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Synapse Software
Synapse Software Corporation (marketed as SynSoft in the UK) was an American video game development and publishing company founded in 1981 by Ihor Wolosenko and Ken Grant. It initially focused on the Atari 8-bit family, then later developed for the Commodore 64 and other systems. The company was purchased by Broderbund in late 1984, and the Synapse label retired in 1985. After some initial releases directly based on existing games, such as clones of Sega's '' Head On'' and a variant of Atari Inc's ''Avalanche'', 1982's '' Shamus'' established Synapse as a creator of high quality action games. It was followed by additional well-received games including '' Rainbow Walker'', '' Blue Max'', and '' The Pharaoh's Curse'', and some others based on unusual concepts, like ''Necromancer'' and '' Alley Cat''. First-person game '' Dimension X'' was promoted for its "altered perspective scrolling" technology, then released in a cut-down form over nine months later to disappointing reviews. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Survivor (1982 Video Game)
''Survivor'' is a multidirectional scrolling shooter written by Richard Carr for the Atari 8-bit family and published in 1982 by Synapse Software. A Commodore 64 port by Peter Adams was released in 1983. The player controls a spaceship attacking a number of fortresses, attempting to destroy the fort's guns without being hit. There is optional cooperative play, which allows one user to control the motion of the spaceship while another controls its gun. Gameplay ''Survivor'' takes place on a scrolling map consisting of several areas walled off to form separate but closely spaced fortresses. The fortresses are randomly shaped and bristle with guns that fire continually. The fortresses are also surrounded by a protective wall made of blocks, which take several shots to destroy. The player begins in space outside the forts. They begin the action by moving towards one of them and shooting enough of the blocks to provide access to the fort within. They then enter the inner area and s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicken (video Game)
''Chicken'' is a video game for the Atari 8-bit family written by Mike Potter and published by Synapse Software in 1982. The game is similar to the Atari arcade game ''Avalanche'', replacing the buckets and boulders with a hen trying to catch her eggs. Gameplay ''Chicken'' is conceptually a port of the 1978 arcade game ''Avalanche'', but with a number of twists. The player is in control of a chicken that can move horizontally back and forth along the bottom of the playfield, pushing a basket. At the top, a fox drops the chicken's eggs over a series of moving blocks. The eggs fall through gaps between the blocks, which randomize their final drop point. If an egg reaches the ground, it cracks open and hatches into a chick. These form barriers to motion for the player, but the chicken can jump over them by pressing the fire button. If a player steps on a chick, a farmer appears and kicks you off the screen. The action increases in pace until it becomes extremely fast-paced. The gam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protector (video Game)
''Protector'' is a 1981 scrolling shooter for the Atari 8-bit family programmed by Mike Potter and distributed first by Crystalware and then Synapse Software. A VIC-20 port was published by HesWare in 1983. The player attempts to rescue the citizens of a city from an impending volcanic explosion. The design of the game is inspired by '' Defender'' from Williams Electronics, though not a direct clone. The sequel, '' Protector II'', has similar gameplay but is more advanced graphically. Gameplay The gameplay of ''Protector'' is inspired by ''Defender'', with the player controlling a rocket fighter of similar design and the general goal being to pick up civilians from the ground to protect them from the enemy. The game is less action-oriented, however, and contains a more strategic component. ''Protector'' has two stages. In the first, the player flies the "Needlefighter" over a city that is under attack by an indestructible enemy spaceship. The spaceship flies over the city, bea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alley Cat (game)
''Alley Cat'' is a video game created by Bill Williams and published by Synapse Software for the Atari 8-bit family in 1983. The player controls a character named Freddy the Cat, who enters people's homes through open windows to perform various tasks in order to reach his love, Felicia. A port for the IBM PC as a self-booting disk and the IBM PCjr were published in 1984 by IBM. These use four-color CGA graphics. ''Alley Cat'' was based on a one-screen prototype by John Harris. Harris had become unhappy with the direction of the game and handed it over to Williams who expanded the concept into a finished game. Gameplay In the main screen, which is the alley, the player is presented with a tall fence in front of an apartment building with several windows. Each window periodically opens to throw out random objects (a phone, shoe, etc.). Every once in a while a dog may come running along the bottom edge of the screen. If the cat touches this dog, they get into a fight and one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corporation
A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and recognized as such in law for certain purposes. Early incorporated entities were established by charter (i.e. by an ''ad hoc'' act granted by a monarch or passed by a parliament or legislature). Most jurisdictions now allow the creation of new corporations through registration. Corporations come in many different types but are usually divided by the law of the jurisdiction where they are chartered based on two aspects: by whether they can issue stock, or by whether they are formed to make a profit. Depending on the number of owners, a corporation can be classified as ''aggregate'' (the subject of this article) or '' sole'' (a legal entity consisting of a single incorporated office occupied by a single natural person). One of the most att ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MOS Technology 6502
The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small team led by Chuck Peddle for MOS Technology. The design team had formerly worked at Motorola on the Motorola 6800 project; the 6502 is essentially a simplified, less expensive and faster version of that design. When it was introduced in 1975, the 6502 was the least expensive microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin. It initially sold for less than one-sixth the cost of competing designs from larger companies, such as the 6800 or Intel 8080. Its introduction caused rapid decreases in pricing across the entire processor market. Along with the Zilog Z80, it sparked a series of projects that resulted in the home computer revolution of the early 1980s. Popular video game consoles and home computers of the 1980s and early 1990s, su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asteroids (video Game)
''Asteroids'' is a space-themed multidirectional shooter arcade game designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg released in November 1979 by Atari, Inc. The player controls a single spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy the asteroids and saucers, while not colliding with either, or being hit by the saucers' counter-fire. The game becomes harder as the number of asteroids increases. ''Asteroids'' was conceived during a meeting between Logg and Rains, who decided to use hardware developed by Howard Delman previously used for '' Lunar Lander''. Asteroids was based on an unfinished game titled ''Cosmos''; its physics model, control scheme, and gameplay elements were derived from '' Spacewar!'', '' Computer Space'', and ''Space Invaders'' and refined through trial and error. The game is rendered on a vector display in a two-dimensional view that wraps around both screen axes. ''Asteroids'' was one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shadow World (video Game)
''Shadow World'' is a shoot 'em up for the Atari 8-bit family written by Mike Potter and published by Synapse Software in 1983. The players are in charge of defending their planet from an alien invasion. The game supports two players at once, splitting the screen vertically into two halves, and merging them on the fly when both players are in the same location. Gameplay The game shares elements of Potter's first Atari game, ''Protector'', itself based graphically on the arcade game, ''Defender''. Like ''Defender'', the action is primarily side-scrolling on a map that wraps around to allow continual travel to the left or right. ''Shadow World'' adds a limited amount of vertical scrolling motion as well. Compared to ''Protector'', ''Shadow World'' has much more action with significant numbers of moving objects. The game also shares elements with his earlier game ''Nautilus'', notably the way the planet is laid out onscreen and the way the player has to destroy certain enemies b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Combat (video Game)
''Combat'' is a video game by Atari, Inc. for the Atari Video Computer System (later renamed the Atari 2600). It was one of the nine launch titles for the VCS in September 1977 and was included in the box with the system from its introduction until 1982. ''Combat'' is based on two earlier black-and-white coin-operated arcade video games produced by Atari: ''Tank'' (published under the Kee Games name) in 1974 and ''Jet Fighter'' in 1975. Combat was programmed by Joe Decuir and Larry Wagner. Earlier in 1977, Coleco had released the similarly titled '' Telstar Combat!'', an entry in its Telstar series of dedicated consoles. Unlike the Coleco game, ''Combat'' had color graphics and numerous gameplay variations. The 27 game modes featured a variety of different combat scenarios, including tanks, biplanes, and jet fighters. The tank games had options such as bouncing munitions ("Tank-Pong") and invisibility. The biplane and jet games also allowed for variation, such as multiple pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in 1885 by Fernando Villaamil for the Spanish NavySmith, Charles Edgar: ''A short history of naval and marine engineering.'' Babcock & Wilcox, ltd. at the University Press, 1937, page 263 as a defense against torpedo boats, and by the time of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, these "torpedo boat destroyers" (TBDs) were "large, swift, and powerfully armed torpedo boats designed to destroy other torpedo boats". Although the term "destroyer" had been used interchangeably with "TBD" and "torpedo boat destroyer" by navies since 1892, the term "torpedo boat destroyer" had been generally shortened to simply "destroyer" by nearly all navies by the First World War. Before World War II, destroyers were light vessels with little endurance for unattended o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Submarine
A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely operated vehicles and Autonomous underwater vehicle, robots, as well as medium-sized or smaller vessels, such as the midget submarine and the wet sub. Submarines are referred to as ''boats'' rather than ''ships'' irrespective of their size. Although experimental submarines had been built earlier, submarine design took off during the 19th century, and they were adopted by several navies. They were first widely used during World War I (1914–1918), and are now used in many navy, navies, large and small. Military uses include attacking enemy surface ships (merchant and military) or other submarines, and for aircraft carrier protection, Blockade runner, blockade running, Ballistic missile submarine, nuclear deterrence, reconnaissance, conventio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nautilus (video Game)
''Nautilus'' is a video game for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers created by Mike Potter and published by Synapse Software in 1982. The players control a submarine, the ''Nautilus'', or a destroyer, the ''Colossus'', attempting to either destroy or rebuild an underwater city. The game the first to feature a "split screen" display to allow both players to move at the same time. Gameplay ''Nautilus'' starts with player one in control of the submarine, visible in the lower pane of the split-screen display. The joystick allows the player to move left and right or rise and sink. The player can shoot their Thunderbolt torpedoes to the right or left in the direction of travel. The primary task for the player is to move into location beside the various underwater buildings and destroy them with their torpedoes in order to expose their energy core, which can be picked up by moving over it. The player wins the level by collecting all of the cores. Player two, or the computer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
