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Epyx FastLoad
The Epyx Fast Load is a floppy disk fast loader cartridge made by American software company Epyx in 1984 for the Commodore 64 home computer. It was programmed by Epyx employee Scott Nelson, who was originally a programmer for StarpathThe Dot Eaters - Epyx , The Dot Eaters ''Scott Nelson, one of the former Starpath programmers, had created a decathlon game for the Supercharger called Sweat!, but when the company merges with Epyx the project is shelved.'' and later designed the Epyx Vorpal fastloading system for the company's games. Description Epyx Fast Load allows programs to load from the |
Floppy Disk
A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a fabric that removes dust particles from the spinning disk. Floppy disks store digital data which can be read and written when the disk is inserted into a floppy disk drive (FDD) connected to or inside a computer or other device. The first floppy disks, invented and made by IBM, had a disk diameter of . Subsequently, the 5¼-inch and then the 3½-inch became a ubiquitous form of data storage and transfer into the first years of the 21st century. 3½-inch floppy disks can still be used with an external USB floppy disk drive. USB drives for 5¼-inch, 8-inch, and other-size floppy disks are rare to non-existent. Some individuals and organizations continue to use older equipment to read or transfer data from floppy disks. Floppy disk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disassembler
A disassembler is a computer program that translates machine language into assembly language—the inverse operation to that of an assembler. A disassembler differs from a decompiler, which targets a high-level language rather than an assembly language. Disassembly, the output of a disassembler, is often formatted for human-readability rather than suitability for input to an assembler, making it principally a reverse-engineering tool. Assembly language source code generally permits the use of constants and programmer comments. These are usually removed from the assembled machine code by the assembler. If so, a disassembler operating on the machine code would produce disassembly lacking these constants and comments; the disassembled output becomes more difficult for a human to interpret than the original annotated source code. Some disassemblers provide a built-in code commenting feature where the generated output gets enriched with comments regarding called API functions or parame ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Home Computer Peripherals
A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. Homes provide sheltered spaces, for instance rooms, where domestic activity can be performed such as sleeping, preparing food, eating and hygiene as well as providing spaces for work and leisure such as remote working, studying and playing. Physical forms of homes can be static such as a house or an apartment, mobile such as a houseboat, trailer or yurt or digital such as virtual space. The aspect of ‘home’ can be considered across scales; from the micro scale showcasing the most intimate spaces of the individual dwelling and direct surrounding area to the macro scale of the geographic area such as town, village, city, country or planet. The concept of ‘home’ has been researched and theorized across disciplines – topics ranging ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1984 Software
Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). * January 10 ** The United States and the Vatican (Holy See) restore full diplomatic relations. ** The Victoria Agreement is signed, institutionalising the Indian Ocean Commission. *January 24 – Steve Jobs launches the Macintosh personal computer in the United States. February * February 3 ** Dr. John Buster and the research team at Harbor–UCLA Medical Center announce history's first embryo transfer from one woman to another, resulting in a live birth. ** STS-41-B: Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' is launched on the 10th Space Shuttle mission. * February 7 – Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk. * February 8– 19 – The 1984 Winter Olympics are held in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commodore Microcomputers
''Commodore Power/Play'' was one of a pair of computer magazines published by Commodore Business Machines in the United States in support of their 8-bit home computer lines of the 1980s. The other was called ''Commodore Interface'', changed to just ''Commodore'' in 1981, ''Commodore Microcomputer'' in 1983, and finally to ''Commodore Microcomputers'' in 1984 and for the rest of its run. The two magazines were published on an alternating, bimonthly schedule. History and profile ''Power/Play'' was started in 1982 as a quarterly publication. The magazine was targeted at the home computer user, emphasizing video games, educational and hobbyist uses of the Commodore 64/128 and VIC-20 models. ''Commodore Microcomputers'' initially served Commodore's business customers using the PET and CBM lines but as the business market segments standardized on CP/M and later MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x8 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ahoy!
