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Loki (computer)
Loki was the code name for a cancelled home computer developed at Sinclair Research during the mid-1980s. The name came from the Norse god Loki, god of mischief and thieves. Loki was based on the ZX Spectrum, but intended to rival the Amiga for video games. ''Loki'' followed two earlier, aborted research projects from Sinclair: the 68008-based SuperSpectrum home computer (cancelled in 1982) and the LC3 game console (cancelled in 1983). Design According to an article published in ''Sinclair User'' magazine, Loki was to have a 7 MHz Z80H CPU, a minimum of 128 KiB of RAM and two custom chips providing much enhanced video and audio capabilities compared to the ZX Spectrum, but with a compatibility mode. The video chip, referred to as the ''Rasterop'' chip, would have blitter-type functionality and three different modes: 512×256 pixels with 16 colours, 256×212 with 256 colours, or 256×212 with 64 colours and two bits per pixel used for "blitter objects". Comprehensive ... [...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] |
Atari Corporation
Atari Corporation was an American manufacturer of computers and video game consoles. It was founded by Jack Tramiel on May 17, 1984, as Tramel Technology, Ltd., but then took on the Atari name less than two months later when WarnerMedia, Warner Communications sold the home computing and game console assets of Atari, Inc. to Tramiel. Its chief products were the Atari ST, Atari 8-bit family#XE series, Atari XE, Atari 7800, Atari Lynx and Atari Jaguar. The company Reverse takeover, reverse merged with JT Storage, JTS Inc. in 1996, becoming a small division which itself closed after JTS sold all Atari assets to Hasbro Interactive in 1998. History The company was founded by Commodore International's founder Jack Tramiel soon after his resignation from Commodore in January 1984. Initially named Tramel Technology, Ltd., the company's goal was to design and sell a next-generation home computer. On July 1, 1984, TTL bought the Consumer Division assets of Atari, Inc. from Warner, and T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Konix Multisystem
The Konix Multisystem was a cancelled video game system under development by Konix, a British manufacturer of computer peripherals. Background The Konix Multisystem began life in 1988 as an advanced Konix peripheral design intended to build on the success of the company's range of joysticks. The design, codenamed Slipstream, resembled a dashboard-style games controller, and could be configured with a steering wheel, a flight yoke, and motorbike handles. It promised advanced features such as force feedback, hitherto unheard of in home gaming. However, it soon became apparent that the Slipstream project had the potential to be much more than a peripheral. Konix turned to their sister company Creative Devices Ltd, a computer hardware developer, to design a gaming computer to be put inside the controller to make it a stand-alone console in its own right. It was shortly after this development began that Konix founder and chairman Wyn Holloway came across a magazine article that descri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flare Technology
Flare Technology was a computer hardware company based in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1986 by Martin Brennan, Ben Cheese, and John Mathieson, former engineers at Sinclair Research. Flare Technology first worked for Amstrad before developing a technology-demonstrator system called ''Flare One''."Flare", ''Personal Computer World'', August 1988. The Flare One was intended as a home computer or games console with extensive audio and video capabilities. It was related to the ''Loki'' project they had worked on previously at Sinclair Research, which in turn was derived from the ZX Spectrum home computer. The Flare One was used in some arcade game cabinets including a line of video quiz machines produced by Bellfruit. The Flare 1 chipset was further developed into the Konix Multisystem ''Slipstream'' prototype. In 1989 Martin Brennan was contracted by Atari Corp. to complete and implement the chip design of the unreleased Atari Panther. Martin Brennan and John Mat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Mathieson (computer Scientist)
John Mathieson is a British computer chip designer who initially worked for Sinclair Research on the cancelled Loki computer project before co-founding Flare with ex-Sinclair colleagues Martin Brennan and Ben Cheese. After working at Flare on the ''Flare 1'' and its development into the Konix Multisystem, he worked for Atari Corporation developing the Atari Panther video game console. It was abandoned in favor of its successor, the Atari Jaguar. The Jaguar was commercially released in the United States on November 23, 1993. Mathieson has been called "the father of the Jaguar." After leaving Atari, Mathieson worked on the development of the ill-fated NUON media processor at VM Labs. He moved to work for NVIDIA Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ... at the end of 2001. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Brennan (engineer)
