1.
S.A. (corporation)
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S. A. designates a type of corporation in countries that mostly employ civil law. Depending on language, it means anonymous company, anonymous partnership, or share company and it is different from partnerships and private limited companies. Originally, shareholders could be anonymous and collect dividends by surrendering coupons attached to their share certificates. Dividends were therefore paid to whoever held the certificate, share certificates could be transferred privately, and therefore the management of the company would not necessarily know who owned its shares. Nowadays, shareholders of S. A. s are not anonymous, though shares can still be held by holding companies, S. A. شركة مساهة عامة ذات مسؤولية محدودة (ش. ذ. م. شركة مساهمة مصرية (ش. م
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Consumer electronics
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Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic or digital equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications, and home-office activities, in British English, they are often called brown goods by producers and sellers, to distinguish them from white goods such as washing machines and refrigerators. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, later products included telephones, personal computers, MP3 players, audio equipment, televisions and calculators. In the 2010s, consumer electronics stores often sell GPS, automotive electronics, video game consoles, electronic instruments, karaoke machines, digital cameras. Stores also sell digital cameras, camcorders, cell phones, some consumer electronics stores, such as Best Buy have also begun selling office and baby furniture. Consumer electronics stores may be bricks and mortar retail stores, online stores. The CEA estimated the value of 2015 consumer electronics sales at US$220 billion, for its first fifty years the phonograph turntable did not use electronics, the needle and soundhorn were purely mechanical technologies. However, in the 1920s radio broadcasting became the basis of production of radio receivers. The vacuum tubes that had made radios practical were used with record players as well, television was soon invented, but remained insignificant in the consumer market until the 1950s. The transistor, invented in 1947 by Bell Laboratories, led to significant research in the field of semiconductors in the early 1950s. The transistors advantages revolutionized that industry along with other electronics, by 1959 Fairchild Semiconductor had introduced the first planar transistor from which come the origins of Moores Law. Integrated circuits followed when manufacturers built circuits on a substrate using electrical connections between circuits within the chip itself. One overriding characteristic of consumer products is the trend of ever-falling prices. This is driven by gains in manufacturing efficiency and automation, lower costs as manufacturing has moved to lower-wage countries. Semiconductor components benefit from Moores Law, a principle which states that, for a given price. While consumer electronics continues in its trend of convergence, combining elements of many products, there is an ever increasing need to keep product information updated and comparable, for the consumer to make an informed choice. Style, price, specification, and performance are all relevant, there is a gradual shift towards e-commerce web-storefronts. Many products include Internet connectivity using technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, products not traditionally associated with computer use now provide options to connect to the Internet or to a computer using a home network to provide access to digital content
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Video game industry
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The video game industry is the economic sector involved in the development, marketing and Monetizing of video games. It encompasses dozens of job disciplines and employs thousands of people worldwide, the computer and video game industry has grown from focused markets to mainstream. They took in about US$9.5 billion in the US in 2007,11.7 billion in 2008, sound cards were developed for addition of digital-quality sound to games and only later improved for music and audiophiles. Early on, graphics cards were developed for more colors, later, graphic cards were developed for graphical user interfaces and games, GUIs drove the need for high resolution, and games began using 3D acceleration. They also are one of the pieces of hardware to allow multiple hookups. Product and talent layer, includes developers, designers and artists, production and tools layer, generates content production tools, game development middleware, customizable game engines, and production management tools. Distribution layer, or the industry, involved in generating and marketing catalogs of games for retail. Hardware layer, or the providers of the platform, which may be console-based, accessed through online media. This layer now includes network infrastructure and non-hardware platforms such as machines, or software platforms such as browsers or even further Facebook. End-users layer, or the users/players of the games, the game industry employs those experienced in other traditional businesses, but some have experience tailored to the game industry. Some of the specific to the game industry include, game programmer, game designer, level designer, game producer, game artist. Most of these professionals are employed by video game developers or video game publishers, however, many hobbyists also produce computer games and sell them commercially. Recently, game developers have begun to employ those with extensive or long-term experience within the modding communities, prior to the 1970s, there was no significant commercial aspect of the video game industry, but many advances in computing would set the stage for the birth of the industry. In 1947 Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann filed a patent for a cathode ray tube amusement device and their game, which uses a cathode ray tube hooked to an oscilloscope display, challenges players to fire a gun at target. One of the first known examples is Spacewar, developed by Harvard and MIT employees Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen. The introduction of easy-to-program languages like BASIC for mainframes allowed for more games to be developed. In 1971 the arcade game, Computer Space was released, the following year, Atari, Inc. released the first commercially successful video game, Pong, the original arcade version of which sold over 19,000 arcade cabinets. That same year saw the introduction of video games to the market with the release of the early video game console
4.
Atari, Inc.
