M.U.L.E.
''M.U.L.E.'' is a multiplayer video game written for Atari 8-bit computers by Ozark Softscape. Designer Danielle Bunten Berry (credited as Dan Bunten) takes advantage of the four joystick ports of the Atari 400 and 800 to allow four-player simultaneous play. Published in 1983, ''M.U.L.E.'' was one of the first five games from new company Electronic Arts, alongside '' Axis Assassin'', '' Archon: The Light and the Dark'', '' Worms?'', and '' Hard Hat Mack''. It is primarily a turn-based strategy game, but incorporates real-time elements where players compete directly as well as aspects that simulate economics. The game was ported to the Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, and IBM PC compatibles (as a self-booting disk). Japanese versions exist for the PC-88, Sharp X1, and MSX2 computers. Like the subsequent Atari 8-bit models, none of these systems allow four players with separate joysticks. The Commodore 64 version lets four players share joysticks, with two p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Danielle Bunten Berry
Danielle Bunten Berry (February 19, 1949 – July 3, 1998), formerly known as Dan Bunten, was an American game designer and programmer, known for the 1983 game '' M.U.L.E.'', one of the first influential multiplayer video games, and 1984's '' The Seven Cities of Gold''. In 1998, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Computer Game Developers Association. In 2007, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences chose Berry as the 10th inductee into its Hall of Fame. In 2009, she was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time. Early life Berry was born in St. Louis, Missouri and moved to Little Rock, Arkansas as a junior in high school. She was the oldest of six siblings. While growing up in Little Rock, Berry's family didn't always have enough money to make ends meet, so Berry took a job at a pharmacy. She also held a leadership role with the Boy Scouts. According to Berry, one of her fondest childhood memories involved playing games with h ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Worms?
''Worms?'' is a puzzle video game written by David Maynard for Atari 8-bit computers and ported to the Commodore 64. It was released in 1983 as one of the first publications from Electronic Arts. ''Worms?'' is an interactive version of '' Paterson's Worms''. Maynard later worked on the 8-bit word processor from Electronic Arts, Cut & Paste. On March 17, 2021, the source code of ''Worms?'' was published with the MIT License. Gameplay The game is abstract, like ''Conway's Game of Life.'' However, the player's ostensible goal is to optimally program one or more worms (each a sort of cellular automaton) to grow and survive as long as possible. The game area is divided up into hexagonal cells, and the worms are programmed to move in a particular direction for each combination of filled-in and empty frame segments in their immediate vicinity. The player needs to give the worm progressively less input, and more moves by the worm results in a familiar situation for which the worm has ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hunt The Wumpus
''Hunt the Wumpus'' is a text-based adventure game developed by Gregory Yob in 1973. In the game, the player moves through a series of connected caves, arranged as the vertices of a dodecahedron, as they hunt a monster named the Wumpus. The turn-based game has the player trying to avoid fatal bottomless pits and "super bats" that will move them around the cave system; the goal is to fire one of their "crooked arrows" through the caves to kill the Wumpus. Yob created the game in early 1973 due to his annoyance at the multiple hide-and-seek games set in caves in a grid pattern, and multiple variations of the game were sold via mail order by Yob and the People's Computer Company. The source code to the game was published in ''Creative Computing'' in 1975 and republished in ''The Best of Creative Computing'' the following year. The game sparked multiple variations and expanded versions and was ported to several systems, including the TI-99/4A home computer. It has been cited as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 former Apple Inc., 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. Into the 21st century, EA develops and publishes games of established franchises, including ''Battlefield (video game series), Battlefield'', ''Need for Speed'', ''The Sims'', ''Medal of Honor (video game series), Medal of Honor'', ''Command & Conquer'', ''Dead Space'', ''Mass Effect'', ''Dragon Age'', ''Army of Two (series), Army of Two'', ''A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Atari 8-bit
The Atari 8-bit computers, formally launched as the Atari Home Computer System, are a series of home computers introduced by Atari, Inc., in 1979 with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The architecture is designed around the 8-bit MOS Technology 6502 CPU and three custom coprocessors which provide support for sprites, smooth multidirectional scrolling, four channels of audio, and other features. The graphics and sound are more advanced than most of its contemporaries, and video games are a key part of the software library. The 1980 first-person space combat simulator ''Star Raiders'' is considered the platform's killer app. The Atari 800 was positioned as a high-end model and the 400 as more affordable. The 400 has a pressure-sensitive, spillproof membrane keyboard and initially shipped with a non-upgradable of RAM. The 800 has a conventional keyboard, a second cartridge slot, and allows easy RAM upgrades to 48K. Both use identical 6502 CPUs at ( for PAL versions) and coprocessor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Axis Assassin
