|
Astrovision
The Bally Astrocade (also known as Bally Arcade and initially as Bally ABA-1000) is a second-generation home video game console and simple computer system designed by a team at Midway, at that time the videogame division of Bally. It was originally announced as the "Bally Home Library Computer" in October 1977 and initially made available for mail order in December 1977. But due to production delays, the units were first released to stores in April 1978 and its branding changed to "Bally Professional Arcade". It was marketed only for a limited time before Bally decided to exit the market. The rights were later picked up by a third-party company, who re-released it and sold it until around 1984. The Astrocade is particularly notable for its very powerful graphics capabilities for the time of release, and for the difficulty in accessing those capabilities. History Nutting and Midway In the late 1970s, Midway contracted Dave Nutting Associates to design a video display chip t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Generation Of Video Game Consoles
In the history of video games, the second-generation era refers to computer and video games, video game consoles, and handheld game console, handheld video game consoles available from 1976 to 1992. Notable Video game#Platform, platforms of the second generation include the Fairchild Channel F, Atari 2600, Intellivision, Odyssey 2, and ColecoVision. The generation began in November 1976 with the release of the Fairchild Channel F. This was followed by the Atari 2600 in 1977, Magnavox Odyssey² in 1978, Intellivision in 1980 and then the Emerson Arcadia 2001, ColecoVision, Atari 5200, and Vectrex,Barton, Matt and Loguidice, Bill. (2007)A History of Gaming Platforms: The Vectrex, Gamasutra. all in 1982. By the end of the era, there were over 15 different consoles. It coincided with, and was partly fuelled by, the golden age of arcade video games. This peak era of popularity and innovation for the medium resulted in many games for second generation home consoles being Port (video gam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1981 In Video Gaming
Fueled by the previous year's release of the colorful and appealing '' Pac-Man'', the audience for arcade video games in 1981 became much wider. ''Pac-Man'' influenced maze games began appearing in arcades and on home systems. ''Pac-Man'' was the highest grossing video game for the second year in a row. Nintendo's '' Donkey Kong'' defined the platform game genre, while Konami's '' Scramble'' established scrolling shooters. The lesser known '' Jump Bug'' combined the two concepts into both the first scrolling platform game and the first platform shooter. Other arcade hits released in 1981 include '' Defender'', '' Frogger'', and the ''Galaxian'' sequel '' Galaga''. On the Apple II, ''Ultima I'' and '' Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord'' each kicked off a long running role-playing game series. Atari's VCS port of ''Asteroids'' was a major hit with the console. The best selling home system around the globe was Nintendo's Game & Watch for the second year in a row. F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bally Manufacturing
Bally Manufacturing, later renamed Bally Entertainment, was an American company that began as a pinball and slot machine manufacturer, and later expanded into casinos, video games, health clubs, and theme parks. It was acquired by Hilton Hotels in 1996. Its brand name, and mid-20th century pinball and slot machine logo, are still used by several businesses with various acquired trademark rights, most notably slot machine maker Bally Technologies and casino operator Bally's Corporation. History The Bally Manufacturing Corporation was founded by Raymond Moloney on January 10, 1932, when Bally's parent Lion Manufacturing established the company to make pinball games, taking its name from its first game "Ballyhoo". The Chicago-based company quickly became a leading pinball maker. In the late 1930s, Moloney began making gambling equipment and had great success developing and improving the mechanical slot machines that were the core of the early gaming industry. The company manufact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1978 In Video Gaming
1978 saw the release of new video games such as ''Space Invaders''. The year is considered the beginning of the golden age of arcade video games. The year's highest-grossing video game was Taito's arcade game ''Space Invaders'', while the best-selling home system was the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS). Financial performance Highest-grossing arcade games ''Space Invaders'' was the top-grossing video game worldwide in 1978. The following table lists the top-grossing arcade games of 1978 in Japan, the United Kingdom, United States, and worldwide. Japan In Japan, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade games of 1978, according to the third annual '' Game Machine'' chart, which lists both arcade video games and electro-mechanical games (EM games) on the same arcade game chart. Taito's ''Space Invaders'' was the first video game to become highest-grossing overall arcade game on the annual ''Game Machine'' charts, after the two previous charts were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a mail-order business and later a department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001; its common nickname was "Monkey Wards". The current Montgomery Ward Inc. is an online shopping and mail-order catalog retailer that started several years after the original Montgomery Ward shut down. Original Montgomery Ward (1872–2001) Company origins Aaron Montgomery Ward started his business in Chicago; conflicting reports place his first office either in a single room at 825 North Clark Street or in a loft above a livery stable on Kinzie Street, between Rush and State Streets. In 1883, the company's catalog had grown to 240 pages and 10,000 items. In 1896, Ward encountered its first serious competition in the mail order business, when Richard Warren Sears introduced his first general catalog. In 1900, Ward had total sales of $8.7 million, compared to $10 million for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1979 In Video Gaming
1979 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as ''Space Invaders Part II'' and ''Super Speed Race'', along with new titles such as ''Asteroids (video game), Asteroids'', ''Football (1978 video game), Football'', ''Galaxian'', ''Head On (video game), Head On'', ''Heiankyo Alien'', ''Monaco GP (video game), Monaco GP'', ''Sheriff (video game), Sheriff'' and ''Warrior (arcade game), Warrior''. For the second year in a row, the highest-grossing video game was Taito's arcade game ''Space Invaders'' and the best-selling home system was the Atari 2600, Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS). Financial performance Highest-grossing arcade games ''Space Invaders'' was the top-grossing video game worldwide in 1979, having become the arcade game industry's all-time best-seller by 1979. The following table lists the year's top-grossing arcade game in Japan, the United Kingdom, United States, and worldwide. Japan In Japan, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS), it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridges, a format first used with the Fairchild Channel F in 1976. The VCS was bundled with two joystick game controller, controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle (game controller), paddle controllers, and a game cartridgeinitially ''Combat (video game), Combat'' and later ''Pac-Man (Atari 2600 video game), Pac-Man''. Sears sold the system as the Tele-Games Video Arcade. Atari rebranded the VCS as the Atari 2600 in November 1982, alongside the release of the Atari 5200. Atari was successful at creating arcade video games, but their development cost and limited lifespan drove Chief executive officer, CEO Nolan Bushnell to seek a programmable home system. The first inexpensive microprocessors from MOS Technology in late 1975 made this feasible. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mail Order
Mail order is the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote methods such as: * Sending an order form in the mail * Placing an order by telephone call * Placing an order with a travelling agent * Filling in an order form on a website or mobile app — if the product information is also mainly obtained online rather than via a paper catalogue or via television, this mail-order model is called online shopping or e-commerce Then, the products are delivered to the customer. The products are usually delivered directly to an address supplied by the customer, such as a home address, but occasionally the orders are delivered to a nearby retail location for the customer to pick up. Some merchants also allow the goods to be shipped directly to a third party consumer, which is an effective way to send a gift to an out-of-town recipient. Some merchants deliver the goods directly to the customer thro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dynamic Random-access Memory
Dynamics (from Greek language, Greek δυναμικός ''dynamikos'' "powerful", from δύναμις ''dynamis'' "power (other), power") or dynamic may refer to: Physics and engineering * Dynamics (mechanics), the study of forces and their effect on motion Brands and enterprises * Dynamic (record label), an Italian record label in Genoa Mathematics * Dynamical system, a concept describing a point's time dependency ** Topological dynamics, the study of dynamical systems from the viewpoint of general topology * Symbolic dynamics, a method to model dynamical systems Social science * Group dynamics, the study of social group processes especially * Population dynamics, in life sciences, the changes in the composition of a population * Psychodynamics, the study of psychological forces driving human behavior * Social dynamics, the ability of a society to react to changes * Spiral Dynamics, a social development theory Other uses * Dynamics (music), the softness or loudn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scan Line
A scan line (also scanline) is one line, or row, in a raster scanning pattern, such as a line of video on a cathode-ray tube (CRT) display of a television set or computer monitor. On CRT screens the horizontal scan lines are visually discernible, even when viewed from a distance, as alternating colored lines and black lines, especially when a progressive scan signal with below maximum vertical resolution is displayed. This is sometimes used today as a visual effect in computer graphics. The term is used, by analogy, for a single row of pixels in a raster graphics image. Scan lines are important in representations of image data, because many image file formats have special rules for data at the end of a scan line. For example, there may be a rule that each scan line starts on a particular boundary (such as a byte or word; see for example BMP file format). This means that even otherwise compatible raster data may need to be analyzed at the level of scan lines in order to conver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chipset
In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components on one or more integrated circuits that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. The chipset is usually found on the motherboard of computers. Chipsets are usually designed to work with a specific family of microprocessors. Because it controls communications between the processor and external devices, the chipset plays a crucial role in determining system performance. Sometimes the term "chipset" is used to describe a system on chip (SoC) used in a mobile phone. Computers In computing, the term ''chipset'' commonly refers to a set of specialized chips on a computer's motherboard or an expansion card. In personal computers, the first chipset for the IBM PC AT of 1984 was the NEAT chipset developed by Chips and Technologies for the Intel 80286 CPU. In home computers, game consoles, and arcade hardware of the 1980s and 1990s, the term ''chipset'' was used for the custom audio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wizard Of Wor
''Wizard of Wor'' is a 1981 maze video game developed by Dave Nutting Associates and published by Midway for arcades. The player controls a Worrior, who must defeat all the monsters inside enclosed mazes while being careful not to be destroyed themselves. The game can be played in multiplayer where two players can either cooperate or compete to destroy the monsters in the mazes. The game was ported to the Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64 (programmed by Jeff Bruette), Commodore Max, Atari 2600, and Atari 5200 and renamed to ''The Incredible Wizard'' for the Bally Astrocade. Gameplay ''Wizard of Wor'' is an action maze video game; the player controls a Worrior through an enclosed maze. The objective of the game is to defeat all of the monsters—Burwors (blue), Garwors (yellow), and Thorwors (red)—which are present in the maze, while also avoiding being destroyed by them. When all the monsters are defeated, the player advances to the next maze. If a Worrior is des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
