1.
The 3DO Company
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The 3DO Company, also known as 3DO, was an American video game company. It was founded in 1991 by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, in a partnership with seven companies including LG, Matsushita, AT&T Corporation, MCA, Time Warner, and Electronic Arts itself. After 3DOs flagship video game console, the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, failed in the marketplace and it went bankrupt in 2003 due to poor sales of its games. Its headquarters were in Redwood City, California in the San Francisco Bay Area, Trip Hawkins wanted to get into the hardware market after the software market exploded with interest thanks to his involvement at Electronic Arts. For game publishers, 3DOs $3 royalty per sold game was low compared to the royalties Nintendo. The launch of the console in October 1993 was well-promoted, with a deal of attention in the mass media as part of the multimedia wave in the computer world. The 3DO console launched in October 1993 at the price of $699, poor console and game sales trumped the enticingly low royalty rate and proved a fatal flaw. While 3DOs business model attracted game publishers with its low royalty rates, it resulted in the console selling for a higher than the SNES and Sega Genesis combined. As the console failed to compete with its competitors, game developers and publishers, while initially attracted by low royalties. Stock in the 3DO Company dropped from over $37 per share in November 1993 to $23 per share in late December. Though the companys financial figures dramatically improved in the year ending March 1995, with revenues nearly triple that of the previous fiscal year. The consoles prospects continued to improve through the first half of 1995 with a number of critical success, in January 1996, The 3DO Company sold its next generation console, M2, to Matsushita.2 million. In early 1996, the changed its business to develop and publish games for other game consoles. After selling the M2 technology to Matsushita, the company acquired Cyclone Studios, Archetype Interactive, the companys biggest hit was its series of Army Men games, featuring generic green plastic soldier toys. Its Might and Magic and especially Heroes of Might and Magic series from subsidiary New World Computing were perhaps the most popular among their games at the time of release. During the late 1990s, the published one of the first 3D MMORPGs, Meridian 59. After struggling for years, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2003. Hawkins went on to found Digital Chocolate, a gaming company
2.
Panasonic
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Panasonic Corporation, formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. is a Japanese multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka, Japan. The company was founded in 1918 and has grown to one of the largest Japanese electronics producers alongside Sony, Hitachi, Toshiba. In addition to electronics, it offers non-electronic products and services such as home renovation services, Panasonic is the worlds fourth-largest television manufacturer by 2012 market share. Panasonic has a listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the Nikkei 225. It has a listing on the Nagoya Stock Exchange. From 1935 to October 1,2008, the name was Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. On January 10,2008, the announced that it would change its name to Panasonic Corporation, in effect on October 1,2008. The name change was approved at a meeting on June 26,2008 after consultation with the Matsushita family. Panasonic was founded in 1918 by Kōnosuke Matsushita as a vendor of duplex lamp sockets, in 1927, it began producing bicycle lamps, the first product which it marketed under the brand name National. After the war, Panasonic regrouped as a Keiretsu and began to supply the boom in Japan with radios and appliances. Matsushitas brother-in-law, Toshio Iue, founded Sanyo as a subcontractor for components after World War II, Sanyo grew to become a competitor to Panasonic, but was later acquired by Panasonic in December 2009. In 1961, Konosuke Matsushita traveled to the United States and met with American dealers, the company began producing television sets for the U. S. market under the Panasonic brand name, and expanded the use of the brand to Europe in 1979. The company used the National brand outside of North America from the 1950s to the 1970s, the company also developed a line of home appliances such as rice cookers for the Japanese and Asian markets. Rapid growth resulted in the company opening manufacturing plants around the world, the company debuted a hi-fidelity audio speaker in Japan in 1965 with the brand Technics. This line of high quality stereo components became worldwide favorites, the most famous products being its turntables, such as the SL-1200 record player, known for its high performance, precision and durability. In 1973, Matsushita formed a joint venture with Anam Group, in 1983, Matsushita launched the Panasonic Senior Partner, the first fully IBM PC compatible Japanese-made computer. In November 1990, Matsushita agreed to acquire the American media company MCA Inc. for US$6.59 billion, Matsushita subsequently sold 80% of MCA to Seagram Company for US$7 billion in April 1995. In 1998, Matsushita sold Anam National to Anam Electronics, on May 2,2002, Panasonic Canada marked its 35th anniversary in that country by giving $5-million to help build a music city on Torontos waterfront
3.
Sanyo
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Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. is a Japanese major electronics company and formerly a member of the Fortune Global 500 whose headquarters was located in Moriguchi, Osaka prefecture, Japan. Sanyo had over 230 subsidiaries and affiliates, Sanyo was founded by Toshio Iue. On December 21,2009, Panasonic completed a 400 billion yen acquisition of a 50. 2% stake in Sanyo, in 2011, Sanyo became a wholly owned subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation. Sanyo utilizes an extensive socialization process for new employees, so that they will be acclimatized to Sanyos corporate culture, new employees take a five-month course during which they eat together and share company-provided sleeping accommodation. They learn everything from basic job requirements to company expectations for personal grooming, Sanyo was incorporated in 1949, in 1952 it made Japans first plastic radio and in 1954 Japans first pulsator-type washing machine. The companys name means three oceans in Japanese, referring to the ambition to sell their products worldwide, across the Atlantic, Pacific. Sanyo expanded their North American presence with the purchase of Whirlpool Corporations television business, Warwick Electronics, in 1982, Sanyo started selling the MBC-1000 series of CP/M computers. More recently, though, Sanyo decided against supporting Sonys format, the Blu-ray Disc and this was ultimately unsuccessful, however, as Sonys Blu-ray triumphed. In North America, Sanyo manufactured CDMA cellular phones exclusively for Sprints Sprint PCS brand in the United States, the 2004 Chūetsu earthquake severely damaged Sanyos semiconductor plant and as a result Sanyo recorded a huge financial loss for that year. The 2005 fiscal year financial results saw a 205 billion yen net income loss, Sanyo posted signs of recovery after the announcement of positive operating income of 2.6 billion yen. Sanyo remains the number one producer of rechargeable batteries. The Eneloop line competes against similar products such as Rayovacs Hybrid Rechargeable line, on 24 November 2006, Sanyo announced heavy losses and job cuts. Tomoyo Nonaka, a former NHK anchorwoman who was appointed Chairman of the company, the President, Toshimasa Iue, also stepped down in April of that year, Seiichiro Sano was appointed to head the company effective April 2007. On April 1,2008, they sold their cell phone division to Kyocera and they became a subsidiary of Panasonic on December 21,2009. In 2010, Sanyo sold its operations to ON Semiconductor. On July 29,2010, Panasonic reached an agreement to acquire the shares of Panasonic Electric Works. By March 2012, parent company Panasonic plans to terminate the Sanyo brand, the Sanyo HIT solar cell is composed of a mono thin crystalline silicon wafer surrounded by ultra-thin amorphous silicon layers. Sanyo Energy opened its solar module assembly plants in Hungary and in Mexico in 2004, in 2007, Sanyo completed a new unit at its solar module plant in Hungary that was to triple its annual capacity to 720,000 units in 2008
4.
Home video game console
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A home video game console or simply home console is a video game device that is primarily used for home gamers, as opposed to in arcades or some other commercial establishment. Below is a timeline of each generation with the top three home video consoles of each based on worldwide sales. For a complete list of video consoles released in each generation please see the respective article of each generation. Legend – Unit with the highest sales of its generation, – Unit with the second highest sales of its generation. – Unit with the third highest sales of its generation, – Manufacturer released a home video console during this generation but did not sell the most units. – – Manufacturer didnt release a video game console during this generation. † – Indicates the current generation consoles on the market, although the first video games appeared in the 1950s, they were played on massive computers connected to vector displays, not analog televisions. Ralph H. Baer conceived the idea of a video game in 1951. In the late 1960s while working for Sanders Associates he created a series of game console designs. In 1972 Magnavox released the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home game console which could be connected to a TV set. Magnavox replaced the switch design with separate cartridges for each game, by autumn 1975, Magnavox, bowing to the popularity of Pong, cancelled the Odyssey and released a scaled-down version that played only Pong and hockey, the Odyssey 100. A second, higher end console, the Odyssey 200, was released with the 100 and added on-screen scoring, up to four players, almost simultaneously released with Ataris own home Pong console through Sears, these consoles jump-started the consumer market. All three of the new consoles used simpler designs than the original Odyssey with no board game pieces or extra cartridges, in the years that followed, the market saw many companies rushing similar consoles to market. Most of the consoles from this era were dedicated consoles playing the games that came with the console. These video game consoles were often just called video games, because there was reason to distinguish the two yet. While a few companies like Atari, Magnavox, and newcomer Coleco pushed the envelope, Fairchild released the Fairchild Video Entertainment System in 1976. The VES, however, contained a programmable microprocessor so its cartridges only needed a single ROM chip to store microprocessor instructions, RCA and Atari soon released their own cartridge-based consoles, the RCA Studio II and the Atari 2600, respectively. Both Bally and Magnavox also brought their own programmable cartridge-based consoles to the market, however, it was not until Atari released a conversion of the golden age arcade hit Space Invaders in 1980 for the Atari 2600 that the home console industry took off
5.
Fifth generation of video game consoles
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The fifth-generation era refers to computer and video games, video game consoles and video game handhelds from approximately 1993 to 2001. For home consoles, the console was the PlayStation by a wide margin, followed by the Nintendo 64. Both were discontinued before the other made their debut. The Neo Geo Pocket was released in 1998, but was dropped by SNK in favor of the fully backwards compatible Neo Geo Pocket Color just a year later, Nintendos Game Boy Color was the winner in handhelds by a large margin. There were also two updated versions of the original Game Boy, Game Boy Light and Game Boy Pocket, there was considerable overlap between this and the sixth generation of consoles, which began with the launch of the Dreamcast in Japan on November 27,1998. The fifth generation officially ended with the discontinuation of the PlayStation in March 2006, early efforts from then-industry leaders Sega and Nintendo saw the introduction of the 32X and Super FX, which provided rudimentary 3D capabilities to the 16-bit Genesis and Super NES. Prime examples of this trend include Virtua Fighter 2 on the Saturn, Tomb Raider on the PlayStation and Saturn, Tekken and Crash Bandicoot on the PlayStation, and Super Mario 64 on the N64. Their 3D environments were widely marketed and they steered the industrys focus away from side-scrolling and rail-style titles, as well as opening doors to more complex games and genres. 3D became the focus in this era as well as a slow decline of cartridges in favor of CDs, due to the ability to produce games less expensively. Publicly, Nintendo defended this decision on the grounds that it would give games shorter load times than a compact disc, however, it also had the dubious benefit of allowing Nintendo to charge higher licensing fees, as cartridge production was considerably more expensive than CD production. Many third-party developers like EA Sports viewed this as an attempt to raise more money for Nintendo. Nintendos decision to use a cartridge based system sparked a small scale war among gamers as to which was better, a Nintendo magazine ad placed a Space Shuttle next to a snail and dared consumers to decide which one was better. Almost every other system used the new CD-ROM technology. Consequent to the storage and cost advantages of the CD-ROM format, there was much confusion over which console was superior to the others. Also, console makers routinely boasted theoretical maximum limits of each systems 3D polygon rendering without accounting for real world in-game performance, the FM Towns Marty is considered the worlds first 32-bit console, being released in February 20,1993 by Japanese electronic company Fujitsu. Never released outside Japan, it was marketed as a console version of the FM Towns home computer. It failed to make an impact in the due to its expense relative to other consoles. While using a 32-bit word length, however, the Intel 80386SX CPU only supports 16-bit bus addressing, despite massive third party support and an unprecedented amount of hype for a first-time entrant into the industry, the 3DO Interactive Multiplayers $700 price tag hindered its success
6.