''Axis Assassin'' is a video game written by John Field for the Apple II and published by Electronic Arts in 1983. Ports for Atari 8-bit computers and Commodore 64 were released alongside the Apple II original. The game is similar in concept and visuals to Atari, Inc.'s 1981 '' Tempest'' arcade video game. Along with ''M.U.L.E.'', '' Hard Hat Mack'', '' Archon: The Light and the Dark'', and ''Worms?'', ''Axis Assassin'' is one of the five initial games from Electronic Arts. Programmer John Field is included in the two-page "We See Farther" magazine ad from 1983 that positioned EA's game developers as "rock stars." Field also wrote ''The Last Gladiator'' for Electronic Arts, which was published the same year as ''Axis Assassin''. Gameplay Development John Field wrote the first version of ''Axis Assassin'' in two weeks while on vacation in Wisconsin, then worked on improving it for an additional seven months. Reception Reviewing the Apple II version for ''Electronic Games'' in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Atari 8-bit Computers
The Atari 8-bit computers, formally launched as the Atari Home Computer System, are a series of home computers introduced by Atari, Inc., in 1979 with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The architecture is designed around the 8-bit MOS Technology 6502 CPU and three custom coprocessors which provide support for sprites, smooth multidirectional scrolling, four channels of audio, and other features. The graphics and sound are more advanced than most of its contemporaries, and video games are a key part of the software library. The 1980 first-person space combat simulator ''Star Raiders'' is considered the platform's killer app. The Atari 800 was positioned as a high-end model and the 400 as more affordable. The 400 has a pressure-sensitive, spillproof membrane keyboard and initially shipped with a non-upgradable of RAM. The 800 has a conventional keyboard, a second cartridge slot, and allows easy RAM upgrades to 48K. Both use identical 6502 CPUs at ( for PAL versions) and coprocess ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Atari
Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French holding company Atari SA (formerly Infogrames) and its focus is on "video games, consumer hardware, licensing and blockchain". The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, California, United States in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company's products, such as '' Pong'' and the Atari 2600, helped define the electronic entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s. In 1984, as a result of the video game crash of 1983, the assets of the home console and computer divisions of the original Atari Inc. were sold off to Jack Tramiel's Tramel Technology Ltd., which then renamed itself to Atari Corporation, while the remaining part of Atari, Inc. was renamed Atari Games Inc. In early 1985, Warner established a new corporation jointly with Namco subsequen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Self-booting Disk
A self-booting disk is a floppy disk for home computers or personal computers that loads directly into a standalone application when the system is turned on, bypassing the operating system. This was common, standard, on some computers in the late 1970s to early 1990s. Video games were the type of application most commonly distributed using this technique. The term "PC booter" is sometimes used in reference to self-booting software for IBM PC compatibles. On other systems, like the Apple II and Atari 8-bit computers, almost all software is self-booting. On the IBM PC, the distinction is between a self-booting program and one which is started by the user via an operating system such as MS-DOS or IBM PC DOS. The term "PC booter" was not contemporaneous with when self-booting games were being released. Purpose On some home computers like the Apple II, software is loaded by inserting a floppy disk and turning on or resetting the machine. It's analogous to cartridges on game console ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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MSX2
MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, the director at ASCII Corporation. Microsoft and Nishi conceived the project as an attempt to create unified standards among various home computing system manufacturers of the period, in the same fashion as the VHS standard for home video tape machines. The first MSX computer sold to the public was a Mitsubishi ML-8000, released on October 21, 1983, thus marking its official release date. MSX systems were popular in Japan and several other countries. There are differing accounts of MSX sales. One source claims 9 million MSX units were sold worldwide, including in Japan alone, whereas ASCII Corporation founder Kazuhiko Nishi claims that 3 million were sold in Japan, and 1 million overseas. Despite Microsoft's involvement, few MSX-based machines were released in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Supply And Demand
In microeconomics, supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a Market (economics), market. It postulates that, Ceteris_paribus#Applications, holding all else equal, the unit price for a particular Good (economics), good or other traded item in a perfect competition, perfectly competitive market, will vary until it settles at the market clearing, market-clearing price, where the quantity demanded equals the quantity supplied such that an economic equilibrium is achieved for price and quantity transacted. The concept of supply and demand forms the theoretical basis of modern economics. In situations where a firm has market power, its decision on how much output to bring to market influences the market price, in violation of perfect competition. There, a more complicated model should be used; for example, an oligopoly or product differentiation, differentiated-product model. Likewise, where a buyer has market power, models such as monopsony will be more a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |