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Professional Adventure Writer
Professional Adventure Writer or PAW (sometimes called PAWS for Professional Adventure Writing System) is a program that allows the user to write textual adventure games with graphic illustrations. It was written by Tim Gilberts, Graeme Yeandle and Phil Wade, based on Yeandle's earlier system called '' The Quill''. PAW was published by Gilsoft in 1987 and quickly gained a loyal following. PAW improved over ''The Quill'' in several ways. In particular, its textual input parser was more sophisticated, meaning inputs were no longer confined to the two-word telegraphic ''verb noun'' (e.g. "GO WEST; TAKE LAMP") style. PAW also supported NPCs, different character sets, and full use of the memory of the 128K ZX Spectrum. However, unlike ''The Quill'', the PAW no longer supported other computer systems like the BBC Micro or the Commodore 64. Over 400 games were written using PAW. To ensure that as much text as possible can be used, PAWS compresses the descriptions by replacing the mos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gilsoft
Gilsoft was a British developer of video games and related utilities. The company was best known for developing the text adventure authoring tool '' The Quill'' and its successor, '' Professional Adventure Writer''. History Gilsoft was set up by Tim Gilberts, at the time aged 17, in the early 1980s, using money from his father, who ran an electronics store. Gilberts had been writing software for the ZX81 prior to founding Gilsoft, but with the release of the ZX Spectrum, he was convinced that he could make money by satisfying the demand for games for the new platform. Many early titles developed by Gilberts for the Spectrum were clones of arcade games, among a few original titles. Gilsoft was initially run as a family business, with Gilberts acting as technical director, his father as managing director, his mother as company secretary, and his cousin as accountant. Other employees were mostly made up of friends and neighbours of the Gilberts family. In 1982, Gilsoft was joined b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer developed and marketed by Sinclair Research. One of the most influential computers ever made and one of the all-time bestselling British computers, over five million units were sold. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and around the world in the following years, most notably in Europe and the United States. The machine was designed by English entrepreneur and inventor Sir Clive Sinclair and his small team in Cambridge, and was manufactured in Dundee, Scotland by Timex Corporation. It was made to be small, simple, and most importantly inexpensive, with as few components as possible. The addendum "Spectrum" was chosen to highlight the machine's colour display, which differed from the black-and-white display of its predecessor, the ZX81. Rick Dickinson designed its distinctive case, rainbow motif, and chiclet keyboard, rubber keyboard. Video output is transmitted to a television set rather than a ded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC (short for "Colour Personal Computer") is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum; it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and the German-speaking parts of Europe, and also Canada. The series spawned a total of six distinct models: The ''Amstrad CPC 464, CPC 464'', ''CPC 664'', and ''CPC 6128'' were highly successful competitors in the European home computer market. The later ''464 plus'' and ''6128 plus'', intended to prolong the system's lifecycle with hardware updates, were considerably less successful, as was the attempt to repackage the ''plus'' hardware into a game console as the ''GX4000''. The CPC models' hardware is based on the Zilog Z80A CPU, complemented with either 64 or 128 KB of Random-access memory, RAM. Their computer-in-a-keyboard design prominently ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interactive Fiction
Interactive fiction (IF) is software simulating environments in which players use text Command (computing), commands to control Player character, 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 video game, role-playing game. In common usage, the term refers to text adventures, a type of adventure game where the entire interface can be "Text mode, text-only", however, graphical text adventure games, where the text is accompanied by graphics (still images, animations or video) 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Quill Adventure System
''The Quill'' is a game creation system for text adventures. Written by Graeme Yeandle, it was published on the ZX Spectrum by Gilsoft in December 1983. Although available to the general public, it was used by several games companies to create best-selling titles; over 450 commercially published titles for the ZX Spectrum were written using ''The Quill''. Development Yeandle has stated that the inspiration for ''The Quill'' was an article in the August 1980 issue of '' Practical Computing'' by Ken Reed in which Reed described the use of a database to produce an adventure game. After Yeandle wrote one database-driven adventure game, ''Timeline'', for Gilsoft, he realised that a database editor was needed, and it was this software which became ''The Quill''. After the original ZX Spectrum version was ported to the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit computers, Apple II, and Oric computers. Versions were also published by CodeWriter, Inc. in North America (under the nam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-player Character