North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
7.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
8.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
9.
CD-ROM
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A CD-ROM /ˌsiːˌdiːˈrɒm/ is a pre-pressed optical compact disc which contains data. The name is an acronym which stands for Compact Disc Read-Only Memory, computers can read CD-ROMs, but cannot write to CD-ROMs which are not writable or erasable. From the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s, CD-ROMs were popularly used to distribute software for computers, some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both computer data and audio with the latter capable of being played on a CD player, while data is only usable on a computer. An early CD-ROM format was developed by Sony and Denon, introduced at a Japanese computer show in 1984 and it was an extension of Compact Disc Digital Audio, and adapted the format to hold any form of digital data, with a capacity of 540 MiB. The Yellow Book is the standard that defines the format of CD-ROMs. One of a set of books that contain the technical specifications for all CD formats. CD-ROMs are identical in appearance to audio CDs, and data are stored and retrieved in a similar manner. Discs are made from a 1.2 mm thick disc of polycarbonate plastic, data is stored on the disc as a series of microscopic indentations. A laser is shone onto the surface of the disc to read the pattern of pits. This pattern of changing intensity of the beam is converted into binary data. Several formats are used for data stored on discs, known as the Rainbow Books. The Yellow Book, published in 1988, defines the specifications for CD-ROMs, the CD-ROM standard builds on top of the original Red Book CD-DA standard for CD audio. Other standards, such as the White Book for Video CDs, the Yellow Book itself is not freely available, but the standards with the corresponding content can be downloaded for free from ISO or ECMA. There are several standards that define how to structure data files on a CD-ROM, ISO9660 defines the standard file system for a CD-ROM. ISO13490 is an improvement on this standard which adds support for non-sequential write-once and re-writeable discs such as CD-R and CD-RW, as well as multiple sessions. The ISO13346 standard was designed to address most of the shortcomings of ISO9660, and a subset of it evolved into the UDF format, which was adopted for DVDs. The bootable CD specification was issued in January 1995, to make a CD emulate a hard disk or floppy disk, is called El Torito, data stored on CD-ROMs follows the standard CD data encoding techniques described in the Red Book specification. This includes cross-interleaved Reed–Solomon coding, eight-to-fourteen modulation, and the use of pits, the structures used to group data on a CD-ROM are also derived from the Red Book
10.
Central processing unit
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The computer industry has used the term central processing unit at least since the early 1960s. The form, design and implementation of CPUs have changed over the course of their history, most modern CPUs are microprocessors, meaning they are contained on a single integrated circuit chip. An IC that contains a CPU may also contain memory, peripheral interfaces, some computers employ a multi-core processor, which is a single chip containing two or more CPUs called cores, in that context, one can speak of such single chips as sockets. Array processors or vector processors have multiple processors that operate in parallel, there also exists the concept of virtual CPUs which are an abstraction of dynamical aggregated computational resources. Early computers such as the ENIAC had to be rewired to perform different tasks. Since the term CPU is generally defined as a device for software execution, the idea of a stored-program computer was already present in the design of J. Presper Eckert and John William Mauchlys ENIAC, but was initially omitted so that it could be finished sooner. On June 30,1945, before ENIAC was made, mathematician John von Neumann distributed the paper entitled First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC and it was the outline of a stored-program computer that would eventually be completed in August 1949. EDVAC was designed to perform a number of instructions of various types. Significantly, the programs written for EDVAC were to be stored in high-speed computer memory rather than specified by the wiring of the computer. This overcame a severe limitation of ENIAC, which was the considerable time, with von Neumanns design, the program that EDVAC ran could be changed simply by changing the contents of the memory. Early CPUs were custom designs used as part of a larger, however, this method of designing custom CPUs for a particular application has largely given way to the development of multi-purpose processors produced in large quantities. This standardization began in the era of discrete transistor mainframes and minicomputers and has accelerated with the popularization of the integrated circuit. The IC has allowed increasingly complex CPUs to be designed and manufactured to tolerances on the order of nanometers, both the miniaturization and standardization of CPUs have increased the presence of digital devices in modern life far beyond the limited application of dedicated computing machines. Modern microprocessors appear in electronic devices ranging from automobiles to cellphones, the so-called Harvard architecture of the Harvard Mark I, which was completed before EDVAC, also utilized a stored-program design using punched paper tape rather than electronic memory. Relays and vacuum tubes were used as switching elements, a useful computer requires thousands or tens of thousands of switching devices. The overall speed of a system is dependent on the speed of the switches, tube computers like EDVAC tended to average eight hours between failures, whereas relay computers like the Harvard Mark I failed very rarely. In the end, tube-based CPUs became dominant because the significant speed advantages afforded generally outweighed the reliability problems, most of these early synchronous CPUs ran at low clock rates compared to modern microelectronic designs. Clock signal frequencies ranging from 100 kHz to 4 MHz were very common at this time, the design complexity of CPUs increased as various technologies facilitated building smaller and more reliable electronic devices
11.
ARM architecture
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ARM, originally Acorn RISC Machine, later Advanced RISC Machine, is a family of reduced instruction set computing architectures for computer processors, configured for various environments. It also designs cores that implement this instruction set and licenses these designs to a number of companies that incorporate those core designs into their own products, a RISC-based computer design approach means processors require fewer transistors than typical complex instruction set computing x86 processors in most personal computers. This approach reduces costs, heat and power use and these characteristics are desirable for light, portable, battery-powered devices—including smartphones, laptops and tablet computers, and other embedded systems. For supercomputers, which large amounts of electricity, ARM could also be a power-efficient solution. ARM Holdings periodically releases updates to architectures and core designs, some older cores can also provide hardware execution of Java bytecodes. The ARMv8-A architecture, announced in October 2011, adds support for a 64-bit address space, with over 100 billion ARM processors produced as of 2017, ARM is the most widely used instruction set architecture in terms of quantity produced. Currently, the widely used Cortex cores, older classic cores, the British computer manufacturer Acorn Computers first developed the Acorn RISC Machine architecture in the 1980s to use in its personal computers. Its first ARM-based products were coprocessor modules for the BBC Micro series of computers, according to Sophie Wilson, all the tested processors at that time performed about the same, with about a 4 Mbit/second bandwidth. After testing all available processors and finding them lacking, Acorn decided it needed a new architecture, inspired by white papers on the Berkeley RISC project, Acorn considered designing its own processor. Wilson developed the set, writing a simulation of the processor in BBC BASIC that ran on a BBC Micro with a 6502 second processor. This convinced Acorn engineers they were on the right track, Wilson approached Acorns CEO, Hermann Hauser, and requested more resources. Hauser gave his approval and assembled a team to implement Wilsons model in hardware. The official Acorn RISC Machine project started in October 1983 and they chose VLSI Technology as the silicon partner, as they were a source of ROMs and custom chips for Acorn. Wilson and Furber led the design and they implemented it with a similar efficiency ethos as the 6502. A key design goal was achieving low-latency input/output handling like the 6502, the 6502s memory access architecture had let developers produce fast machines without costly direct memory access hardware. The first samples of ARM silicon worked properly when first received and tested on 26 April 1985, Wilson subsequently rewrote BBC BASIC in ARM assembly language. The in-depth knowledge gained from designing the instruction set enabled the code to be very dense, the original aim of a principally ARM-based computer was achieved in 1987 with the release of the Acorn Archimedes. In 1992, Acorn once more won the Queens Award for Technology for the ARM, the ARM2 featured a 32-bit data bus, 26-bit address space and 27 32-bit registers
12.
Random-access memory
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Random-access memory is a form of computer data storage which stores frequently used program instructions to increase the general speed of a system. A random-access memory device allows data items to be read or written in almost the same amount of time irrespective of the location of data inside the memory. RAM contains multiplexing and demultiplexing circuitry, to connect the lines to the addressed storage for reading or writing the entry. Usually more than one bit of storage is accessed by the same address, in todays technology, random-access memory takes the form of integrated circuits. RAM is normally associated with types of memory, where stored information is lost if power is removed. Other types of non-volatile memories exist that allow access for read operations. These include most types of ROM and a type of memory called NOR-Flash. Integrated-circuit RAM chips came into the market in the early 1970s, with the first commercially available DRAM chip, early computers used relays, mechanical counters or delay lines for main memory functions. Ultrasonic delay lines could only reproduce data in the order it was written, drum memory could be expanded at relatively low cost but efficient retrieval of memory items required knowledge of the physical layout of the drum to optimize speed. Latches built out of vacuum tube triodes, and later, out of transistors, were used for smaller and faster memories such as registers. Such registers were relatively large and too costly to use for large amounts of data, the first practical form of random-access memory was the Williams tube starting in 1947. It stored data as electrically charged spots on the face of a cathode ray tube, since the electron beam of the CRT could read and write the spots on the tube in any order, memory was random access. The capacity of the Williams tube was a few hundred to around a thousand bits, but it was smaller, faster. In fact, rather than the Williams tube memory being designed for the SSEM, magnetic-core memory was invented in 1947 and developed up until the mid-1970s. It became a form of random-access memory, relying on an array of magnetized rings. By changing the sense of each rings magnetization, data could be stored with one bit stored per ring, since every ring had a combination of address wires to select and read or write it, access to any memory location in any sequence was possible. Magnetic core memory was the form of memory system until displaced by solid-state memory in integrated circuits. Data was stored in the capacitance of each transistor, and had to be periodically refreshed every few milliseconds before the charge could leak away
13.