Martin Brennan is a computer engineer who developed pioneering personal computers such as the Loki (computer), Loki (for Sinclair Research Ltd, Sinclair Research) and the Atari Jaguar video game console. A physics graduate of University of Cambridge, Cambridge University, he was a co-founder of Flare Technology, a design house involved in the design of the ill-fated Konix Multisystem. Brennan initially worked for Sinclair Research where he designed the digital electronics and software in ZX Interface 1 before going on to found Flare with ex-Sinclair colleagues John Mathieson (computer scientist), John Mathieson and Ben Cheese. After working at Flare on the ''Flare 1'' and its development into the Konix Multisystem he went on to work for Atari developing the Atari Panther and the Atari Jaguar. In 1997 Brennan founded the "Cheap & Cheerful Chip Company" which later went on to become Global Silicon Limited. In 2007 Brennan designed the Brennan JB7 digital jukeboxElectronics Weekly 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amstrad
Amstrad was a British electronics company, founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar at the age of 21. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in April 1980. During the late 1980s, Amstrad had a substantial share of the PC market in the UK. Amstrad was once a FTSE 100 Index constituent, but since 2007 has been wholly owned by Sky UK. , Amstrad's main business was manufacturing Sky UK interactive boxes. In 2010, Sky integrated Amstrad's satellite division as part of Sky so they could make their own set-top boxes in-house. The company had offices in Kings Road, Brentwood, Essex. History 1960s and 1970s Amstrad (also known as AMSTrad) was founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar at the age of 21, the name of the original company being AMS Trading (Amstrad) Limited, derived from its founder's initials (Alan Michael Sugar). Amstrad entered the market in the field of consumer electronics. During the 1970s they were at the forefront ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaporware
In the computer industry, vaporware (or vapourware) is a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is late or never actually manufactured nor officially cancelled. Use of the word has broadened to include products such as automobiles. Vaporware is often announced months or years before its purported release, with few details about its development being released. Developers have been accused of intentionally promoting vaporware to keep customers from switching to competing products that offer more features. ''Network World'' magazine called vaporware an "epidemic" in 1989 and blamed the press for not investigating if developers' claims were true. Seven major companies issued a report in 1990 saying that they felt vaporware had hurt the industry's credibility. The United States accused several companies of announcing vaporware early enough to violate antitrust laws, but few have been found guilty. "Vaporware" was coined by a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operating System
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time, mass storage, printing, and other resources. For hardware functions such as input and output and memory allocation, the operating system acts as an intermediary between programs and the computer hardware, although the application code is usually executed directly by the hardware and frequently makes system calls to an OS function or is interrupted by it. Operating systems are found on many devices that contain a computer from cellular phones and video game consoles to web servers and supercomputers. The dominant general-purpose personal computer operating system is Microsoft Windows with a market share of around 74.99%. macOS by Apple Inc. is in second place (14.84%), and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sinclair BASIC
Sinclair BASIC is a dialect of the programming language BASIC used in the 8-bit home computers from Sinclair Research and Timex Sinclair. The Sinclair BASIC interpreter was made by Nine Tiles Networks Ltd. History Sinclair BASIC was originally developed in 1979 for the ZX80 by Nine Tiles. The programmers were John Grant, the owner of Nine Tiles, and Steve Vickers. It was initially an incomplete implementation of the 1978 American National Standards Institute (ANSI) minimal BASIC standard with integer arithmetic only, termed the 4K BASIC (for its ROM size) for the ZX80. It evolved through the floating-point 8K BASIC for the ZX81 and TS1000 (which was also available as an upgrade for the ZX80), and became an almost complete version in the 16 KB ROM ZX Spectrum (known as 48K BASIC). It is present in all ZX Spectrum compatibles, with more advanced systems also offering expanded versions like 128K BASIC, +3 BASIC, T/S 2000 BASIC, BASIC64 or Timex Extended Basic. As of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
