Sorcerer (video Game)
''Sorcerer'' is an interactive fiction computer game written by Steve Meretzky and released by Infocom in 1984. It is the second game in the magic-themed "Enchanter trilogy", preceded by '' Enchanter'' and followed by ''Spellbreaker''. It is Infocom's eleventh game. Plot Following the unlikely defeat of Krill in ''Enchanter'', the player's character has progressed from an Apprentice Enchanter to earning a coveted seat in the Circle of Enchanters. Belboz the Necromancer, the leader of the Circle, has become not only a mentor but a close friend as well. Lately, Belboz has seemed different, distracted, even talking to himself at length. Whatever he's dealing with, Belboz doesn't see fit to confide in anyone, then suddenly he disappears. Gameplay Potions are used by drinking them and each can only be used once. ''Sorcerer'' has 70 ways for the player to die. Release The ''Sorcerer'' package includes the following physical items: *A copy of the fictitious magazine ''Popular Enchanti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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Osborne 1
The Osborne 1 is the first commercially successful portable computer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighs , cost US$1,795, and runs the CP/M 2.2 operating system. It is powered from a wall socket, as it has no on-board battery, but it is still classed as a portable device since it can be hand-carried when the keyboard is closed. The computer shipped with a large bundle of software that was almost equivalent in value to the machine itself, a practice adopted by other CP/M computer vendors. Competitors quickly appeared, such as the Kaypro II. History The Osborne 1 was developed by Adam Osborne and designed by Lee Felsenstein, first announced in early 1981. Osborne, an author of computer books decided that he wanted to break the price of computers. The computer's design was based largely on the Xerox NoteTaker, a prototype developed at Xerox PARC in 1976 by Alan Kay. It was designed to be portable, with a rugged ABS plastic case and a handle. The Os ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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PC Magazine
''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present day. Overview ''PC Magazine'' provides reviews and previews of the latest hardware and software for the information technology professional. Articles are written by leading experts including John C. Dvorak, whose regular column and "Inside Track" feature were among the magazine's most popular attractions. Other regular departments include columns by long-time editor-in-chief Michael J. Miller ("Forward Thinking"), Bill Machrone, and Jim Louderback, as well as: * "First Looks" (a collection of reviews of newly released products) * "Pipeline" (a collection of short articles and snippets on computer-industry developments) * "Solutions" (which includes various how-to articles) * "User-to-User" (a section in which the magazine's experts answ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Carlos Castaneda
Carlos Castañeda (December 25, 1925 – April 27, 1998) was an American writer. Starting with '' The Teachings of Don Juan'' in 1968, Castaneda wrote a series of books that purport to describe training in shamanism that he received under the tutelage of a Yaqui "Man of Knowledge" named don Juan Matus. Castaneda's first three books—'' The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge'', '' A Separate Reality'', and ''Journey to Ixtlan''—were written while he was an anthropology student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He wrote that these books were ethnographic accounts describing his apprenticeship with a traditional "Man of Knowledge" identified as ''don Juan Matus'', a Yaqui Indian from northern Mexico. The veracity of these books was doubted from their original publication, and they are now widely considered to be fictional. Castaneda was awarded his bachelor's and doctoral degrees based on the work described in these books. At the time of his d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Code Wheel
{{Refimprove, date=September 2008 A code wheel is a type of copy protection used on older computer games, often those published in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It evolved from the original "manual protection" system in which the program would require the user to enter a specific word from the manual before the game would start up or continue beyond a certain point. This system was popular because it allowed the actual media to be backed up and replaced freely while retaining security, but with the increased availability of photocopiers, those wishing to distribute the games simply started copying their manuals as well to defeat the measure. Although whole code wheels could not be directly photocopied, the component wheels could be disassembled and individually photocopied; these components could then be crafted together into a duplicate wheel. The contents of code wheels could also be copied onto paper and the user of an unlicensed copy could simply apply a mathematical formul ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mentor
Mentorship is the influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and professional growth of a mentee. Most traditional mentorships involve having senior employees mentor more junior employees, but mentors do not necessarily have to be more senior than the people they mentor. What matters is that mentors have experience that others can learn from. According to the Business Dictionary, a mentor is a senior or more experienced person who is assigned to function as an advisor, counsellor, or guide to a junior or trainee. The mentor is responsible for offering help and feedback to the person under their supervision. A mentor's role, according to this definition, is to use their experience to help a junior employee by supporting them in their work and career, providing comments on their work, and, most crucially, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Spellbreaker
''Spellbreaker'' is an interactive fiction computer game written by Dave Lebling and published by Infocom in 1985, the third and final game in the "Enchanter Trilogy." It was released for the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Macintosh, and MS-DOS. Infocom's eighteenth game, ''Spellbreaker'' is rated "Expert" difficulty. Plot Ten years after the events of ''Enchanter'', the very foundations of Magic (supernatural), magic itself seem to be failing, and the leaders of all the Guilds in the land have gathered to demand answers. In the midst of this impassioned meeting, the crowd is suddenly transformed into a group of toads and newts. Everyone present is affected except for the player and a shadowy figure who flees the hall. In the course of investigating the mystery, the player learns new, powerful spells that must be used in novel ways. But since magic is no longer dependable, each spell has a chance of failing. The only objects that can hel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Enchanter (video Game)
''Enchanter'' is a 1983 interactive fiction computer game written by Marc Blank and Dave Lebling and published by Infocom. The first fantasy game published by Infocom after the ''Zork'' trilogy, it was originally intended to be ''Zork IV''. The game has a parser that understands over 700 words, making it the most advanced interactive fiction game of its time. It was Infocom's ninth game. Plot Krill, a powerful evil warlock, is spreading chaos and destruction. None of the more experienced members of the Circle of Enchanters dare to attempt to stop him. In desperation, the player, a novice Enchanter with only a few weak spells in his spell book, is sent in hopes that Krill will either fail to detect him or dismiss him as harmless. More powerful spells can be found on scrolls hidden in various locations, but as the player becomes more of a threat, Krill will respond accordingly. Gameplay This game has a new spell system based partially on Ursula K. Le Guin's ''Earthsea'' series and pa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Magic (gaming)
Magic or mana is an attribute assigned to characters within a role-playing or video game that indicates their power to use special magical abilities or "spells". Magic is usually measured in magic points or mana points, shortened as MP. Different abilities will use up different amounts of MP."The History of Mana: How an Austronesian Concept Became a Video Game Mechanic" June 17, 2014, Alex Golub, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. When the MP of a character reaches zero, the character will not be able to use special abilities until some of their MP is recovered. Much like [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Computer Game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedback mostly commonly is shown on a video display device, such as a TV set, computer monitor, monitor, touchscreen, or virtual reality headset. Some computer games do not always depend on a graphics display, for example List of text-based computer games, text adventure games and computer chess can be played through teletype printers. Video games are often augmented with audio feedback delivered through loudspeaker, speakers or headphones, and sometimes with other types of feedback, including haptic technology. Video games are defined based on their computing platform, platform, which include arcade video games, console games, and PC game, personal computer (PC) games. More recently, the industry has expanded on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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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]   |