|
Lock-out Chip
In a general sense, a lockout chip is a chip within an electronic device to prevent other manufacturers from using a company's device to perform certain functions. A notable example is the lockout chip found in Nintendo's Nintendo Entertainment System (called 10NES), designed to prevent "unlicensed" manufacturers from creating games for the console. The presence of the chip forced unlicensed companies to raise the price of each cartridge (due to a bypass chip having to be added to the cartridge), and allowed Nintendo a foothold for a lawsuit. Lockout functions are commonly used in printers to prevent the manufacture of third-party ink or toner cartridges. See also * Regional lockout * CIC (Nintendo) * Vendor lock-in * Software protection dongle * ''Lexmark Int'l v. Static Control Components ''Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc.'', is an American legal case involving the computer printer company Lexmark, which had designed an authentication system us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electronics
The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification and rectification, which distinguishes it from classical electrical engineering, which only uses passive effects such as resistance, capacitance and inductance to control electric current flow. Electronics has hugely influenced the development of modern society. The central driving force behind the entire electronics industry is the semiconductor industry sector, which has annual sales of over $481 billion as of 2018. The largest industry sector is e-commerce, which generated over $29 trillion in 2017. History and development Electronics has hugely influenced the development of modern society. The identification of the electron in 1897, along with the subsequent invention of the vacuum tube which could amplify and rectify small ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American test markets on October 18, 1985, before becoming widely available in North America and other countries. After developing a series of successful arcade games in the early 1980s, Nintendo planned to create a home video game console. Rejecting more complex proposals, the Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi called for a simple, cheap console that ran games stored on cartridges. The controller design was reused from Nintendo's portable Game & Watch games. Nintendo released several add-ons, such as a light gun for shooting games. The NES was one of the best-selling consoles of its time and helped revitalize the US game industry following the video game crash of 1983. It introduced a now-standard business model of licensing third-party d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
10NES
The Checking Integrated Circuit (CIC) is a lockout chip designed by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) video game console in 1985; the chip is part of a system known as 10NES, in which a 'key' (which is stored in the game) is used by the 'lock' (stored in the console) to both check if the game is authentic, and if the game is the same region as the console. The chip was designed in response to the Video game crash of 1983, North American video game crash of 1983, which was partially the result of a lack of both publishing and quality control; the idea was that by forcing third-party developers to have their games go through an approval process, Nintendo could stop shovelware from entering the market. Improved designs of the CIC chip were also used in the later Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo 64, although running an updated security program which performs additional checks. The lockout chip was controversial, with several developers opting to rel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Video Game Console
A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to a television or other display devices and controlled with a separate game controller, or handheld game console, handheld consoles, which include their own display unit and controller functions built into the unit and which can be played anywhere. Hybrid consoles combine elements of both home and handheld consoles. Video game consoles are a specialized form of a home computer geared towards video game playing, designed with affordability and accessibility to the general public in mind, but lacking in raw computing power and customization. Simplicity is achieved in part through the use of game cartridges or other simplified methods of distribution, easing the effort of launching a game. However, this leads ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regional Lockout
A regional lockout (or region coding) is a class of digital rights management preventing the use of a certain product or service, such as multimedia or a hardware device, outside a certain region or territory. A regional lockout may be enforced through physical means, through technological means such as detecting the user's IP address or using an identifying code, or through unintentional means introduced by devices only supporting certain regional technologies (such as video formats, i.e., NTSC and PAL). A regional lockout may be enforced for several reasons, such as to stagger the release of a certain product, to avoid losing sales to the product's foreign publisher, to maximize the product's impact in a certain region through localization, to hinder grey market imports by enforcing price discrimination, or to prevent users from accessing certain content in their territory because of legal reasons (either due to censorship laws, or because a distributor does not have the rights ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CIC (Nintendo)
The Checking Integrated Circuit (CIC) is a lockout chip designed by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) video game console in 1985; the chip is part of a system known as 10NES, in which a 'key' (which is stored in the game) is used by the 'lock' (stored in the console) to both check if the game is authentic, and if the game is the same region as the console. The chip was designed in response to the North American video game crash of 1983, which was partially the result of a lack of both publishing and quality control; the idea was that by forcing third-party developers to have their games go through an approval process, Nintendo could stop shovelware from entering the market. Improved designs of the CIC chip were also used in the later Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo 64, although running an updated security program which performs additional checks. The lockout chip was controversial, with several developers opting to release their games without N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vendor Lock-in
In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs. The use of open standards and alternative options makes systems tolerant of change, so that decisions can be postponed until more information is available or unforeseen events are addressed. Vendor lock-in does the opposite: it makes it difficult to move from one solution to another. Lock-in costs that create barriers to market entry may result in antitrust action against a monopoly. Lock-in types ; Monopolistic : Whether a single vendor controls the market for the method or technology being locked in to. Distinguishes between being locked to the mere technology, or specifically the vendor of it. This class of lock-in is potentially technologically hard to overcome if the monopoly is held up by barriers to market that are nontrivial to circumvent, such as patents, secrecy, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Protection Dongle
A software protection dongle (commonly known as a dongle or key) is an electronic copy protection and content protection device. When connected to a computer or other electronics, they unlock software functionality or decode content. The hardware key is programmed with a product key or other cryptographic protection mechanism and functions via an electrical connector to an external bus of the computer or appliance. In software protection, dongles are two-interface security tokens with transient data flow with a pull communication that reads security data from the dongle. In the absence of these dongles, certain software may run only in a restricted mode, or not at all. In addition to software protection, dongles can enable functions in electronic devices, such as receiving and processing encoded video streams on television sets. Etymology The Merriam-Webster dictionary states that the "First known use of dongle" was in 1981 and that the etymology was "perhaps alteration of dangl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lexmark Int'l V
Lexmark International, Inc. is a privately held company, privately held American company that manufactures laser printers and imaging products. The company is headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky. Since 2016 it has been jointly owned by a consortium of three multinational companies: Apex Technology, PAG (investment firm), PAG Asia Capital, and Legend Capital. History Lexmark was formed on March 27, 1991 when investment firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, Clayton & Dubilier completed a leveraged buyout of IBM Information Products Corporation, the Printer (computing), printer, IBM Selectric typewriter, typewriter, and Model M keyboard, keyboard operations of IBM. Lexmark became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange on November 15, 1995. By 2016, the company struggled to keep corporate clients that are cutting costs and the consumers who are shifting to mobile devices from personal computers. It was reported in April 2016 that Lexmark would be acquired by Apex Techno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
