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Planetfall (Cover Novel)
''Planetfall'' is a science fiction themed interactive fiction computer game written by Steve Meretzky, and the eighth title published by Infocom in 1983. The original release included versions for Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, TRS-80, and IBM PC compatibles (both as a self-booting disk and for MS-DOS). The Atari ST and Commodore 64 versions were released in 1985. A version for CP/M was also released. Although ''Planetfall'' was Meretzky's first title, it proved one of his most popular works and a best-seller for Infocom; it was one of five top-selling titles to be re-released in Solid Gold versions including in-game hints. Planetfall uses the Z-machine originally developed for the Zork franchise and was added as a bonus to the "Zork Anthology". The word ''planetfall'' is a portmanteau of ''planet'' and ''landfall'', and occasionally used in science fiction to that effect. The book ''Planetfall'' written by Arthur Byron Cover, uses the game image on the cover, and is mark ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infocom
Infocom was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called ''Cornerstone (software), Cornerstone''. Infocom was founded on June 22, 1979, by staff and students of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and lasted as an independent company until 1986, when it was bought by Activision. Activision shut down the Infocom division in 1989, although they released some titles in the 1990s under the Infocom ''Zork'' brand. Activision abandoned the Infocom trademark in 2002. Overview Infocom games are text adventures where users direct the action by entering short strings of words to give commands when prompted. Generally the program will respond by describing the results of the action, often the contents of a room if the player has moved within the virtual world. The user reads this information, decides what to do, and enters another short serie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software engineers. The current lineup includes the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, as well as the iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Studio and Mac Pro desktops. Macs run the macOS operating system. The Macintosh 128K, first Mac was released in 1984, and was advertised with the highly-acclaimed 1984 (advertisement), "1984" ad. After a period of initial success, the Mac languished in the 1990s, until co-founder Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997. Jobs oversaw the release of many successful products, unveiled the modern Mac OS X, completed the Mac transition to Intel processors, 2005-06 Intel transition, and brought features from the iPhone back to the Mac. During Tim Cook's tenure as CEO, the Mac underwent a period of neglect, but was later reinv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsGarner's Modern American Usage , p. 644. in which parts of multiple words are combined into a new word, as in ''smog'', coined by blending ''smoke'' and ''fog'', or ''motel'', from ''motor'' and ''hotel''. In , a portmanteau is a single morph that is analyzed as representing two (or more) underlying s. When portmanteaus shorten es ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zork Anthology
''The Zork Anthology'' is a video game compilation published in 1994 by Activision for the PC. A version compatible with modern computers was published in 2011 by digital distribution platform GOG. Contents ''The Zork Anthology'' contains the following games'': # ''Zork I'' # ''Zork II'' # ''Zork III'' # ''Beyond Zork'' # ''Zork Zero'' # ''Planetfall'' (bonus game) Reception ''Next Generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...'' reviewed the compilation, rating it three stars out of five, and stated that "''Zork Anthology'' is an enchantingly nostalgic as well as a welcome return to the past". References {{Activision compilations 1994 video games Activision video game compilations Classic Mac OS games DOS games Video games developed in the United States ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zork
''Zork'' is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company Infocom, expanded and split the game into three titles—''Zork I: The Great Underground Empire'', ''Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz'', and ''Zork III: The Dungeon Master''—which were released commercially for a range of personal computers beginning in 1980. In ''Zork'', the player explores the abandoned Great Underground Empire in search of treasure. The player moves between the game's hundreds of locations and interacts with objects by typing commands in natural language that the game interprets. The program acts as a narrator, describing the player's location and the results of the player's commands. It has been described as the most famous piece of interactive fiction. The original game, developed between 1977 and 1979 at the Massachusetts Institute of Tec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-booting Disk