Video RAM (dual-ported DRAM)
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Video RAM, or VRAM, is a dual-ported variant of dynamic RAM, which was once commonly used to store the framebuffer in some graphics adapters. It was invented by F. Dill, D. Ling and R. Matick at IBM Research in 1980, the first commercial use of VRAM was in a high-resolution graphics adapter introduced in 1986 by IBM for the PC/RT system, which set a new standard for graphics displays. Prior to the development of VRAM, dual-ported memory was quite expensive, VRAM improved the overall framebuffer throughput, allowing low cost, high-resolution, high-speed, color graphics. Modern GUI-based operating systems benefitted from this and thus it provided a key ingredient for proliferation of graphic user interfaces throughout the world at that time, VRAM has two sets of data output pins, and thus two ports that can be used simultaneously. The first port, the DRAM port, is accessed by the host computer in a very similar to traditional DRAM. The second port, the port, is typically read-only and is dedicated to providing a high throughput. Typical DRAM arrays normally access a full row of bits at up to 1,024 bits at one time, but only use one or a few of these for actual data, since DRAM cells are destructively read, each row accessed must be sensed, and re-written. Thus,1,024 sense amplifiers are typically used, VRAM operates by not discarding the excess bits which must be accessed, but making full use of them in a simple way. This will leave access to the DRAM array free to be accessed for many cycles, a complete DRAM read cycle is only required to fill the row buffer, leaving most DRAM cycles available for normal accesses. Such operation is described in the paper All points addressable raster display memory by R. Matick, D. Ling, S. Gupta, and F. Dill, IBM Journal of R&D, Vol 28, No. To use the port, the controller first uses the DRAM port to select the row of the memory array that is to be displayed. The VRAM then copies that entire row to an internal row-buffer which is a shift register, the controller can then continue to use the DRAM port for drawing objects on the display. Meanwhile, the controller feeds a clock called the clock to the VRAMs video port. Each SCLK pulse causes the VRAM to deliver the data bit, in strict address order. For simplicity, the adapter is usually designed so that the contents of a row. Through the 1990s, many graphic subsystems used VRAM, with the number of megabits touted as a selling point. In the late 1990s, synchronous DRAM technologies gradually became affordable, dense, nevertheless, many of the VRAM concepts of internal, on-chip buffering and organization have been used and improved in modern graphics adapters
14.
Static random-access memory
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Static random-access memory is a type of semiconductor memory that uses bistable latching circuitry to store each bit. SRAM exhibits data remanence, but it is volatile in the conventional sense that data is eventually lost when the memory is not powered. The term static differentiates SRAM from DRAM which must be periodically refreshed, SRAM is faster and more expensive than DRAM, it is typically used for CPU cache while DRAM is used for a computers main memory. Several techniques have been proposed to power consumption of SRAM-based memory structures. Some amount is also embedded in all modern appliances, toys. Several megabytes may be used in products such as digital cameras, cell phones, synthesizers. SRAM in its form is sometimes used for realtime digital signal processing circuits. LCD screens and printers also normally employ static RAM to hold the image displayed, static RAM was used for the main memory of some early personal computers such as the ZX80, TRS-80 Model 100 and Commodore VIC-20. Hobbyists, specifically homebuilt processor enthusiasts, often prefer SRAM due to the ease of interfacing and it is much easier to work with than DRAM as there are no refresh cycles and the address and data buses are directly accessible rather than multiplexed. In addition to buses and power connections, SRAM usually requires only three controls, Chip Enable, Write Enable and Output Enable, in synchronous SRAM, Clock is also included. Non-volatile SRAMs, or nvSRAMs, have standard SRAM functionality, but they save the data when the supply is lost. NvSRAMs are used in a range of situations – networking, aerospace, and medical, among many others – where the preservation of data is critical. Address, data in and other signals are associated with the clock signals In 1990s. Nowadays, synchronous SRAM is rather employed similarly like Synchronous DRAM – DDR SDRAM memory is used than asynchronous DRAM. Synchronous memory interface is much faster as access time can be reduced by employing pipeline architecture. Furthermore, as DRAM is much cheaper than SRAM, SRAM is often replaced by DRAM, SRAM memory is however much faster for random access. Therefore, SRAM memory is used for CPU cache, small on-chip memory. Zero bus turnaround – the turnaround is the number of cycles it takes to change access to the SRAM from write to read
15.
Gex (video game)
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Gex is a side-scrolling platform game developed by Crystal Dynamics and originally released for the 3DO in 1995. Versions of the game were released for the PlayStation, the Sega Saturn. It was a game for Panasonic models of the 3DO later in the consoles life. It is the first game in the Gex series and introduces players to the title character, Gex served as Crystal Dynamicss mascot. Gex and his live in Maui, Hawaii. His mother raised him and his three siblings while their father worked for NASA. Gexs hobbies include spending time with his friends, surfing, playing the ukulele, one day, Gexs mother gets a phone call from NASA, explaining that Gexs father and ten human volunteers died when their rocket exploded on the launch pad. Soon, the gecko familys carefree life is shattered when Gex bottles up his emotions and takes refuge in front of the television to get over the tragedy, three weeks later, he becomes an addict to TV. After several unsuccessful attempts to get Gex to stop watching TV and consulting with a minister and friends at work, the gecko family moves to Encino, California, Gexs TV is taken away, and he flees from home. After several months of living on the streets, Gex inherits an enormous amount of money, and he back to Maui to live in a mansion. While watching TV one day, Gex swallows a passing fly, moments later, a huge hand shoots out of the screen and grabs Gex by his neck, pulling the young gecko into his own TV. The cold claw belonged to Rez, the overlord of the Media Dimension, Gex traverses through the worlds of the Media Dimension, each based on different genres, the Cemetery, New Toonland, Jungle Isle and Kung Fuville. The first world he encounters is a dome, surrounded by four large TVs. Gex then goes through the large TVs leading to each realm, collects the remotes within them, and defeats Rez accomplices in turn, Morphina, Gex also collects pieces to another remote, which allows him to travel to the mysterious Planet X. Once Gex manages to collect all the remotes, the Dome opens and he travels down to Rezopolis. Once inside, Gex defeats Rez in a battle, using one of Rez own mechanical bugs. Gex is then teleported back to his home in Maui, and looks back and his last words in the game are Hey, cool. In addition to being able to walk, run, and jump through levels, Gex can attach himself to walls and this technique is sometimes necessary to progress, but can also be used to bypass enemies and hazards
16.
Panasonic M2
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The Panasonic M2 was a video game console design developed by 3DO and then sold to Matsushita. Initially announced as a chip for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer. The console was cancelled in 1997, but the M2 technology was incorporated into other devices, development kits and prototypes of the machine became very valuable pieces among collectors. M2s technology was integrated in the multimedia players FZ-21S and FZ-35S, both products were aimed at professionals working in medicine, architecture and sales, not home users. The M2 also became a short-lived arcade board by Konami, as games ran straight from the CD-ROM drive, it suffered from long load times and a high failure rate, so only five games were developed for it. The M2 technology was used in automated teller machines. In the late 1990s and from 2000 on, the system was sold in the interactive kiosk market. In 2000, PlanetWeb, Inc. began offering software to allow the M2 to be used as an Internet appliance, as with the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, the M2 hardware was co-designed by Dave Needle and R. J. Mical. For a time, the M2 was scheduled to be released both as a unit and as an add-on chip. However, 3DO later sold rights to the M2 to Panasonic. For several months Panasonic and Sega were discussing a partnership over the M2, there were plans to make M2 models with built-in DVD players, similar to the later PlayStation 2. According to 3DO senior vice president of hardware engineering Toby Farrand, the M2 was considerably hyped by the gaming press. The M2 was cancelled so close to release, marketing had already taken place in the form of flyers, no Level 2 cache 1 integer unit,1 floating point unit, no branch processing unit,1 load/store unit SPECint92 rating of 40 each, approximately 70 MIPS each. 1 million transistors manufactured on a 0, in 2010 the only completed M2 game, IMSA Racing, was made available to the public. Polystars Total Vice Battle Tryst Evil Night / Hell Night Heat of Eleven 98 Konami Arcade based on M2 System 16 page on the Konami arcade board based on M2 technology M2, next Generation magazine, June 1997, p.63. Games That Werent 3DO/M2 – A website about unreleased 3DO M2 games
17.
Electronic Arts
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Electronic Arts Inc. is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Currently, EA develops and publishes games under several labels including EA Sports titles FIFA, Madden NFL, NHL, NCAA Football, NBA Live, and SSX. EA also owns and operates major gaming studios, EA Tiburon in Orlando, EA Canada in Burnaby, BioWare in Edmonton as well as Montreal, the company began developing games in-house and supported consoles by the early 1990s. EA later grew via acquisition of several successful developers, by the early 2000s, EA had become one of the worlds largest third-party publishers. In a note to employees, EA CEO John Riccitiello called this an important milestone for the company. EA began to move toward direct distribution of games and services with the acquisition of the popular online gaming site Pogo. com in 2001. In 2009, EA acquired the London-based social gaming startup Playfish, and in June 2011, EA launched Origin, there is also a On The House feature in Origin that lets you download full versions of EA games for free, it is updated regularly. In July 2011, EA announced that it had acquired PopCap Games, in February 1982, Trip Hawkins arranged a meeting with Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital to discuss financing his new venture, Amazin Software. Valentine encouraged Hawkins to leave Apple Inc. in which Hawkins served as Director of Product Marketing, on May 28,1982, Trip Hawkins incorporated and established the company with a personal investment of an estimated US$200,000. The company was not named Amazin Software, but instead Electronic Arts, seven months later in December 1982, Hawkins secured US$2 million of venture capital from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Sevin Rosen Funds. For more than seven months, Hawkins refined his Electronic Arts business plan, with aid from his first employee, Rich Melmon, the original plan was written, mostly by Hawkins, on an Apple II in Sequoia Capitals office in August 1982. The business plan was refined in September and reissued on October 8,1982. By November, employee headcount rose to 11, including Tim Mott, Bing Gordon, David Maynard, having outgrown the office space provided by Sequoia Capital, the company relocated to a San Mateo office that overlooked the San Francisco Airport landing path. Headcount rose rapidly in 1983, including Don Daglow, Richard Hilleman, Stewart Bonn, David Gardner and he recruited his original employees from Apple, Atari, Xerox PARC, and VisiCorp, and got Steve Wozniak to agree to sit on the board of directors. Hawkins was determined to sell directly to buyers, combined with the fact that Hawkins was pioneering new game brands, this made sales growth more challenging. Retailers wanted to buy known brands from existing distribution partners, after more flyers were handed out, former CEO Larry Probst arrived as VP of Sales in late 1984 and helped the company sustain growth into US$18 million in its third full year. This policy of dealing directly with retailers gave EA higher margins and better market awareness, in December 1986, David Gardner and Mark Lewkaspais moved to the UK to open a European headquarters. Up until that point publishing of Electronic Arts Games, and the conversion of many of their games to compact cassette versions in Europe was handled by Ariolasoft
18.
Trip Hawkins
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Trip Hawkins is an American entrepreneur and founder of Electronic Arts, The 3DO Company, and Digital Chocolate. Hawkins designed his own undergraduate major at Harvard University in Strategy, Hawkins was the Director of Strategy and Marketing at Apple Computer in 1982 when he left to found Electronic Arts, a video game publisher. Electronic Arts was successful for years under Hawkins leadership. He has been crediting with spearheading the games evolution from simple one-person creations to complex team projects during this time. Though he remained chair of the board, Hawkins transitioned from EA in 1991 to form 3DO and he resigned from the board of EA in July,1994. Meanwhile, 3DO was formed in partnership with other companies including EA. Upon its release in 1993, the 3DO was the most powerful video game console at the time and it was also expensive at launch, initially costing US$599, compared to other major systems retailing for under $200. Sales were poor due to its exorbitant price and weak games that relied excessively on full motion video sequences at the expense of gameplay, in 1996 3DO stopped developing the system and transitioned into a video game developer, making games for the PlayStation, PC and other consoles. Hawkins decided to make branding a focus and 6-to-9-month production timetables for games, as a result, quality suffered as did sales. Hawkins had used cash reserves to bail out the company before. Due to poor sales of its titles, it went bankrupt in May 2003, 3DO is now out of business. The company focuses on developing games for handheld devices and he stepped down from the CEO position at Digital Chocolate in May,2012. On March 20,2013, NativeX, an ad technology platform for games. His new startup, If You Can, aims to foster social and emotional development in children, teaching compassion and their first game, IF. uses a free-to-play model and is meant for teachers and students in an educational environment. In 2016, Hawkins joined University of California, Santa Barbara as Professor of Practice in the Technology Management Program, in 2005, Hawkins became the eighth person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame. Trip Hawkins at MobyGames Trip Hawkinss contribution to the Hospice Mask Project Hawkins entry 26 Most Fascinating Entrepreneurs from Inc. com Trip Hawkins speaks at Stanford University
19.
Robert J. Mical
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Robert J. RJ Mical is a pioneer and an influential figure in the video game industry. He created video games at Williams Electronics, helped invent the Amiga computer, and co-invented the Atari Lynx and he was the central developer of Amigas Intuition user interface and was well known at early Amiga gatherings. Mical was the architect of the Fathammer mobile game engine. From 2005 to 2011 he worked as a manager at Sony on the PlayStation product line. Since 2011 he has been working on games and inventions with his own company. In 2012 he started working on technology for Google. According to Mical he created his first electronic game, a tic-tac-toe player, Robert J. Mical graduated in 1979 from the University of Illinois with dual degrees in Computer Science and English, plus a minor in Philosophy. From 1983 to 1984, Mical was software engineer at Williams Electronics and he worked on different projects, creating special effects, enemy intelligence, graphics, interface logic, and documentation development. He was involved in the development of the game Sinistar and notably coordinated the Star Rider project, from 1984 to 1986, Robert J. Mical worked for Amiga Corporation and then Commodore International on the development of the Amiga 1000 and later models. As software engineer, he created various development tools and the system software. He developed Intuition, the Amiga user interface system software and he also contributed to the Amiga hardware design and helped create an early milestone software program for the computer, the Amiga Boing Demo. At the peak of his responsibilities he was appointed Director of Software, after leaving the company, he became an independent contractor, serving the Amiga community by creating development and support tools and games for a number of clients. He notably contributed to the development of Defender of the Crown from Cinemaware, from 1987 to 1989 he became vice-president of the game technology division of Epyx, reuniting with Dave Needle and their boss Dave Morse. He co-developed the first color handheld console, the Lynx, which was acquired by Atari Corporation. He was the co-designer of the hardware and put together a variety of development tools including runtime libraries. He also produced the six Lynx launch titles, like Blue Lightning, from 1990 to 1995, Mical was one of the co-founders of New Technologies Group, a company established primarily to create a new game system, reuniting again with Needle and Morse. Mical co-designed the hardware and headed the creation of the multitasking operating system. The company later merged with The 3DO Company and their technology became the base of the 32-bit console 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, Mical also created a number of other systems for NTG, including a file system for medical devices
20.
LG Corporation
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LG Corporation, formerly Lucky-GoldStar, is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation. It is the fourth-largest chaebol in South Korea and it is headquartered in the LG Twin Towers building in Yeouido-dong, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul. LG makes electronics, chemicals, and telecom products and operates subsidiaries such as LG Electronics, Zenith, LG Display, LG Uplus, LG Corp. established as Lak-Hui Chemical Industrial Corp. in 1947. In 1952, Lak-Hui became the first Korean company to enter the plastics industry, as the company expanded its plastic business, it established GoldStar Co. Ltd. In 1958, both companies Lucky and GoldStar merged and formed Lucky-GoldStar, GoldStar produced South Koreas first radio. Many consumer electronics were sold under the brand name GoldStar, while some other products were sold under the brand name of Lucky. The Lucky brand was famous for hygiene products such as soaps and HiTi laundry detergents, even today, LG continues to manufacture some of these products for the South Korean market, such as laundry detergent. In 1995, to better in the Western market, the Lucky-GoldStar Corporation was renamed LG. The company also associates the letters LG with the companys tagline Lifes Good, since 2009, LG has owned the domain name LG. com. Since 2001, LG had two joint ventures with Royal Philips Electronics, LG Philips Display and LG Philips LCD, in 2005, LG entered into a joint venture with Nortel Networks, creating LG-Nortel Co. Ltd. On 30 November 2012, comScore released a report of the October 2012 U. S, mobile Subscriber Market Share that found LG lost its place as second in the U. S. mobile market share to Apple Inc. On 20 January 2013, Counterpoint Research announced that LG has overtaken Apple to become second largest in U. S. market share. On 7 August 2013, comScore released a report of the June 2013 U. S. Smartphone Subscriber Market Share that found LG fell to fifth place in the U. S mobile market share. The company logo of LG features a circle containing the letters L and G and its telecom products include long-distance and international phone services, mobile and broadband telecommunications services, as well as consulting and telemarketing services. LG also operates the Coca-Cola Korea Bottling Company, manages real estate, offers management consulting, LG has owned the LG Twins and Changwon LG Sakers. 2013 Special Olympics World Winter Games Bayer 04 Leverkusen Changwon LG Sakers Copa América FIS Snowboard World Cup Formula One Swansea City A. F. C. Manchester City FC International Cricket Council LG Cup LG Cup LG Twins Los Angeles Dodgers Millonarios Fútbol Club NCAA Son Heung-min Son Yeon-jae Official website—
21.
Time (magazine)
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Time is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It was founded in 1923 and for decades was dominated by Henry Luce, a European edition is published in London and also covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong, the South Pacific edition, which covers Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, is based in Sydney, Australia. In December 2008, Time discontinued publishing a Canadian advertiser edition, Time has the worlds largest circulation for a weekly news magazine, and has a readership of 26 million,20 million of which are based in the United States. As of 2012, it had a circulation of 3.3 million making it the eleventh most circulated magazine in the United States reception room circuit, as of 2015, its circulation was 3,036,602. Richard Stengel was the editor from May 2006 to October 2013. Nancy Gibbs has been the editor since October 2013. Time magazine was created in 1923 by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce, the two had previously worked together as chairman and managing editor respectively of the Yale Daily News. They first called the proposed magazine Facts and they wanted to emphasize brevity, so that a busy man could read it in an hour. They changed the name to Time and used the slogan Take Time–Its Brief and it set out to tell the news through people, and for many decades the magazines cover depicted a single person. More recently, Time has incorporated People of the Year issues which grew in popularity over the years, notable mentions of them were Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, Matej Turk, etc. The first issue of Time was published on March 3,1923, featuring Joseph G. Cannon, the retired Speaker of the House of Representatives, on its cover, a facsimile reprint of Issue No. 1, including all of the articles and advertisements contained in the original, was included with copies of the February 28,1938 issue as a commemoration of the magazines 15th anniversary. The cover price was 15¢ On Haddens death in 1929, Luce became the dominant man at Time, the Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise 1923–1941. In 1929, Roy Larsen was also named a Time Inc. director, J. P. Morgan retained a certain control through two directorates and a share of stocks, both over Time and Fortune. Other shareholders were Brown Brothers W. A. Harriman & Co. the Intimate History of a Changing Enterprise 1957–1983. According to the September 10,1979 issue of The New York Times, after Time magazine began publishing its weekly issues in March 1923, Roy Larsen was able to increase its circulation by utilizing U. S. radio and movie theaters around the world. It often promoted both Time magazine and U. S. political and corporate interests, Larsen next arranged for a 30-minute radio program, The March of Time, to be broadcast over CBS, beginning on March 6,1931
22.
Sega
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Nonetheless, Sega remains the worlds most prolific arcade producer, with over 500 games in over 70 franchises on more than 20 different arcade system boards since 1981. Sega, along with their sub-studios, are known for their multi-million selling game franchises, such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Virtua Fighter, Phantasy Star, Yakuza, Segas head offices are located in Tokyo. Segas North American division, Sega of America, is headquartered in Irvine, California, Segas European division, Sega Europe, is headquartered in London. After the war, the founders sold that company and established a new distributor called Service Games and this company provided coin-operated slot machines to U. S. bases in Japan and changed its name again to Service Games of Japan by 1953. David Rosen, an American officer in the United States Air Force stationed in Japan and this company eventually became Rosen Enterprises, and in 1957, began importing coin-operated games to Japan. On May 31,1960, Service Games Japan was closed, Three days later, two new companies were established to take over its business activities, Nihon Goraku Bussan and Nihon Kikai Seizo. By 1965, Rosen Enterprises grew to a chain of over 200 arcades, Rosen then orchestrated a merger between Rosen Enterprises and Nihon Goraku Bussan, becoming chief executive of the new company, Sega Enterprises, which derived its name from Service Games. Within a year, Sega began the transition from importer to manufacturer, with the release of the submarine simulator game, the game sported light and sound effects considered innovative for that time, eventually becoming quite successful in Japan. It was soon exported to both Europe and the United States, becoming the first arcade game in the US to cost 25 cents per play, in 1969, Rosen sold Sega to American conglomerate Gulf and Western Industries, although he remained as CEO following the sale. Under Rosens leadership, Sega continued to grow and prosper, and in 1974, Gulf and Western made Sega Enterprises, a subsidiary of an American company renamed Sega Enterprises, Inc. allowing them to take the companys stock public. Sega prospered heavily from the gaming boom of the late 1970s. In 1982, Segas revenues surpassed $214 million and that year they introduced the first game with isometric graphics, Zaxxon, the industrys first stereoscopic 3D game, SubRoc 3D, and the first laserdisc video game, Astron Belt. Astron Belt wasnt released in the U. S. until 1983, other notable games from Sega during this period are Head On, Monaco GP, Carnival, Turbo, Space Fury, Astro Blaster, and Pengo. In 1983-4, Sega published Atari 2600 versions of some of its arcade games, Carnival, Space Fury, Turbo, and Zaxxon were licensed to Coleco as launch titles for the ColecoVision console in 1982. Some of these and other titles were licensed to different companies for 8-bit computer versions, the Atari 8-bit computer port of Zaxxon is from Datasoft, for example, while the Commodore 64 port is from Synapse. An overabundance of games in 1983 led to the game crash. Seeking an alternate source of revenue from the arcade market, Sega designed and released its first home video game console. G&W sold the U. S. assets of Sega Enterprises that same year to pinball manufacturer Bally Manufacturing, nakayama became the new CEO of Sega, Robert Deith chairman of the board, and Rosen became head of its subsidiary in the United States
23.
Nintendo
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Nintendo Co. Ltd. is a Japanese multinational consumer electronics and video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. Nintendo is one of the worlds largest video game companies by market capitalization, founded on 23 September 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small businesses, such as cab services. The word Nintendo can be translated from Japanese to English as leave luck to heaven. From 1992 until 2016, Nintendo was also the majority shareholder of Major League Baseballs Seattle Mariners, as of 31 March 2014, Nintendo has cumulative sales of over 670.43 million hardware units and 4.23 billion software units. The company has created and released some of the best-known and top-selling video game franchises, such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo was founded as a card company in late 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the produced and marketed a playing card game called Hanafuda. The handmade cards soon became popular, and Yamauchi hired assistants to mass-produce cards to satisfy demand, in 1949, the company adopted the name Nintendo Karuta Co. Ltd. doing business as The Nintendo Playing Card Co. outside Japan. Nintendo continues to manufacture playing cards in Japan and organizes its own contract bridge tournament called the Nintendo Cup. In 1956, Hiroshi Yamauchi, grandson of Fusajiro Yamauchi, visited the U. S. to talk with the United States Playing Card Company and he found that the biggest playing card company in the world was using only a small office. Yamauchis realization that the card business had limited potential was a turning point. He then acquired the license to use Disney characters on playing cards to drive sales, in 1963, Yamauchi renamed Nintendo Playing Card Co. Ltd. to Nintendo Co. Ltd. The company then began to experiment in other areas of business using newly injected capital during the period of time between 1963 and 1968, Nintendo set up a taxi company called Daiya. However, Nintendo was forced to sell it because problems with the unions were making it too expensive to run the service. It also set up a hotel chain, a TV network. All of these ventures failed, and after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, playing card sales dropped. In 1966, Nintendo moved into the Japanese toy industry with the Ultra Hand, Yokoi was moved from maintenance to the new Nintendo Games department as a product developer. Nintendo continued to produce toys, including the Ultra Machine, Love Tester
24.
Video game console
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A video game console is an electronic, digital or computer device that outputs a video signal or visual image to display a video game that one or more people can play. The term video game console is used to distinguish a console machine primarily designed for consumers to use for playing video games. An arcade machine consists of a video game computer, display, game controller, a home computer is a personal computer designed for home use for a variety of purposes, such as bookkeeping, accessing the Internet and playing video games. There are various types of game consoles, including home video game consoles, handheld game consoles, microconsoles. Although Ralph Baer had built working game consoles by 1966, it was nearly a decade before the Pong game made them commonplace in regular peoples living rooms. Through evolution over the 1990s and 2000s, game consoles have expanded to additional functions such as CD players, DVD players, Blu-ray disc players, web browsers, set-top boxes. The first video appeared in the 1960s. They were played on massive computers connected to vector displays, not analog televisions, Ralph H. Baer conceived the idea of a home video game in 1951. In the late 1960s, while working for Sanders Associates, Baer created a series of game console designs. In 1972, Magnavox released the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home game console which could be connected to a TV set. Magnavox replaced the switch design with separate cartridges for each game, by autumn 1975, Magnavox, bowing to the popularity of Pong, cancelled the Odyssey and released a scaled-down version that played only Pong and hockey, the Odyssey 100. A second, higher end console, the Odyssey 200, was released with the 100 and added on-screen scoring, up to four players, almost simultaneously released with Ataris own home Pong console through Sears, these consoles jump-started the consumer market. All three of the new consoles used simpler designs than the original Odyssey did with no board game pieces or extra cartridges, in the years that followed, the market saw many companies rushing similar consoles to market. Most of the consoles from this era were dedicated consoles playing only the games came with the console. These video game consoles were often just called video games, because there was reason to distinguish the two yet. While a few companies like Atari, Magnavox, and newcomer Coleco pushed the envelope, Fairchild released the Fairchild Video Entertainment System in 1976. The VES, however, contained a programmable microprocessor so its cartridges only needed a single ROM chip to store microprocessor instructions, RCA and Atari soon released their own cartridge-based consoles, the RCA Studio II and the Atari 2600, respectively. The first handheld console with interchangeable cartridges was the Microvision designed by Smith Engineering
25.
Commodore Amiga
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The Amiga is a family of personal computers sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The Amiga provided a significant upgrade from earlier 8-bit home computers, the Amiga 1000 was officially released in July 1985, but a series of production problems meant it did not become widely available until early 1986. The best selling model, the Amiga 500, was introduced in 1987 and became one of the home computers of the late 1980s. The A3000, introduced in 1990, started the second generation of Amiga systems, followed by the A500+, finally, as the third generation, the A1200 and the A4000 were released in late 1992. The platform became particularly popular for gaming and programming demos and it also found a prominent role in the desktop video, video production, and show control business, leading to video editing systems such as the Video Toaster. The Amigas native ability to play back multiple digital sound samples made it a popular platform for early tracker music software. It was also an expensive alternative to the Apple Macintosh. Initially, the Amiga was developed alongside various Commodore PC clones, Commodore ultimately went bankrupt in April 1994 after the Amiga CD32 model failed in the marketplace. Since the demise of Commodore, various groups have marketed successors to the original Amiga line, including Genesi, Eyetech, ACube Systems Srl, likewise, AmigaOS has influenced replacements, clones and compatible systems such as MorphOS, AmigaOS4 and AROS. The Amiga was so far ahead of its time that almost nobody—including Commodores marketing department—could fully articulate what it was all about. Today, its obvious the Amiga was the first multimedia computer, but in those days it was derided as a machine because few people grasped the importance of advanced graphics, sound. Nine years later, vendors are still struggling to make systems that work like 1985 Amigas, Jay Miner joined Atari in the 1970s to develop custom integrated circuits, and led development of the Atari 2600s TIA. Almost as soon as its development was complete, the team developing a much more sophisticated set of chips, CTIA, ANTIC and POKEY. With the 8-bit lines launch in 1979, Miner again started looking at a next generation chipset, Miner wanted to start work with the new Motorola 68000, but management was only interested in another MOS6502 based system. Miner left the company, and the industry, shortly thereafter, in 1982, Larry Kaplan was approached by a number of investors who wanted to develop a new game platform. Kaplan hired Miner to run the side of the newly formed company. The system was code-named Lorraine in keeping with Miners policy of giving systems female names, in case the company presidents wife. When Kaplan left the late in 1982 to rejoin Atari, Miner was promoted to head engineer
26.
Atari Lynx
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The Atari Lynx is a 16-bit handheld game console that was released by Atari Corporation in September 1989 in North America, and in Europe and Japan in 1990. The Lynx holds the distinction of being the worlds first handheld game with a color LCD. The system is notable for its forward-looking features, advanced graphics. The Lynx competed with the Game Boy, as well as the Game Gear and TurboExpress and it was discontinued when Atari was acquired by Hasbro Interactive in 1995. Comlynx was originally developed to run over infrared links and this was changed to a cable-based networking system before the final release. The Lynx was cited as the first gaming console with hardware support for zooming and these particular features were achieved over a year prior to the launch of the Super NES, whose stock hardware features the comparable Mode 7 but which cannot scale sprites. The Lynx was the handheld game system to be released with the Atari name. The first was Atari Inc. s handheld electronic game Touch Me, Atari Inc. had previously worked on several other handheld projects including the Breakout, Space Invaders, and the Atari Cosmos portable/tabletop console. However, those projects were shut down during development, some just short of their commercial release. The Lynx system was developed by Epyx as the Handy Game. In 1986, two former Amiga designers, R. J. Mical and Dave Needle, had been asked by manager at Amiga, David Morse. Morse now worked at Epyx, a software company that had a recent string of hit games. Morses son had asked him if he could make a gaming system, prompting the lunch with Mical. Morse convinced Mical and Needle to develop the idea and they were hired by Epyx to be a part of the design team, planning and design of the console began in 1986 and was completed in 1987. Epyx first showed the Handy system at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in January 1989, facing financial difficulties, Epyx sought out partners. Nintendo, Sega, and other companies declined, but Atari Corp. and Epyx eventually agreed that Atari Corp. would handle production and marketing, while Epyx would handle software development. The Handy was designed to run games from the format. Thus, less RAM is available and the games initially load relatively slowly, there are trace remnants of a cassette tape interface physically capable of being programmed to read a tape
27.
Sony
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Sony Corporation is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation that is headquartered in Kōnan, Minato, Tokyo. Its diversified business includes consumer and professional electronics, gaming, entertainment, the company is one of the leading manufacturers of electronic products for the consumer and professional markets. Sony was ranked 116th on the 2015 list of Fortune Global 500 and these make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. The group consists of Sony Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Financial Holdings and others. Sony is among the Semiconductor sales leaders by year and as of 2013, the companys current slogan is BE MOVED. Their former slogans were make. believe, like. no. other, Sony has a weak tie to the SMFG keiretsu, the successor to the Mitsui keiretsu. Sony began in the wake of World War II, in 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics shop in a department store building in Tokyo. The company had $530 in capital and a total of eight employees, in the following year he was joined by his colleague, Akio Morita, and they founded a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo 東京通信工業. The company built Japans first tape recorder, called the Type-G, in 1958 the company changed its name to Sony. When Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo was looking for a name to use to market themselves, they strongly considered using their initials. The primary reason they did not is that the railway company Tokyo Kyuko was known as TTK, the company occasionally used the acronym Totsuko in Japan, but during his visit to the United States, Morita discovered that Americans had trouble pronouncing that name. Another early name that was tried out for a while was Tokyo Teletech until Akio Morita discovered that there was an American company already using Teletech as a brand name, the name Sony was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words. One was the Latin word sonus, which is the root of sonic and sound, and the other was sonny, a common slang term used in 1950s America to call a boy. In the 1950s Japan sonny boys, was a word into Japanese which connoted smart and presentable young men. The first Sony-branded product, the TR-55 transistor radio, appeared in 1955, at the time of the change, it was extremely unusual for a Japanese company to use Roman letters to spell its name instead of writing it in kanji. The move was not without opposition, TTKs principal bank at the time and they pushed for a name such as Sony Electronic Industries, or Sony Teletech. Akio Morita was firm, however, as he did not want the company tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Ibuka and Mitsui Banks chairman gave their approval, according to Schiffer, Sonys TR-63 radio cracked open the U. S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics
28.
