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The Pawn
''The Pawn'' is an interactive fiction game for the Sinclair QL written by Rob Steggles of Magnetic Scrolls and published by Sinclair Research in 1985. In 1986, graphics were added and the game was released for additional home computers by Rainbird. Plot The character controlled by the player is knocked unconscious and awakens in the fairy land of Kerovnia, a silver bracelet around their wrist that cannot be removed. A general election is about to be held to decide whether King Erik will be replaced by a dwarf whose campaign promise is to "rid dungeons of mazes of any sort." The character must interact with others and perform tasks for them, gathering objects that will be needed for later tasks in order to escape from Kerovnia and return to reality. Development ''The Pawn'' was written by Rob Steggles at Magnetic Scrolls in 1985, and a text-only version was first published for the Sinclair QL in 1985. After Magnetic Scrolls secured a publication deal with Rainbird, a graphica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnetic Scrolls
Magnetic Scrolls was a British video game developer active between 1984 and 1990. A pioneer of audiovisually elaborate text adventure games, it was one of the two largest and most acclaimed interactive fiction developers of the 1980s. ''Magnetic Scrolls'' was one of the first game developers to use graphics and animation in its text adventure games, which set it apart from other companies in the genre. The company's games were known for their complex puzzles, intricate storylines, and immersive gameplay. Some of the most popular games developed by Magnetic Scrolls include The Pawn, The Guild of Thieves, and Jinxter. History Formation Formed by Anita Sinclair, Ken Gordon and Hugh Steers in 1984, London-based Magnetic Scrolls initially dabbled with development on the Sinclair QL home computer before deciding to take advantage of the emerging Atari ST and Amiga gaming platforms. Having secured a publication deal with Rainbird, a British software label owned by Telecomsoft, they b ... [...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] |
Text Parser
{{Refimprove, date=August 2007 In adventure games, a text parser takes typed input (a command) from the player and simplifies it to something the game can understand. Usually, words with the same meaning are turned into the same word (e.g. "take" and "get") and certain filler words are dropped (e.g. articles, or the "at" in "look at rock"). The parser makes it easier for the game's author to react on input. The author does not have to write special code to process the commands "get the gem", "take the gem", "get gem", "take gem", "take the precious gem", etc. separately, as the parser will have stripped the input down to something like "take gem". For the player, the game is more flexible, as the game has a larger vocabulary, and there are fewer guess-the-verb and guess-the-noun problems. Parsers are used in early interactive fiction games like the ''Zork'' series, and more recently in games created by systems like Inform and TADS. See also * Natural language parsing External l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Info (magazine)
''.info'' (originally ''INFO=64'' and later ''INFO'') was a computer magazine covering Commodore 8-bit computers and later the Amiga. It was published from 1983 to 1992. History ''INFO=64'' began as a newsletter published by its founder, Benn Dunnington, operating out of a spare bedroom in his home. After a few issues, the entrepreneurial spirit struck and he decided to expand it into a full-fledged magazine. The first few issues of the magazine were published by Dunnington operating as a sole proprietorship in the state of Washington. After a few issues, he moved the company to Iowa, eventually incorporating as ''Info Publications, Inc.''. This, in turn, became a limited partnership, (''Info Publications Ltd''), which published the magazine until its demise. ''INFO=64'' was produced using personal computers. An editorial statement in each issue explained that the magazine was produced using only "lay equipment", such as home computers and 35mm cameras, that were inexpensively ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Gaming World
''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through the 1990s and became one of the largest dedicated video game magazines, reaching around 500 pages by 1997. In the early 2000s its circulation was about 300,000, only slightly behind the market leader ''PC Gamer''. But, like most magazines of the era, the rapid move of its advertising revenue to internet properties led to a decline in revenue. In 2006, Ziff announced it would be refocused as ''Games for Windows'', before moving it to solely online format, and then shutting down completely later the same year. History In 1979, Russell Sipe left the Southern Baptist Convention ministry. A fan of computer games, he realized in spring 1981 that no magazine was dedicated to computer games. Although Sipe had no publishing experience, he formed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compute!