A self-booting disk is a floppy disk for home or personal computers that loads directly into a standalone application when the system is turned on, bypassing the operating system. This was common, even standard, on some computers in the late 1970s to early 1990s. Video games were the type of application most commonly distributed using this technique. The term PC booter is also used, primarily in reference to self-booting software for IBM PC compatibles. On other computers, like the Apple II and Atari 8-bit family, almost all software is self-booting. On the IBM PC, the distinction is between self-booting software and that which uses DOS-compatible operating systems. The term "PC booter" was not contemporary to when self-booting games were being released. Benefits * The software starts automatically, without any further action required by the user. * Copy prevention, because self-booting floppies often use a nonstandard filesystem or format. * Bypassing the normal operating sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM PC Compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. The term "IBM PC compatible" is now a historical description only, since IBM no longer sells personal computers after it sold its personal computer division in 2005 to Chinese technology company Lenovo. The designation "PC", as used in much of personal computer history, has not meant "personal computer" generally, but rather an x86 computer capable of running the same software that a contemporary IBM PC could. The term was initially in contrast to the variety of home computer systems available in the early 1980s, such as the Apple II, TRS-80, and Commodore 64. Later, the term was primarily used in contrast to Apple's Macintosh computers. These "clones" duplicated almost all the significant features of the original IBM PC architectures. ... [...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] |
Science Fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrial life, sentient artificial intelligence, cybernetics, certain forms of immortality (like mind uploading), and the singularity. Science fiction predicted several existing inventions, such as the atomic bomb, robots, and borazon, whose names entirely match their fictional predecessors. In addition, science fiction might serve as an outlet to facilitate future scientific and technological innovations. Science fiction can trace its roots to ancient mythology. It is also related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres. Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Science fiction, in literature, film, television, and other media, has beco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TRS-80
The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of ''Tandy Radio Shack, Z80 icroprocessor'. It is one of the earliest mass-produced and mass-marketed retail home computers. The TRS-80 has a full-stroke QWERTY keyboard, the Zilog Z80 processor, 4 KB dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) standard memory, small size and desk area, floating-point Level I BASIC language interpreter in read-only memory (ROM), 64-character per line video monitor, and a starting price of US$600 (equivalent to US$ in ). A cassette tape drive for program storage was included in the original package. While the software environment was stable, the cassette load/save process combined with keyboard bounce issues and a troublesome Expansion Interface contributed to the Model I's reputation as not well-suited to serious ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TI-99/4A
The TI-99/4 and TI-99/4A are home computers released by Texas Instruments in 1979 and 1981, respectively. Based on the Texas Instruments TMS9900 microprocessor originally used in minicomputers, the TI-99/4 was the first 16-bit home computer. The associated video display controller provides color graphics and sprite support which were only comparable with those of the Atari 400 and 800 released a month after the TI-99/4. The calculator-style keyboard of the TI-99/4 was cited as a weak point, and TI's reliance on ROM cartridges and their practice of limiting developer information to select third parties resulted in a lack of software for the system. The TI-99/4A was released in June 1981 to address some of these issues with a simplified internal design, full-travel keyboard, improved graphics, and a unique expansion system. At half the price of the original model, sales picked up significantly and TI supported the 4A with peripherals, including a speech synthesizer and a "Per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PC-9800 Series
The , commonly shortened to PC-98 or , is a lineup of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by NEC from 1982 to 2000. The platform established NEC's dominance in the Japanese personal computer market, and, by 1999, more than 18 million units had been sold. While NEC did not market these specific machines in the West, it sold the NEC APC series, which had similar hardware to early PC-98 models. The PC-98 was initially released as a business-oriented personal computer which had backward compatibility with the successful PC-8800 series. The range of the series has expanded, and in the 1990s it was used in a variety of industry fields including education and hobbies. NEC succeeded in attracting third-party suppliers and a wide range of users, and the PC-98 dominated the Japanese PC market with more than 60% market share by 1991. IBM clones lacked sufficient graphics capabilities to easily handle Japan's multiple writing systems, in particular kanji with its tho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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