PlayStation (console)
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The PlayStation is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. The console was released on 3 December 1994 in Japan,9 September 1995 in North America,29 September 1995 in Europe, the console was the first of the PlayStation lineup of home video game consoles. It primarily competed with the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn as part of the generation of video game consoles. The PlayStation is the first computer entertainment platform to ship 100 million units, in 2000, a redesigned, slim version called the PSone was released, replacing the original grey console and named appropriately to avoid confusion with its successor, the PlayStation 2. In 1999, Sony announced the successor to the PlayStation, the PlayStation 2, which is compatible with the PlayStations DualShock controller and games. The last PSone units were sold in winter 2004 before it was discontinued in March 2005. The inception of what would become the released PlayStation dates back to 1986 with a joint venture between Nintendo and Sony, Nintendo approached Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on, tentatively titled the Play Station or SNES-CD. A contract was signed, and work began, Kutaragi was nearly fired by Sony because he was originally working with Nintendo on the side without Sonys knowledge. It was then-CEO, Norio Ohga, who recognized the potential in Kutaragis chip, Ohga kept Kutaragi on at Sony, and it was not until Nintendo cancelled the project that Sony decided to develop its own console. This was also to be the used in SNES-CDs, giving a large degree of control to Sony despite Nintendos leading position in the video gaming market. The product, dubbed the Play Station was to be announced at the May 1991 Consumer Electronics Show, yamauchi decided that the contract was totally unacceptable and he secretly cancelled all plans for the joint Nintendo-Sony SNES CD attachment. After the collapse of the project, Sony briefly considered allying itself with Sega to produce a stand-alone console. The Sega CEO at the time, Tom Kalinske, took the proposal to Segas Board of Directors in Tokyo, Kalinske, in a 2013 interview recalled them saying that’s a stupid idea, Sony doesnt know how to make hardware. They don’t know how to make software either, why would we want to do this. The federal judge presiding over the case denied the injunction and, in October 1991, however, it is theorized that only 200 or so of these machines were ever produced. However, Sony decided in early 1993 to begin reworking the Play Station concept to target a new generation of hardware and software. As part of process the SNES cartridge port was dropped. Early advertising prior to the launch in North America referenced PSX
29.
Samsung
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Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the Samsung brand, Samsung was founded by Lee Byung-chul in 1938 as a trading company. Over the next three decades, the group diversified into areas including food processing, textiles, insurance, securities, Samsung entered the electronics industry in the late 1960s and the construction and shipbuilding industries in the mid-1970s, these areas would drive its subsequent growth. Following Lees death in 1987, Samsung was separated into four business groups – Samsung Group, Shinsegae Group, CJ Group, since 1990, Samsung has increasingly globalised its activities and electronics, in particular, its mobile phones and semiconductors have become its most important source of income. Notable Samsung industrial affiliates include Samsung Electronics, Samsung Heavy Industries, other notable subsidiaries include Samsung Life Insurance, Samsung Everland and Cheil Worldwide. Samsung has an influence on South Koreas economic development, politics, media. Its affiliate companies produce around a fifth of South Koreas total exports, Samsungs revenue was equal to 17% of South Koreas $1,082 billion GDP. On 17 February 2017, Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was arrested for bribery, embezzlement, hiding assets overseas, according to Samsungs founder, the meaning of the Korean hanja word Samsung is tri-star or three stars. The word three represents something big, numerous and powerful, in 1938, Lee Byung-chull of a large landowning family in the Uiryeong county moved to nearby Daegu city and founded Samsung Sanghoe. Samsung started out as a trading company with forty employees located in Su-dong. It dealt in dried-fish, locally-grown groceries and made noodles, the company prospered and Lee moved its head office to Seoul in 1947. When the Korean War broke out, he was forced to leave Seoul and he started a sugar refinery in Busan named Cheil Jedang. In 1954, Lee founded Cheil Mojik and built the plant in Chimsan-dong and it was the largest woollen mill ever in the country. Samsung diversified into different areas. Lee sought to establish Samsung as leader in a range of industries. Samsung moved into lines of such as insurance, securities. President Park Chung Hee placed great importance on industrialization and he focused his economic development strategy on a handful of large domestic conglomerates, protecting them from competition and assisting them financially. In 1947, Cho Hong-jai, the Hyosung groups founder, jointly invested in a new company called Samsung Mulsan Gongsa, or the Samsung Trading Corporation, the trading firm grew to become the present-day Samsung C&T Corporation
30.
Toshiba
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Toshiba Corporation, commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Toshiba was founded in 1938 as Tokyo Shibaura Electric K. K. through the merger of Shibaura Seisaku-sho, the company name was officially changed to Toshiba Corporation in 1978. Toshiba is organized into four groupings, the Digital Products Group, the Electronic Devices Group, the Home Appliances Group and the Social Infrastructure Group. It is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where it is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX indices, the Osaka Securities Exchange, Toshiba is the seventh largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world. Toshiba was founded in 1939 by the merger of Shibaura Seisakusho, Shibaura Seisakusho had been founded as Tanaka Seisakusho by Tanaka Hisashige in July 1875 as Japans first manufacturer of telegraph equipment. In 1904, it was renamed Shibaura Seisakusho, Tokyo Denki was founded as Hakunetsusha in 1890 and had been Japans first producer of incandescent electric lamps. It later diversified into the manufacture of consumer products and in 1899 had been renamed Tokyo Denki. The merger of Shibaura and Tokyo Denki created a new company called Tokyo Shibaura Denki and it was soon nicknamed Toshiba, but it was not until 1978 that the company was officially renamed Toshiba Corporation. The group expanded rapidly, driven by a combination of growth and by acquisitions, buying heavy engineering. In 1977, Toshiba acquired the Brazilian company Semp, subsequently forming Semp Toshiba through the combination of the two companies South American operations, the Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal involved a subsidiary of Toshiba and the Norwegian company Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk. Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania said What Toshiba and Kongsberg did was ransom the security of the United States for $517 million, the contract ended in 2008, ending seven years of OEM production with Orion. In December 2004, Toshiba quietly announced it would discontinue manufacturing traditional in-house cathode ray tube televisions, in 2006, Toshiba terminated production of in-house plasma TVs. To ensure its competitiveness in the flat-panel digital television and display market. Before World War II, Toshiba was a member of the Mitsui Group zaibatsu, today Toshiba is a member of the Mitsui keiretsu, and still has preferential arrangements with Mitsui Bank and the other members of the keiretsu. Membership in a keiretsu has traditionally meant loyalty, both corporate and private, to members of the keiretsu or allied keiretsu. This loyalty can extend as far as the beer the employees consume, in July 2005, BNFL confirmed it planned to sell Westinghouse Electric Company, then estimated to be worth $1.8 billion. In late 2007, Toshiba took over from Discover Card as the sponsor of the top-most screen of One Times Square in New York City and it displays the iconic 60-second New Years countdown on its screen, as well as messages, greetings, and advertisements for the company. In January 2009, Toshiba acquired the HDD business of Fujitsu, Toshiba announced on 16 May 2011, that it had agreed to acquire all of the shares of the Swiss-based advanced-power-meter maker Landis+Gyr for $2.3 billion
31.
AT&T
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AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate, headquartered at Whitacre Tower in downtown Dallas, Texas. AT&T is the third-largest company in Texas, as of February 2017, AT&T is the 12th largest company in the world as measured by a composite of revenues, profits, assets and market valuation. AT&T is the largest telecommunications company in the world by revenue, as of 2017, it is also the 18th-largest mobile telecom operator in the world, with 135 million mobile customers. AT&T was ranked at #4 on the 2017 rankings of the worlds most valuable brands published by Brand Finance, Southwestern Bell changed its name to SBC Communications Inc. in 1995. In 2005, SBC purchased former parent AT&T Corp. and took on its branding, with the merged entity naming itself AT&T Inc. and using the iconic AT&T Corp. logo and stock-trading symbol. The current AT&T reconstitutes much of the former Bell System and includes ten of the original 22 Bell Operating Companies, AT&T can trace its origin back to the original Bell Telephone Company founded by Alexander Graham Bell after his invention of the telephone. This monopoly was known as the Bell System, and during this period, for periods of time, the former AT&T was the worlds largest phone company. In 1982, U. S. regulators broke up the AT&T monopoly, requiring AT&T to divest its regional subsidiaries and these new companies were known as Regional Bell Operating Companies, or more informally, Baby Bells. AT&T continued to long distance services, but as a result of this breakup, faced competition from new competitors such as MCI. Southwestern Bell was one of the created by the breakup of AT&T. The architect of divestiture for Southwestern Bell was Robert G. Pope, the company soon started a series of acquisitions. This includes the 1987 acquisition of Metromedia mobile business, and the acquisition of several companies in the early 1990s. In the later half of the 1990s, the company acquired several other companies, including some Baby Bells. During this time, the changed its name to SBC Communications. By 1998, the company was in the top 15 of the Fortune 500, in 2005, SBC purchased AT&T for $16 billion. After this purchase, SBC adopted the better-known AT&T name and brand, the current AT&T claims the original AT&Ts history as its own, though its corporate structure only dates from 1983. It also retains SBCs pre-2005 stock price history, in September 2013, AT&T announced it would expand into Latin America through a collaboration with Carlos Slims América Móvil. In December 2013, AT&T announced plans to sell its Connecticut wireline operations to Stamford-based Frontier Communications, in July 2015, AT&T purchased DirecTV for $48.5 billion, or $67.1 billion including assumed debt
32.
Consumer Electronics Show
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The Consumer Electronics Show is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association. Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, the first CES was held in June 1967 in New York City. It was a spinoff from the Chicago Music Show, which then had served as the main event for exhibiting consumer electronics. The event had 17,500 attendees and over 100 exhibitors, from 1978 to 1994, CES was held twice each year, once in January in Las Vegas known as Winter Consumer Electronics Show and once in June in Chicago, known as Summer Consumer Electronics Show. The winter show was held in Las Vegas in 1995 as planned. However, the inaugural E3 gaming show was scheduled to be held on the West Coast in May and proved a source of increasing competition, causing the Philadelphia Summer CES show to be cancelled. The 1996 Winter show was held in Las Vegas in January, followed by a Summer show this time in Orlando, Florida. Again, the 1997 Winter show in Las Vegas was very successful, the next Summer show was scheduled to be held in conjunction with Spring COMDEX in Atlanta, however when only two dozen-or-so exhibitors signed on, the CES portion of the show was cancelled. In 1998, the changed to a once-a-year format with Las Vegas as the location. In Las Vegas, the show is one of the largest, taking up to 18 days to set up, run, organizers held the first CES in New York City from June 24 to 28,1967. The 200 exhibitors attracted 17,500 attendees to the Hilton, on view, the latest pocket radios and TVs sporting integrated circuits. In a one-time experiment, the Summer CES1993 was open to the general public, major announcements during this edition were, Capcom unveils Mega Man X First Time in North American. The Blu-ray Group held at the January 2004 CES the first US press conference to promote the Blu-ray Disc format, the 2005 CES was from January 6–9,2005, in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Samsung showed off a 102-inch plasma television, zimiti Ltd won the Best of Innovators award for Personal Electronics. It is the only British company to have won this award, the 2006 exhibition took place on January 5–8,2006 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Sands Convention Center, the Alexis Park Hotel and the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel. HDTV was a theme in the Bill Gates keynote as well as many of the other manufacturers speeches. The standards competition between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc was conspicuous, with some of the first HD movie releases, philips showed a rollable display prototype whose screen can retain an image for several months without electricity. Hillcrest Labs won the Best Of Innovations award in the video category for software and hardware that allows a television to be controlled with natural gestures
33.