''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET computer. In its 1980s heyday ''Compute!'' covered all major platforms, and several single-platform spinoffs of the magazine were launched. The most successful of these was ''Compute!'s Gazette'', which catered to VIC-20 and Commodore 64 computer users. History ''Compute!''s original goal was to write about and publish programs for all of the computers that used some version of the MOS Technology 6502 CPU. It started out in 1979 with the Commodore PET, VIC-20, Atari 400/800, Apple II+, and some 6502-based computers one could build from kits, such as the Rockwell AIM 65, the KIM-1 by MOS Technology, and others from companies such as Ohio Scientific. Coverage of the kit computers and the Commodore PET were eventually dropped. The platforms t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sampling (music)
In sound and music, sampling is the reuse of a portion (or sample) of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sounds or entire bars of music, and may be layered, equalized, sped up or slowed down, repitched, looped, or otherwise manipulated. They are usually integrated using hardware ( samplers) or software such as digital audio workstations. A process similar to sampling originated in the 1940s with '' musique concrète'', experimental music created by splicing and looping tape. The mid-20th century saw the introduction of keyboard instruments that played sounds recorded on tape, such as the Mellotron. The term ''sampling'' was coined in the late 1970s by the creators of the Fairlight CMI, a synthesizer with the ability to record and play back short sounds. As technology improved, cheaper standalone samplers with more memory emerged, such as the E-mu Emulator, Akai S950 and Akai MPC. Sampling is a foundation of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zilog Z80
The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were delivered in March 1976, and it was officially introduced on the market in July 1976. With the revenue from the Z80, the company built its own chip factories and grew to over a thousand employees over the following two years. The Zilog Z80 is a software-compatible extension and enhancement of the Intel 8080 and, like it, was mainly aimed at embedded systems. Although used in that role, the Z80 also became one of the most widely used CPUs in desktop computers and home computers from the 1970s to the mid-1980s. It was also common in military applications, musical equipment such as synthesizers (like the Roland Jupiter-8), and coin-operated arcade games of the late 1970s and early 1980s, including '' Pac-Man''. Zilog licensed the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virtual Machine
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardware, software, or a combination. Virtual machines differ and are organized by their function, shown here: * '' System virtual machines'' (also termed full virtualization VMs) provide a substitute for a real machine. They provide functionality needed to execute entire operating systems. A hypervisor uses native execution to share and manage hardware, allowing for multiple environments which are isolated from one another, yet exist on the same physical machine. Modern hypervisors use hardware-assisted virtualization, virtualization-specific hardware, primarily from the host CPUs. * Process virtual machines are designed to execute computer programs in a platform-independent environment. Some virtual machine emulators, such as QEMU and video ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motorola 68000
The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector. The design implements a 32-bit instruction set, with 32-bit registers and a 16-bit internal data bus. The address bus is 24 bits and does not use memory segmentation, which made it easier to program for. Internally, it uses a 16-bit data arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and two more 16-bit ALUs used mostly for addresses, and has a 16-bit external data bus. For this reason, Motorola termed it a 16/32-bit processor. As one of the first widely available processors with a 32-bit instruction set, and running at relatively high speeds for the era, the 68k was a popular design through the 1980s. It was widely used in a new generation of personal computers with graphical user interfaces, including the Macintosh 128K, Amiga, Atari ST, and X68000. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Argus Press
Argus Press was a British publishing company. It was acquired by British Electric Traction (BET) in 1966, and became the publishing arm of that company. It was the subject of one of the most hotly contested management buyouts of the 1980s when a management team led by Kimble Earl, George Fowkes, and Scott Smith secured financing of £207m from forty national and international banks to acquire the UK and US businesses from BET. The acquisition was of particular note as the publisher Robert Maxwell was among the rival bidders, and widely considered as capable of out-witting the management team. Only an eleventh-hour intervention by Earl – exposing members of Maxwell's secret consortium as rival newspaper publishers which meant Maxwell would fall foul of the Monopolies Commission – brought success for the management team. The new company traded under the name of Team Argus. Its portfolio of businesses included the largest group of paid-for and free weekly newspapers in the UK, an e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1985 In Video Gaming
1985 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as ''Super Mario Bros.'' and ''Kung Fu'', along with new titles such as ''Commando'', ''Duck Hunt'', '' Gauntlet'', ''Ghosts 'n Goblins'', ''Gradius'', ''Hang-On'', ''Space Harrier'' and ''The Way of the Exploding Fist''. The year's highest-grossing arcade video games were ''Hang-On'' and ''Karate Champ'' in the United States, and ''Commando'' in the United Kingdom. The year's bestselling home system was the Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom) for the second year in a row, while the year's bestselling home video game was ''Super Mario Bros.'' Financial performance In the United States, annual home video game sales fell to ( adjusted for inflation) in 1985. Meanwhile, the arcade game industry began recovering in 1985. Highest-grossing arcade games Japan In Japan, the following titles were the top-grossing arcade video games on the bi-weekly '' Game Machine'' charts in 1985. United Kingdom and United States In the Un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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