A non-player character (NPC) is a character in a game that is not controlled by a player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaster (or referee) rather than by another player. In video games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer (instead of a player) that has a predetermined set of behaviors that potentially will impact gameplay, but will not necessarily be the product of true artificial intelligence. Role-playing games In traditional tabletop role-playing games such as ''Dungeons & Dragons'', an NPC is a character portrayed by the gamemaster (GM). While the player characters (PCs) form the narrative's protagonists, non-player characters can be thought of as the "supporting cast" or "extras" of a roleplaying narrative. Non-player characters populate the fictional world of the game, and can fill any role not occupied by a player character. Non-player characters might be alli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Micro
The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a family of microcomputers developed and manufactured by Acorn Computers in the early 1980s as part of the BBC's Computer Literacy Project. Launched in December 1981, it was showcased across several educational BBC television programmes, such as ''The Computer Programme'' (1982), ''Making the Most of the Micro'' and ''Computers in Control'' (both 1983), and ''Micro Live'' (1985). Created in response to the BBC's call for bids for a microcomputer to complement its broadcasts and printed material, Acorn secured the contract with its rapidly prototyped “Proton” system, which was subsequently renamed the BBC Micro. Although it was announced towards the end of 1981, production issues initially delayed the fulfilment of many orders, causing deliveries to spill over into 1982. Nicknamed the “Beeb”, it soon became a fixture in British schools, advancing the BBC’s goal of improving computer literacy. Renowned for its strong build q ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness World Records as the highest-selling single computer model of all time, with independent estimates placing the number sold between 12.5 and 17 million units. Volume production started in early 1982, marketing in August for . Preceded by the VIC-20 and Commodore PET, the C64 took its name from its of RAM. With support for multicolor sprite (computer graphics), sprites and a custom chip for waveform generation, the C64 could create superior visuals and audio compared to systems without such custom hardware. The C64 dominated the low-end computer market (except in the UK, France and Japan, lasting only about six months in Japan) for most of the later years of the 1980s. For a substantial period (1983–1986), the C64 had betwe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MS-Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sectors of the computing industry – Windows (unqualified) for a consumer or corporate workstation, Windows Server for a Server (computing), server and Windows IoT for an embedded system. Windows is sold as either a consumer retail product or licensed to Original equipment manufacturer, third-party hardware manufacturers who sell products Software bundles, bundled with Windows. The first version of Windows, Windows 1.0, was released on November 20, 1985, as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs). The name "Windows" is a reference to the windowing system in GUIs. The 1990 release of Windows 3.0 catapulted its market success and led to various other product families ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CP/M
CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/Intel 8085, 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Digital Research, Inc. CP/M is a disk operating system and its purpose is to organize files on a magnetic storage medium, and to load and run programs stored on a disk. Initially confined to single-tasking on 8-bit processors and no more than 64 kilobytes of memory, later versions of CP/M added multi-user variations and were migrated to 16-bit processors. CP/M's core components are the ''Basic Input/Output System'' (BIOS), the ''Basic Disk Operating System'' (BDOS), and the ''Console Command Processor'' (CCP). The BIOS consists of drivers that deal with devices and system hardware. The BDOS implements the file system and provides system services to applications. The CCP is the command-line interpreter and provides some built-in commands. CP ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as "DOS" (which is also the generic acronym for disk operating system). MS-DOS was the main operating system for IBM PC compatibles during the 1980s, from which point it was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in various generations of the graphical Microsoft Windows operating system. IBM licensed and re-released it in 1981 as PC DOS 1.0 for use in its PCs. Although MS-DOS and PC DOS were initially developed in parallel by Microsoft and IBM, the two products diverged after twelve years, in 1993, with recognizable differences in compatibility, syntax and capabilities. Beginning in 1988 with DR-DOS, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1986 Software
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. ** Spain and Portugal enter the European Community, which becomes the European Union in 1993. * January 11 – The Gateway Bridge in Brisbane, Australia, at this time the world's longest prestressed concrete free-cantilever bridge, is opened. * January 13– 24 – South Yemen Civil War. * January 20 – The United Kingdom and France announce plans to construct the Channel Tunnel. * January 24 – The Voyager 2 space probe makes its first encounter with Uranus. * January 25 – Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army Rebel group takes over Uganda after leading a Ugandan Bush War, five-year guerrilla war in which up to half a million people are believed to have been killed. They will later use January 26 as the official date to avoid a coincidence of dates with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