Razor and blades model
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The razor and blades business model is a business model wherein one item is sold at a low price in order to increase sales of a complementary good, such as supplies. For example, inkjet printers require ink cartridges, and game consoles require accessories and it is distinct from loss leader marketing and free sample marketing, which do not depend on complementary products or services. The urban legend about Gillette is that he realized that a razor blade would not only be convenient. To foster that stream, he sold razors at a low price to create the market for the blades. This model has been used in several businesses for many years, with a monopoly in the American domestic market, Standard Oil and its owner, John D. Rockefeller, looked to China to expand their business. Representatives of Standard Oil gave away eight million kerosene lamps for free or sold them at reduced prices to increase the demand for kerosene. Among American businessmen, this rise to the catchphrase Oil for the lamps of China. Alice Tisdale Hobarts novel Oil for the Lamps of China was a treatment of the phenomenon. Comcast often gives away DVRs to its subscribing customers, however, the cost of giving away each free DVR is offset by a $19.95 installation fee as well as a $13.95 monthly subscription fee to use the machine. Based on an assumed cost of $250 per DVR box to Comcast, after 18 months the loss would balance out. The razor and blades model may be threatened if the price of the high margin consumables in question due to competition. For such a market to be successful the company must have a monopoly on the corresponding goods. This can make the practice illegal, computer printer manufacturers have gone through extensive efforts to make sure that their printers are incompatible with lower cost after-market ink cartridges and refilled cartridges. This is because the printers are sold at or below cost to generate sales of proprietary cartridges which will generate profits for the company over the life of the equipment. In Lexmark Intl v. Static Control Components the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that circumvention of Lexmarks ink cartridge lock does not violate the DMCA. On the other hand, in August 2005, Lexmark won a case in the United States that allows them to sue certain large customers for violating their boxwrap license, Atari had a similar problem in the 1980s with Atari 2600 games. Atari was initially the only developer and publisher of games for the 2600, it sold the 2600 itself at cost, when several programmers left to found Activision and began publishing cheaper games of comparable quality, Atari was left without a source of profit. Lawsuits to block Activision were unsuccessful, Atari added measures to ensure games were from licensed producers only for its later-produced 5200 and 7800 consoles
34.
Set-top box
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They are used in cable television, satellite television, and over-the-air television systems, as well as other uses. The signal source might be an Ethernet cable, a dish, a coaxial cable. Content, in context, could mean any or all of video, audio, Internet web pages, interactive video games. Satellite and microwave-based services also require specific external receiver hardware, so the use of boxes of various formats has never completely disappeared. Set-top boxes can also enhance source signal quality, however, most cable systems could not accommodate the full 54-890 MHz VHF/UHF frequency range and the twelve channels of VHF space were quickly exhausted on most systems. These frequencies corresponded to non-television services over-the-air and were not on standard TV receivers. The box allowed an analog television set to receive analog encrypted cable channels and was a prototype topology for later date digital encryption devices. Newer televisions were then converted to be analog cypher cable-ready, with the standard converter built-in for selling premium television, several years later and slowly marketed, the advent of digital cable continued and increased the need for various forms of these devices. Set-top boxes were made to enable closed captioning on older sets in North America. Some have also produced to mute the audio when profanity is detected in the captioning. Some also include a V-chip that allows programs of some television content ratings. A function that limits childrens time watching TV or playing games may also be built in. The transition to terrestrial television after the turn of the millennium left many existing television receivers unable to tune. Professional set-top boxes are referred to as IRDs or integrated receiver/decoders in the professional broadcast audio/video industry and they are designed for more robust field handling and rack mounting environments. IRDs are capable of outputting uncompressed serial digital interface signals, unlike consumer STBs which usually dont, advanced Digital Broadcast launched its first hybrid DTT/IPTV set-top box in 2005, which provided Telefónica with the digital TV platform for its Movistar TV service by the end of that year. UK based Inview Technology has over 8M STBs deployed in the UK for Teletext, in IPTV networks, the set-top box is a small computer providing two-way communications on an IP network and decoding the video streaming media. In the US and Europe, telephone companies use IPTV as a means to compete with local cable television monopolies. This type of service is distinct from Internet television, which involves third-party content over the public Internet not controlled by the system operator
35.
Computer Gaming World
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Computer Gaming World was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. In 1979 Russell Sipe left the Southern Baptist Convention ministry, a fan of computer games, he realized in spring 1981 there was no magazine dedicated to computer games. Although Sipe had no publishing experience, he formed Golden Empire Publications in June, the first issue appeared in November, at about the same as rivals Electronic Games and Softline. Early bi-monthly issues were typically 40-50 pages in length, written in a style, including submissions by game designers such as Joel Billings, Dan Bunten. As well, early covers were not always related to the magazines contents. In January/February 1986 CGW increased its publication cycle to nine times a year, and the staff included popular writers such as Scorpia, Charles Ardai. CGW survived the game crash of 1983, which badly hurt the market. In autumn 1987 CGW introduced a quarterly newsletter called Computer Game Forum, the newsletter never became popular, only two issues were published before it was cancelled. Some of CGFs content became part of CGW, which became a monthly, the magazine went through significant expansion starting in 1991, with growing page counts reaching 196 pages by its 100th issue, in November 1992. During that same year, Johnny Wilson became editor-in-chief, although Sipe remained as Publisher, in 1993, he sold the magazine to Ziff Davis but continued on as Publisher until 1995. The magazine kept growing through the 1990s, with the December 1997 issue weighing in at 500 pages, in 1999, Wilson left the magazine and George Jones became editor-in-chief, at a time when print magazines were struggling with the growing popularity of the Internet. Jones was replaced by Jeff Green in 2002, on August 2,2006, Ziff Davis and Microsoft jointly announced that Computer Gaming World would be replaced with Games for Windows, The Official Magazine. The final CGW-labeled issue was November 2006, for a total of 268 published editions, simultaneously with the release of the final CGW issue, Ziff Davis announced the availability of the CGW Archive. The Archive features complete copies of the first 100 issues of CGW, as well as the 2 CGF issues, the Archive was created by Stephane Racle, of the Computer Gaming World Museum, and is available in PDF format. Every issue was processed through Optical Character Recognition, which enabled the creation of a 3+ million word master index, although Ziff Davis has taken its CGW Archive site offline, the magazines can be downloaded from the Computer Gaming World Museum. On April 8,2008, 1UP Network announced the print edition of Games for Windows, The Official Magazine had ceased, CGW featured reviews, previews, news, features, letters, strategy, and columns dealing with computer games. While console games are occasionally touched on, these are primarily the territory of CGWs sister magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly, tom vs. Bruce sometimes featured a guest appearance by Erik Wolpaw, formerly of Old Man Murray. For many years, CGW never assigned scores to reviews, preferring to let readers rate their favorite games through a monthly poll, scores were finally introduced in 1994
36.
Atari Jaguar
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The Atari Jaguar is a home video game console that was developed by Atari Corporation. The console was the sixth and last programmable console to be developed under the Atari brand, controversially, Atari marketed the Jaguar as being the first 64-bit video game console, while competing with the existing 16-bit consoles and the 32-bit 3DO Interactive Multiplayer platform. With development of the Jaguar running ahead of schedule, the Panther was cancelled, and it was originally released to test markets in New York City and San Francisco in November 1993, and to the general public in 1994, with Cybermorph as the pack-in launch game. The consoles multi-chip architecture made game development for the console difficult and this, in addition to the lack of internal development at Atari, led to a limited games library, comprising only 67 licensed titles. With the release of the Sega Saturn and Sonys PlayStation in 1995, sales of the Jaguar continued to fall, the Jaguar was deemed a commercial failure, and prompted Atari to leave the home video game console market. After Hasbro Interactive bought out Atari in the late 1990s, the patents to the Jaguar were released into the public domain, since then, the Jaguar has gained a cult following, with a developer base that produces homebrew games for the console. The Jaguar was developed by the members of Flare Technology, a formed by Martin Brennan. The team had claimed that they could not only make a superior to the Genesis or the Super NES. Impressed by their work on the Konix Multisystem, Atari persuaded them to close Flare and form a new company called Flare II, Flare II initially set to work designing two consoles for Atari Corp. The Jaguar was unveiled in August 1993 at the Chicago Consumer Entertainment Show, the Jaguar was introduced in 1993 at a price of $249.99, under a $500 million manufacturing deal with IBM. The system was available only in the test markets of New York City and San Francisco, under the slogan Do the Math. A U. S. -wide release followed six months later, the Atari Jaguar struggled to attain a substantial user base. In 1993, Atari reported that it had shipped 17,000 units as part of the initial test market. By the end of 1994, Atari reported that it had sold approximately 100,000 systems and had reduced the price to improve the competitive nature of the console. By the end of 1995, Sony and Sega had entered the marketplace with competing consoles, the lack of titles was attributable to two main factors, the Jaguars questionable long-term prospects among third-party game-publishers and the problematic nature of developing games for the Jaguar. In addition, the Jaguars underlying hardware was crippled by a flaw in the CPUs memory controller, less severe defects included a buggy UART. The memory controller flaw could have been mitigated by a mature code-development environment, Jaguars development tools left much to the programmers own implementation, as documentation was incomplete. Writing game-code was often an exercise in the tedious assembler
37.
