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Spiradisc
Spiradisc (often misspelled as "Spiradisk") was a copy protection scheme used by Sierra On-Line on their floppy disk releases for the Apple II. The technique, developed by Mark Duchaineau, involved writing the data on spiralling paths on the disk rather than in concentric circles. Initially, no commercial copying software or bit nibbler could successfully copy the disks it was applied to. Games which used Spiradisc copy protection include '' Lunar Leepers'', ''Frogger'', some very early versions of ''Ultima II Ultima may refer to: Places * Ultima, Victoria, a town in Australia * Pangaea Ultima, a supercontinent to occur in the future * ''Ultima'', the larger lobe of the trans-Neptunian object 486958 Arrokoth, nicknamed ''Ultima Thule'' Companies and ...'', '' Jawbreaker'',{{cite journal , last1=Etarip , first1=Rich , title=Softkey for ''Jawbreaker'' , journal= Computist , issue=82 , page16, publisher= SoftKey Publishing , url=https://archive.org/details/computist-scan-82 , ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Leepers
''Lunar Leeper'', also released as ''Lunar Leepers'', is a horizontally scrolling shooter written by Chuck Bueche and published under Sierra On-Line's SierraVision label in 1982. It was released for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, and VIC-20. The Apple II version of the game was copy-protected using Sierra's Spiradisc system. The Lunar Leeper character later starred in the 1983 educational game '' Learning with Leeper''. Gameplay The game takes place on the planet Opthamalia, in the Valley of the Leepers, which the manual describes as omnivorous creatures having "two long rubbery legs, a single eye and a massive green beak". In the first phase of the game, the player pilots a spaceship to rescue crew members stranded in the valley among the Leepers. The Leepers must be avoided or shot, lest they leap up and consume the spaceship or the crew member it carries. Once all the crew members are either rescued or killed, the second phase begins. In this phase th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copy Protection
Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention and copy restriction, describes measures to enforce copyright by preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media. Copy protection is most commonly found on videotapes, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, HD-DVDs, computer software discs, video game discs and cartridges, audio CDs and some VCDs. Some methods of copy protection have also led to criticism because it caused inconvenience for paying consumers or secretly installed additional or unwanted software to detect copying activities on the consumer's computer. Making copy protection effective while protecting consumer rights remains a problem with media publication. Terminology Media corporations have always used the term copy protection, but critics argue that the term tends to sway the public into identifying with the publishers, who favor restriction technologies, rather than with the users. Copy prevention and copy control may be more neutral ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sierra On-Line
Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre, including the first such game, ''Mystery House''. It is also known for its graphical adventure game series ''King's Quest'', ''Space Quest'', ''Police Quest'', ''Gabriel Knight'', ''Leisure Suit Larry'', and ''Quest for Glory'', as well as being the original publishers of Valve's ''Half-Life'' series. After seventeen years as an independent company, Sierra was acquired by CUC International in February 1996 to become part of CUC Software. However, CUC International was caught in an accounting scandal in 1998, and many of the original founders of Sierra including the Williamses left the company. Sierra remained as part of CUC Software as it was sold and renamed several times over the next few years; Sierra was formally disestablished as a c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Apple II
The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-molded plastic case, Rod Holt developed the switching power supply, while Steve Jobs's role in the design of the computer was limited to overseeing Jerry Manock's work on the plastic case. It was introduced by Jobs and Wozniak at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire, and marks Apple's first launch of a personal computer aimed at a consumer market—branded toward American households rather than businessmen or computer hobbyists. ''Byte'' magazine referred to the Apple II, Commodore PET 2001, and TRS-80 as the "1977 Trinity". As the Apple II had the defining feature of being able to display color graphics, the Apple logo was redesigned to have a spectrum of colors. The Apple II is the first model in the Apple II series, followed by Apple ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Duchaineau
Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Finnish markka ( sv, finsk mark, links=no), the currency of Finland from 1860 until 28 February 2002 * Mark (currency), a currency or unit of account in many nations * Polish mark ( pl, marka polska, links=no), the currency of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Republic of Poland between 1917 and 1924 German * Deutsche Mark, the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later the unified Germany from 1990 until 2002 * German gold mark, the currency used in the German Empire from 1873 to 1914 * German Papiermark, the German currency from 4 August 1914 * German rentenmark, a currency issued on 15 November 1923 to stop the hyperinflation of 1922 and 1923 in Weimar Germany * Lodz Ghetto mark, a special currency for Lodz Ghetto. * R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computist