''Ahoy!'' was a computer magazine published between January 1984 and January 1989 in the US, focusing on all Commodore color computers, but especially the Commodore 64 and Amiga. History The first issue of ''Ahoy!'' was published in January 1984. The magazine was published monthly by Ion International and was headquartered in New York City. It published many games in BASIC and machine language, occasionally also printing assembly language source code. ''Ahoy!'' published a checksum A checksum is a small-sized block of data derived from another block of digital data for the purpose of detecting errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. By themselves, checksums are often used to verify data ... program called ''Flankspeed'' for entering machine language listings. ''Ahoy!'s AmigaUser'' was a related but separate publication dedicated to the Amiga. It was spun off from a series of columns in ''Ahoy!'' with the same title, and the first two issu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ROM Hacking
ROM hacking is the process of modifying a ROM image, ROM image or ROM file of a video game to alter the game's graphics, dialogue, levels, gameplay, and/or other elements. This is usually done by technically inclined video game fans to improve an old game of importance, as a creative outlet, or to make new, unofficial games using the old game's engine. ROM hacks either re-design a game for new, fun gameplay while keeping most if not all the items the same, or unlock/reimplement features that exist in the game's code but are not utilized in-game. ROM Hacker (hobbyist), hacking is generally accomplished through use of a hex editor (a program for editing non-textual data) and various specialized tools such as tile-based video game, tile editors, and game-specific tools which are generally used for editing levels, items, and the like, although more advanced tools such as assembly language, assemblers and debuggers are occasionally used. Once ready, they are usually #Distribution, dist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cheat Code
Cheating in video games involves a video game player using various methods to create an advantage beyond normal gameplay, usually in order to make the game easier. Cheats may be activated from within the game itself (a cheat code implemented by the original game developers), or created by third-party software (a game trainer or debugger) or hardware (a cheat cartridge). They can also be realized by exploiting software bugs; this may or may not be considered cheating based on whether the bug is considered common knowledge. History Cheating in video games has existed for almost their entire history. The first cheat codes were put in place for play testing purposes. Playtesters had to rigorously test the mechanics of a game and introduced cheat codes to make this process easier. An early cheat code can be found in ''Manic Miner'', where typing "6031769" (based on Matthew Smith's driving license) enables the cheat mode. Within months of '' Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Ov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Split Screen (computer Graphics)
Split screen is a display technique in computer graphics that consists of dividing graphics and/or text into adjacent (and possibly overlapping) parts, typically as two or four rectangle, rectangular areas. This is done to allow the simultaneous presentation of (usually) related graphical and textual information on a computer display. TV sports used this presentation methodology in the 1960s for instant replay. The original non-dynamic split screens differed from Tiling window manager, windowing systems in that the latter always allowed overlapping and freely movable parts of the screen (the "Window (computing), windows") to present related as well as unrelated application data to the user, while the former were strictly limited to fixed non-overlapping positions. The split screen technique can also be used to run two instances of an application, possibly with another user interacting with the other instance. In video games The :Split-screen multiplayer games, split screen feat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PETSCII
PETSCII (''PET Standard Code of Information Interchange''), also known as CBM ASCII, is the character set used in Commodore Business Machines (CBM)'s 8-bit home computers, starting with the PET from 1977 and including the C16, C64, C116, C128, CBM-II, Plus/4, and VIC-20. History The character set was largely designed by Leonard Tramiel (the son of Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel) and PET designer Chuck Peddle. The graphic characters of PETSCII were one of the extensions Commodore specified for Commodore BASIC when laying out desired changes to Microsoft's existing 6502 BASIC to Microsoft's Ric Weiland in 1977.A Conversation with Chuck Peddle, Bil Herd, Jeri Ellsworth - part 3 (2009 videoconference, 06:30) The VIC-20 used the same pixel-for-pixel |
Hex Editor
A hex editor (or ''binary file editor'' or ''byte editor'') is a computer program that allows for manipulation of the fundamental binary data that constitutes a computer file. The name 'hex' comes from ' hexadecimal', a standard numerical format for representing binary data. A typical computer file occupies multiple areas on the storage medium, whose contents are combined to form the file. Hex editors that are designed to parse and edit sector data from the physical segments of floppy or hard disks are sometimes called ''sector editors'' or ''disk editors''. Details With a hex editor, a user can see or edit the raw and exact contents of a file, as opposed to the interpretation of the same content that other, higher level application software may associate with the file format. For example, this could be raw image data, in contrast to the way image editing software would interpret and show the same file. Hex editors may be used to correct data corrupted by system or application ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disk Editor
A disk editor is a computer program that allows its user to read, edit, and write raw data (at character or hexadecimal, byte-levels) on disk drives (e.g., hard disks, USB flash disks or removable media such as a floppy disks); as such, they are sometimes called ''sector editors,'' since the read/write routines built into the electronics of most disk drives require to read/write data in chunks of sectors (usually 512 bytes). Many disk editors can also be used to edit the contents of a running computer's memory or a disk image. Unlike ''hex editors,'' which are used to edit files, a disk editor allows access to the underlying disk structures, such as the master boot record (MBR) or GUID Partition Table (GPT), file system, and directories. On some operating systems (like Unix or Unix-like) most hex editors can act as disk editors just opening block devices instead of regular files. Programmers can use disk editors to understand these structures and test whether their impleme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