LaserActive
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The LaserActive is a converged device and fourth-generation home video game console capable of playing Laserdiscs, Compact Discs, console games, and LD-G karaoke discs. It was released by Pioneer Corporation in 1993, in addition to LaserActive games, separately sold add-on modules accepts Mega Drive/Genesis and PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 ROM cartridges and CD-ROMs. Pioneer released the LaserActive model CLD-A100 in Japan on August 20,1993 at a cost of ¥89,800, and in the United States on September 13,1993 at a cost of $970. An NEC-branded version of the LaserActive player, the PCE-LD1, was released on December 1993, the LaserActive has no regional lockout, allowing software from any region to be played on any system. In the headings below, the Japanese model number occurs first and it was the most popular add-on bought by the greater part of the LaserActive owners, costing roughly US $600. It comes with a LaserActive-branded version of Segas 6-button control pad, the Japanese version of the PAC can also run Arcade CD-ROM² discs through the use of an Arcade Card Duo. The retail price was US $600 and it comes with a LaserActive-branded version of NECs Turbo Pad. A NEC branded version of the LD-ROM² PAC was also released, karaoke PAC This PAC allows the CLD-A100 to use all NTSC LaserKaraoke titles. The front panel has two inputs with separated volume controls, as well as tone control. The retail price was US $350, Computer Interface PAC The Computer Interface PAC has an RS-232 port, enabling the CLD-A100 to be controlled by a custom software developed for a home computer. The PAC came with a 33-button infrared remote control providing more functionality than the 24-button remote included with the CLD-A100 and it also included a computer program called LaserActive Program Editor on floppy disk for DOS and classic Mac OS. The floppy disks had some sample programs created with the editor for use with the first five LaserDiscs in the Tenchi Muyo. anime series. The LaserActive 3-D Goggles employ an active shutter 3D system compatible with at least four 3D-ready LD-ROM software titles, 3-D Museum, Vajra 2, and Virtual Cameraman 2, 3D Virtual Australia was the last software title published for the LaserActive. The goggles are also compatible with the Sega Master System, and are interchangeable with the SegaScope 3-D Glasses and they can also be used to view 3-D images from autostereograms. A goggle adapter, packaged and sold separately from the 3-D Goggles, enables the user to one or two pairs of goggles to the CLD-A100. The standard LaserActive games were on Laserdisc encoded as an LD-ROM, an LD-ROM had a capacity of 540 MB with 60 minutes of analog audio and video. In the early 1990s, a number of consumer electronics manufacturers designed converged devices around CD-ROM technology, at the time, CD-ROM systems were expensive. The LaserActive was one of several multipurpose, multi-format, upmarket home entertainment systems with software stored on optical discs and these systems were premised on early conceptions of multimedia entertainment
38.
Multimedia
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Multimedia is content that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, video and interactive content. Multimedia contrasts with media that use only rudimentary computer displays such as text-only or traditional forms of printed or hand-produced material, Multimedia devices are electronic media devices used to store and experience multimedia content. Multimedia is distinguished from mixed media in art, for example. The term rich media is synonymous with interactive multimedia, the term multimedia was coined by singer and artist Bob Goldstein to promote the July 1966 opening of his LightWorks at LOursin show at Southampton, Long Island. Goldstein was perhaps aware of an American artist named Dick Higgins, two years later, in 1968, the term multimedia was re-appropriated to describe the work of a political consultant, David Sawyer, the husband of Iris Sawyer—one of Goldsteins producers at LOursin. In the intervening forty years, the word has taken on different meanings, in the late 1970s, the term referred to presentations consisting of multi-projector slide shows timed to an audio track. However, by the 1990s multimedia took on its current meaning, in the 1993 first edition of Multimedia, Making It Work, Tay Vaughan declared Multimedia is any combination of text, graphic art, sound, animation, and video that is delivered by computer. When you allow the user – the viewer of the project – to control what, when you provide a structure of linked elements through which the user can navigate, interactive multimedia becomes hypermedia. The German language society Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache recognized the words significance, the institute summed up its rationale by stating has become a central word in the wonderful new media world. In common usage, multimedia refers to an electronically delivered combination of media including video, still images, audio, much of the content on the web today falls within this definition as understood by millions. That era saw also a boost in the production of educational multimedia CD-ROMs, the term video, if not used exclusively to describe motion photography, is ambiguous in multimedia terminology. Video is often used to describe the format, delivery format. Multiple forms of content are often not considered modern forms of presentation such as audio or video. Likewise, single forms of content with single methods of information processing are often called multimedia. Performing arts may also be considered multimedia considering that performers and props are multiple forms of content and media. Multimedia presentations may be viewed by person on stage, projected, transmitted, a broadcast may be a live or recorded multimedia presentation. Broadcasts and recordings can be analog or digital electronic media technology. Digital online multimedia may be downloaded or streamed, streaming multimedia may be live or on-demand
39.
Return Fire
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Return Fire is a 1995 video game developed by Silent Software, Inc. for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer and later ported to the PC and PlayStation in 1996. It was preceded by Fire Power and followed by Return Fire 2, an expansion pack, Return Fire, Maps O Death, was released for the 3DO in 1995. Return Fire is a shooter from a 3D birds eye view, in which the players goal is to capture the enemy flag. Return Fire has four specialized vehicles, each one with unique abilities, each vehicle can carry a limited amount of fuel and ammo and can withstand different amounts of damage. If a land vehicle runs out of fuel it stops and the driver jumps out, the tank has a 360° rotating turret and the ability to fire at land or air targets. The helicopter cannot resupply itself with fuel and ammunition unless it returns to base, the HRSV/M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System is the most armored vehicle, but the slowest moving. It has the ability to lay mines which can destroy any land vehicle. The jeep/buggy is the fastest land vehicle and solely possesses the ability to pick, move. Jeeps have the ability to over-inflate their tires and travel across deep water and they are the weakest vehicles, requiring only one hit to destroy. Only rotating missile turrets and drones are a threat to the player in the single player mode. If the player exceeds the boundaries of the map, a submarine emerges and fires a missile against the player. When driving in the Armored Support Vehicle, Edvard Griegs In the Hall of the Mountain King plays, during the opening title screen Verdis Dies Irae plays as the Return Fire logo appears, engulfed in flame. At the completion of level, a sequence of unrelated vintage black. When a level is completed in the PC or PlayStation version a short clip is shown. One of these is a clip featuring Lou Gehrigs famous Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth speech. Manny LaMancha of GamePro gave the 3DO version a review, describing it as a combination of the best parts of playing Capture the flag, Desert Strike. He complimented the easy-to-master controls, the graphics, and the sense of humor. The review team of Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it their Game of the Month award, applauding the two-player mode, classical soundtrack, graphics, ed Semrad summarized that In an industry flooded with sports and fighting carts, this comes as a breath of fresh air
40.
FIFA International Soccer
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FIFA International Soccer is a 1993 sports video game developed by EA Canadas Extended Play Productions team and published by Electronic Arts. Based on the sport of football, the game tasks the player with controlling a football team. The game was released for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive console in December 1993, the game was positively received on release, critics lauded the detail and animation of the footballers in the game, the crowd sound effects and the overall presentation. The speed the game ran at and issues with the response to the players input were seen as the games primary faults, the game sold well, served as a pack-in game for the Goldstar 3DO, and led to a sequel, FIFA Soccer 95. It was the first game in the FIFA series, FIFA International Soccer is a video game that created one of the earliest full simulations of association football. In particular, the game is based on international matches, the game utilises an isometric viewpoint, unlike other football games at the time such as Sensible Soccer which utilised a birds-eye view or Kick Off which used a top-down view. The player controls one of the eleven footballers on their team at a time, the game allows up to four human players at the same time, each controlling a different footballer. The players can choose to control a footballer on the team or on opposing teams. The remaining footballers are controlled by the computer, four modes of play — Exhibition, Tournament, Playoffs and League — are available. Exhibition engages the player in a single match, Playoffs mode takes the same form, but skips the group games and starts at the first knockout game. League consists of eight teams who contest a double round-robin tournament, the game features 48 national teams in total, plus a team called EA All Stars. The players are fictional and look the same, except for the fact that the players of certain teams have a darker skin. An oversight by the developers makes it easy to score a goal by making a stand in front of the opponents goalkeeper when he holds the ball in his hands and is about to clear it away. The computer-controlled goalkeeper will kick the ball into the opposing player, Electronic Arts had first ventured in the sports games market in 1988 with an American football title, John Madden Football. Updated versions of the game, along with golf and ice hockey games followed under the EASN banner, EA US gave the go-ahead for the project to proceed, and a team of ten developers at EAs Canadian studios began work on the project led by Bruce McMillan. Initially, the development took place for the Sega Genesis under the title of EA Soccer, with a small budget of around $50. The deal involved minuscule royalty payments, and on further inspection the reason became clear, the licence didnt include any team names, logos, player names, likenesses or stadiums. The game would only include national teams identified by country names and flags
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Jurassic Park Interactive
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Jurassic Park Interactive is an action video game based on the 1993 movie Jurassic Park. It was released in North America on May 10,1994 exclusively for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer by Universal Interactive Studios, the game was later released in Japan on December 2,1994. It is Universal Interactives first ever videogame released, the games interface is set as a computer screen that allows the player to navigate a map of the island, as well as a collection of five minigames programmed by Dennis Nedry. The end of the game once the player successfully relocates all of the islands guests to the helipad dock. Depending on the difficulty level chosen, more guests are shown on the map to be saved, in the minigames the player controls feather-light jeeps and microchips that blast floppy disks that read DUMP. Jurassic Park Interactive had originally intended as the 3DO pack-in title for the consoles October 1993 launch. Approximately 10 people worked on the game during its 14-month development period, designer Greg Gorsiski said about the game, Its the hardest thing Ive ever had to do. How do you rewrite a linear story for a non-linear environment and its a task that a lot of game designers wouldnt touch with a 10-foot pole. The game was not showcased at Chicagos Summer Consumer Electronics Show in June 1993, Jurassic Park Interactive was the first game to be published by MCAs Universal Interactive division. Universal and MCA hoped the game would increase sales of its struggling 3DO Interactive Multiplayer game system, Universal Interactive spent a considerable amount of money to market the game. Jurassic Park Interactive was the video game adaptation of Jurassic Park to use footage. Although footage from the film is included in the opening sequence, look-alike actors portray the characters in further game cutscenes and images. They later rated the game 9 out of 10 in their 1995 Videogame Buyers Guide, gamePros review asserted that the music is the games only good point, lambasting the long load times, substandard graphics, simplistic and boring gameplay, and unvarying video sequences. Shawn Sackenheim of AllGame rated the game 3 stars out of 5 and praised the decent 2D animations of the minigames, Sackenheim said that while the minigames were enjoyable, Youll soon grow tired of these arcade rehashes. Bob Strauss of Entertainment Weekly gave the game a D and called it one giant slab of prehistoric cheese. Strauss wrote, I can say with confidence that the sequences in Jurassic Park Interactive, with their clumsy controls. The other sequences, sad to say, are somewhat stingy. Edge, which previewed the game at the European Computer Trade Show, called it a decidedly average mixture of Out Run, Op Wolf and Doom
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Crash N Burn (1993 video game)
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Crash n Burn is a futuristic racing/shooter videogame developed by Crystal Dynamics and released exclusively for the 3DO in 1993. The game was the title for the system and was included as a pack-in game with Panasonics original 3DO console. The game is set in the year 2044 AD, players assume the role of any one of six cyberpunks, each equipped with a unique car and a deadly supply of weapons. Full-motion videos of the racers are accessible in between races, in each character flaunt their skills and insult their opponents with death threats. The game has rally and tournament modes designed for one player, the game was planned in 1995 for a release on the Sony PlayStation console but was cancelled. Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the game a 7 out of 10 and they described it as a complex and exciting game once you get into, but felt that it was not a strong enough game to sell a system as expensive as the 3DO. GamePro praised the game as having the best racing game ever seen in a home system, and also complimented the striking cast of characters, the variety of tracks. However, they criticized the lack of multiplayer and the shallowness of the racing gameplay
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