfaces to the pres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
256 Color
8-bit color graphics are a method of storing image information in a computer's memory or in an image file, so that each pixel is represented by 8 bits (1 byte). The maximum number of colors that can be displayed at any one time is 256 or 28. Color quantization In order to turn a true color 24-bit image into an 8-bit image, the image must go through a process called color quantization. Color quantization is the process of creating a color map for a less color dense image from a more dense image. The simplest form of quantization is to simply assign 3 bits to red, 3 bits to green and 2 bits to blue, as the human eye is less sensitive to blue light. This creates a so called 3-3-2 8-bit color image, arranged like on the following table: Bit 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Data R R R G G G B B This process is sub optimal. There could be different groupings of colors that make evenly spreading the colors out inefficient and likely to misrepresent the actual image. An alternati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Random-access Memory
Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working Data (computing), data and machine code. A Random access, random-access memory device allows data items to be read (computer), read or written in almost the same amount of time irrespective of the physical location of data inside the memory, in contrast with other direct-access data storage media (such as hard disks, CD-RWs, DVD-RWs and the older Magnetic tape data storage, magnetic tapes and drum memory), where the time required to read and write data items varies significantly depending on their physical locations on the recording medium, due to mechanical limitations such as media rotation speeds and arm movement. RAM contains multiplexer, multiplexing and demultiplexing circuitry, to connect the data lines to the addressed storage for reading or writing the entry. Usually more than one bit of storage is accessed by the same address, and RAM ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amiga 600
The Amiga 600, also known as the A600, is a home computer introduced in March 1992. It is the final Amiga model based on the Motorola 68000 and the 1990 Amiga Enhanced Chip Set. A redesign of the Amiga 500 Plus, it adds the option of an internal hard disk drive and a PCMCIA port. Lacking a numeric keypad, the A600 is only slightly larger than an IBM PC keyboard, weighing approximately 6 pounds. It shipped with AmigaOS 2.0, which was considered more user-friendly than earlier versions of the operating system. Like the A500, the A600 was aimed at the lower end of the market. Commodore intended it to revitalize sales of the A500-related line before the introduction of the 32-bit Amiga 1200. According to Dave Haynie, the A600 "was supposed to be cheaper than the A500, but it came in at about that much more expensive."Haynie, Dave"Re: Amiga CPU is similar to Mac CPU" Usenet (comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc). Posted 4 November 2002, article retrieved from Google Groups archive on 9 November ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amiga Enhanced Chip Set
The Enhanced Chip Set (ECS) is the second generation of the Amiga computer's chipset, offering minor improvements over the original chipset (OCS) design. ECS was introduced in 1990 with the launch of the Amiga 3000. Amigas produced from 1990 onwards featured a mix of OCS and ECS chips, such as later versions of the Amiga 500 and the Commodore CDTV. Other ECS models were the Amiga 500+ in 1991 and lastly the Amiga 600 in 1992. Notable improvements were the '' Super Agnus'' and the ''HiRes Denise'' chips. The sound and floppy controller chip, '' Paula'', remained unchanged from the OCS design. Super Agnus supports 2 MB of Chip RAM, whereas the original Agnus/''Fat Agnus'' and subsequent ''Fatter Agnus'' can address 512 KB and 1 MB, respectively. The ECS Denise chip offers ''Productivity'' (640×480 non-interlaced) and ''SuperHiRes'' (1280×200 or 1280×256) display modes (also available in interlaced mode), which are however limited to only 4 on-screen colors. Essentially, a 35 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Color Depth
Color depth or colour depth (see spelling differences), also known as bit depth, is either the number of bits used to indicate the color of a single pixel, or the number of bits used for each color component of a single pixel. When referring to a pixel, the concept can be defined as bits per pixel (bpp). When referring to a color component, the concept can be defined as bits per component, bits per channel, bits per color (all three abbreviated bpc), and also bits per pixel component, bits per color channel or bits per sample (bps). Modern standards tend to use bits per component, but historical lower-depth systems used bits per pixel more often. Color depth is only one aspect of color representation, expressing the precision with which the amount of each primary can be expressed; the other aspect is how broad a range of colors can be expressed (the gamut). The definition of both color precision and gamut is accomplished with a color encoding specification which assigns a digita ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amiga Advanced Graphics Architecture
Amiga Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA) is the third-generation Amiga graphic chipset, first used in the Amiga 4000 in 1992. Before release AGA was codenamed Pandora by Commodore International. AGA was originally called AA for Advanced Architecture in the United States. The name was later changed to AGA for the European market to reflect that it largely improved the graphical subsystem, and to avoid trademark issues. AGA is able to display graphics modes with a depth of up to s per pixel. This allows for in indexed display modes and (18-bit) in Hold-And-Modify (HAM-8) modes. The palette for the AGA chipset has 256 entries from (24-bit), whereas previous chipsets, the Original Chip Set (OCS) and Enhanced Chip Set (ECS), only allow out of 4096 or 64 colors in Amiga Extra Half-Brite (EHB mode). Other features added to AGA over ECS are super-hi-res smooth scrolling and 32-bit fast page memory fetches to supply the graphics data bandwidth for 8 bitplane graphics modes and wider ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