''Computist'' was a magazine devoted to the Apple II personal computer that was published by Charles R. Haight under the SoftKey Publishing name, between 1981 and 1993, for a total of 89 issues. The magazine was based in Tacoma, Washington. Originally launched as ''Hardcore Computing'', the 'hardcore' part was formally dropped from the title with the 27th issue. Only three volumes of ''Core'' were published: "All About Graphics", "Utilities" and "Home Computer Games". Originally, the "Games" topic was scheduled for Issue 4, but that issue was scrapped and "Games" became the theme for Issue 3. The "Databases" topic originally planned for Issue 3 later appeared as a feature article in ''Hardcore Computist'' #6. ''Core'' itself became a regular featured column in ''Hardcore Computist''. While it was billed as a magazine "for the serious user of Apple computers", in fact much of the content in ''Computist'' was devoted to the removal of copy protection from Apple software. At th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SoftKey Publishing
SoftKey International (originally SoftKey Software Products, Inc.) was a software company founded by Kevin O'Leary in 1986 in Toronto, Ontario. It was known as The Learning Company from 1995 to 1999 after acquiring The Learning Company and taking its name. SoftKey played a major role in the dissolution of the edutainment industry by the turn of the millennium. Contributing factors include its reduction of the market price by releasing shovelware discs of freeware and shareware, hostile takeovers of major edutainment software companies, reduction of these acquisitions to a skeleton staff, and questionable financial practices to maintain its stock price. In 1999, the company was acquired by Mattel in what ''Businessweek'' called one of "the Worst Deals of All Time". It was subsequently folded into Mattel Interactive. Products SoftKey published and distributed CD-ROM-based personal computer software for Windows and Macintosh computers during the late 1980s and 1990s. Its li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hardcore Computist
''Computist'' was a magazine devoted to the Apple II personal computer that was published by Charles R. Haight under the SoftKey Publishing name, between 1981 and 1993, for a total of 89 issues. The magazine was based in Tacoma, Washington. Originally launched as ''Hardcore Computing'', the 'hardcore' part was formally dropped from the title with the 27th issue. Only three volumes of ''Core'' were published: "All About Graphics", "Utilities" and "Home Computer Games". Originally, the "Games" topic was scheduled for Issue 4, but that issue was scrapped and "Games" became the theme for Issue 3. The "Databases" topic originally planned for Issue 3 later appeared as a feature article in ''Hardcore Computist'' #6. ''Core'' itself became a regular featured column in ''Hardcore Computist''. While it was billed as a magazine "for the serious user of Apple computers", in fact much of the content in ''Computist'' was devoted to the removal of copy protection from Apple software. At ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frogger
is a 1981 arcade action game developed by Konami and manufactured by Sega. In North America, it was released by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct a series of frogs to their homes by crossing a busy road and a hazardous river. ''Frogger'' was positively received as one of the greatest video games ever made and followed by several clones and sequels. By 2005, 20 million copies of its various home video game incarnations had been sold worldwide. It entered popular culture, including television and music. Gameplay The objective of the game is to guide a frog to each of the empty homes at the top of the screen. The game starts with three, five, or seven frogs, depending on the machine's settings. Losing all frogs is game over. The player uses the 4-direction joystick to hop the frog once. ''Frogger'' is either single-player or two players alternating. The frog starts at the bottom of the screen, which contains a horizontal road occupied by speeding cars, tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ultima II
Ultima may refer to: Places * Ultima, Victoria, a town in Australia * Pangaea Ultima, a supercontinent to occur in the future * ''Ultima'', the larger lobe of the trans-Neptunian object 486958 Arrokoth, nicknamed ''Ultima Thule'' Companies and products * Ultima Foods, a division of Quebec-based dairy company Agropur * Ultima Sports Ltd, a manufacturer of sports cars based in England * Junkers Profly Ultima, a German homebuilt aircraft design * Kodak Ultima, a brand of photo paper for inkjet printers sold by Eastman Kodak * Kyosho Ultima, a radio-controlled car made by Kyosho * Nissan Altima, a model of car by Nissan * Ultima GTR a 1990s Sportscar Games * Baroque chess, known in the northeastern region of the United States as "Ultima" * ''Ultima'' (series), a series of video games **''Ultima I'', which was first released as ''Ultima'' ** ''Ultima Online'', a 1997 MMORPG video game * Ultima (''Final Fantasy''), a recurring boss, weapon and spell in the ''Final Fantasy'' franchis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jawbreaker (video Game)
''Jawbreaker'' is a Pac-Man clone, ''Pac-Man'' clone programmed by John Harris (software developer), John Harris for the Atari 8-bit family and published by On-Line Systems. Released in 1981 before an official version of ''Pac-Man'' was available, it was widely lauded by reviewers, and became a major seller. The story of its creation and Harris's Atari 8-bit implementation of ''Frogger'' form a portion of Steven Levy's 1984 book, ''Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution''. ''Jawbreaker'' was ported to the Apple II in 1981 and Harris's different take on the game for the Atari 2600 was released the following year. Legal issues resulted in the 2600 port being the template for subsequent versions—for the Commodore 64 and TI-99/4A—and sold confusingly as both ''Jawbreaker'' and ''Jawbreaker II''. Failed licensing and litigation In 1982, the initial Atari 800 version of ''Jawbreaker'' was so faithful to ''Pac-Man'' that the game (carelessly leaked by Harris himself) was assum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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