The Fool's Errand
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The Fool's Errand
''The Fool's Errand'' is a 1987 computer game by Cliff Johnson. It is a meta-puzzle game with storytelling, visual puzzles, and a cryptic treasure map. It is the tale of a wandering Fool who seeks his fortune in the Land of Tarot and braves the enchantments of the High Priestess. A sequel titled '' The Fool and His Money'' was released October 25, 2012. Plot The plot focuses on The Fool card of the tarot, who is portrayed as a silhouette of a young man wearing a peaked, feathered cap, curled-toed shoes, and carrying a knapsack on a stick. The Fool is the protagonist of the story, and he encounters various other cards from the tarot. In the beginning of the story, The Sun gives him a map, which has been scrambled, and directs him to find the "Lost 14 Treasures of the World." The Fool journeys through four kingdoms (each representing a suit from the minor arcana of the tarot), where he encounters other characters, who either give him more information or provide him with addit ...
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Cliff Johnson (game Designer)
Cliff Johnson (born 1953) is an American game designer, best known for the puzzle video games '' The Fool's Errand'' (1987) and '' 3 in Three'' (1990). Both games use visual puzzles and a metapuzzle structure. Both won ''GAMES Magazine''s Best Puzzle Game of the Year. Biography Johnson was born August 14, 1953 in Hanover, New Hampshire, the only child of Norman and Leatrice Johnson. He attended Bristol Eastern High School in Connecticut, where he started making Super 8 movies. In 1972, he had jobs "building monsters" for five different amusement parks. He later attended University of Southern California's film school, where he became a teaching assistant in animation and created some of the Monty Pythonesque animations for Nickelodeon's television series '' Out of Control''. In 1984, using his first computer, a 512 KB Macintosh, he learned to program and created the game '' The Fool's Errand'', which in 1987 won "Best Puzzle Game of the Year" from ''GAMES Magazine'' and was ...
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Sleuth (1972 Film)
''Sleuth'' is a 1972 British-American mystery comedy thriller film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. The screenplay by playwright Anthony Shaffer was based on his 1970 Tony Award-winning play. Both Olivier and Caine were nominated for Academy Awards for their performances. This was Mankiewicz's final film. Critics gave the film overwhelmingly positive reviews. Plot Andrew Wyke, a successful crime fiction author, lives in a large country manor house filled with elaborate games and automata. He invites his wife's lover, Milo Tindle, a London businessman, to his home to discuss the situation and would like Milo to take his wife off of his hands. To provide him the means to support her, Andrew suggests that Milo steal some jewelry from the house, with Andrew recouping his losses through an insurance claim. Milo agrees and Andrew leads him through an elaborate scheme to fake a robbery. At the conclusion, Andrew pulls a gun on Milo an ...
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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 ...
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Emulator
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use peripheral devices designed for the guest system. Emulation refers to the ability of a computer program in an electronic device to emulate (or imitate) another program or device. Many printers, for example, are designed to emulate HP LaserJet printers because so much software is written for HP printers. If a non-HP printer emulates an HP printer, any software written for a real HP printer will also run in the non-HP printer emulation and produce equivalent printing. Since at least the 1990s, many video game enthusiasts and hobbyists have used emulators to play classic arcade games from the 1980s using the games' original 1980s machine code and data, which is interpreted by a current-era system, and to emulate old video game consoles. ...
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Display Resolution
The display resolution or display modes of a digital television, computer monitor or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is controlled by different factors in cathode ray tube (CRT) displays, flat-panel displays (including liquid-crystal displays) and projection displays using fixed picture-element (pixel) arrays. It is usually quoted as ', with the units in pixels: for example, ' means the width is 1024 pixels and the height is 768 pixels. This example would normally be spoken as "ten twenty-four by seven sixty-eight" or "ten twenty-four by seven six eight". One use of the term ''display resolution'' applies to fixed-pixel-array displays such as plasma display panels (PDP), liquid-crystal displays (LCD), Digital Light Processing (DLP) projectors, OLED displays, and similar technologies, and is simply the physical number of columns and rows of pixels ...
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Porting
In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally designed for (e.g., different CPU, operating system, or third party library). The term is also used when software/hardware is changed to make them usable in different environments. Software is ''portable'' when the cost of porting it to a new platform is significantly less than the cost of writing it from scratch. The lower the cost of porting software relative to its implementation cost, the more portable it is said to be. Etymology The term "port" is derived from the Latin '' portāre'', meaning "to carry". When code is not compatible with a particular operating system or architecture, the code must be "carried" to the new system. The term is not generally applied to the process of adapting software to run with less memory on the same ...
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Apple Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software engineers. The current lineup includes the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, as well as the iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Studio and Mac Pro desktops. Macs run the macOS operating system. The Macintosh 128K, first Mac was released in 1984, and was advertised with the highly-acclaimed 1984 (advertisement), "1984" ad. After a period of initial success, the Mac languished in the 1990s, until co-founder Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997. Jobs oversaw the release of many successful products, unveiled the modern Mac OS X, completed the Mac transition to Intel processors, 2005-06 Intel transition, and brought features from the iPhone back to the Mac. During Tim Cook's tenure as CEO, the Mac underwent a period of neglect, but was later reinv ...
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Microsoft BASIC
Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first version of BASIC published by Microsoft as well as the first high-level programming language available for the Altair 8800 microcomputer. During the home computer craze during the late-1970s and early-1980s, BASIC was ported to and supplied with many home computer designs. Slight variations to add support for machine-specific functions, especially graphics, led to a profusion of related designs like Commodore BASIC and Atari Microsoft BASIC. As the early home computers gave way to newer designs like the IBM Personal Computer and Apple Macintosh, BASIC was no longer as widely used, although it retained a strong following. The release of Visual Basic reboosted its popularity and it remains in wide use on Microsoft Windows platforms in it ...
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Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the designers and programmers responsible for its games as "software artists." EA published numerous games and some productivity software for personal computers, all of which were developed by external individuals or groups until 1987's '' Skate or Die!''. The company shifted toward internal game studios, often through acquisitions, such as Distinctive Software becoming EA Canada in 1991. Currently, EA develops and publishes games of established franchises, including '' Battlefield'', ''Need for Speed'', '' The Sims'', ''Medal of Honor'', ''Command & Conquer'', ''Dead Space'', '' Mass Effect'', ''Dragon Age'', '' Army of Two'', '' Apex Legends'', and '' Star Wars'', as well as the EA Sports titles ''FIFA'', ''Madden NFL'', '' NBA Live'', '' ...
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PC World Communications
''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal technology products and services. In each publication, ''PC World'' reviews and tests hardware and software products from a variety of manufacturers, as well as other technology related devices such as still and video cameras, audio devices and televisions. The current editor of ''PC World'' is Jon Phillips, formerly of ''Wired''. In August 2012, he replaced Steve Fox, who had been editorial director since the December 2008 issue of the magazine. Fox replaced the magazine's veteran editor Harry McCracken, who resigned that spring, after some rocky times, including quitting and being rehired over editorial control issues in 2007. ''PC World'' is published under other names such as PC Advisor and PC Welt in some countries. ''PC World''s company ...
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Macworld
''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macintosh-focused magazines in North America, more than double its nearest competitor, '' MacLife'' (formerly ''MacAddict''). ''Macworld'' was founded by David Bunnell and Cheryl Woodard (publishers) and Andrew Fluegelman (editor). It was the oldest Macintosh magazine still in publication, until September 10, 2014, when IDG, its parent company, announced it was discontinuing the print edition and laid off most of the staff, while continuing an online version. History of Macworld In 1997, the publication was renamed ''Macworld, incorporating MacUser'' (a name reflected subtly on the magazine's Table of Contents page) to reflect the consolidation of the Ziff-Davis-owned '' MacUser'' magazine into the International Data Group-owned ''Macworld' ...
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