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Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. In 1966, Nolan Bushnell saw Spacewar. for the first time at the University of Utah, the resulting game, Computer Space, was released by a coin-op game company, Nutting Associates. For the first time at the University of Utah, Computer Space did not fare well commercially when it was placed in Nuttings customary market, bars. Feeling that the game was too complex for the average customer unfamiliar and unsure with the new technology. Bushnell and Ted Dabney left Nutting to form their own engineering firm, Syzygy Engineering, initially wanting to start Syzygy off with a driving game, Bushnell had concerns that it might be too complicated for the young Alcorns first game. In May 1972, Bushnell had seen a demonstration of the Magnavox Odyssey, according to Alcorn, Bushnell decided to have him produce an arcade version of the Odysseys Tennis game, which would go on to be named Pong. Atari later had to pay Magnavox a licensing fee after the latter sued Atari because of this, when they went to incorporate their firm that June, they soon found that Syzygy already existed in California. Atari was incorporated in the state of California on June 27,1972, by August 1972, the first Pong was completed. It consisted of a black and white television from Walgreens, the game hardware. It was placed in a Sunnyvale tavern by the name of Andy Capps to test its viability. When the game begun malfunctioning a few days later and Alcorn returned to fix the machine, he was met by a lineup of people waiting for the bar to open so they could play the game. On examination, the turned out to be mundane, the coin collector was filled to overflowing with quarters, and when customers tried to jam them in anyway. Though Kees relationship to Atari was discovered in 1974, Joe Keenan did such a job managing the subsidiary that he was promoted to president of Atari that same year. In 1975, Bushnell started an effort to produce a video game console that was capable of playing all four of Ataris then-current games. Development took place at an engineering lab, which initially had serious difficulties trying to produce such a machine. However, in early 1976 the now-famous MOS Technology 6502 was released, the result was the Atari 2600, released in October 1977 as the Video Computer System, one of the most successful consoles in history. Bushnell knew he had another hit on his hands. In 1976 Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications for $28 million and he departed from the division in 1979
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Atari Corporation
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Atari Corporation was an American manufacturer of computers and video game consoles from 1984 to 1996. Atari Corp. was founded in July 1984 when Warner Communications sold the home computing and game console divisions of Atari and its chief products were the Atari ST, Atari XE, Atari 7800, Atari Lynx, and Atari Jaguar. The company reverse merged with JTS Inc. in 1996, becoming a small division, the company was founded by Commodore Internationals founder Jack Tramiel soon after his resignation from Commodore in January 1984. Initially named Tramel Technology, Ltd. the companys goal was to design, on July 1,1984 TTL bought the Consumer Division assets of Atari, Inc. from its owner Warner Communications, and TTL was renamed Atari Corporation. Warner sold the division for $240 million in stocks under the new company, under Tramiels ownership, Atari Corp. used the remaining stock of game console inventory to keep the company afloat while they finished development of their 16-bit computer system, the Atari ST. In 1985, they released their update to the 8-bit computer line—the Atari XE series—as well as the 16-bit Atari ST line. Then in 1986, Atari Corp. launched two consoles designed under the Warner Atari, Atari 2600 Jr and Atari 7800, which had a release in 1984. Atari Corp. rebounded, producing a $25 million profit that year, the Atari ST line proved very successful, ultimately selling more than 5 million units. Its built-in MIDI ports made it popular among musicians. Still, its closest competitor in the marketplace, the Commodore Amiga, Atari eventually released a line of inexpensive IBM PC compatibles as well as an MS-DOS compatible palm computer called the Atari Portfolio. Atari under Tramiel had a reputation in the marketplace. Pretty soon, you dont believe anything they say and he concluded, I think Atari Corp. had better start considering how theyre perceived by the non-Atari-using public. In 1987, Atari acquired Federated Group for $67.3 million to have their own retail store shelf space, Atari quickly discovered that Federateds financial problems were far worse than they had believed. During this time, the FBI investigated Atari for reselling Japanese DRAM chips in the US, in violation of U. S. import laws, Federated was eventually sold to Silo in 1989. In 1989, Atari Corp. released the Atari Lynx—a handheld console with color graphics—to critical acclaim, however, a shortage of parts kept the system from being released nationwide for the 1989 Christmas season. The Lynx lost market share to Nintendos Game Boy, which had only a display, but a much better battery life. Also in 1989, Atari Corp. lost a $250 million lawsuit alleging that Nintendo had an illegal monopoly, as the fortunes of Atari Corporations ST and PC compatible computers faded, consoles and software again became the companys main focus. In 1993, Atari Corp. released its last console, the Atari Jaguar, after a period of initial success, it failed to meet expectations
6.
Atari Games
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Atari Games Corporation was an American producer of arcade games. It was originally the arcade game division of Atari, Inc. and was split off into its own company in 1984. When the Atari Inc. division of Warner Communications lost $500 million in the first three quarters of 1983, its arcade division was the only one to make money. In 1984 Warner sold the Atari Consumer division of Atari Inc. to Jack Tramiel, Atari Games retained most of the same employees and managers that had worked at the old Atari Inc. It was able to carry on many of its projects from before the transition. Atari Corp. in contrast, froze projects and streamlined staff, in 1985, the controlling interest of Atari Games was sold to Namco, who soon lost interest in operating an American subsidiary. In 1986 a group of employees bought Namcos share, the suit finally reached a settlement in 1994, with Atari Games paying Nintendo cash damages and use of several patent licenses. In 1989, Warner Communications merged with Time Inc. forming Time Warner, in 1993, Time Warner bought a controlling interest in Atari Games and made it a subsidiary of its Time Warner Interactive division. While Atari Games maintained its identity under the new ownership, its consumer division Tengen, in mid-1994 Atari Games, Tengen, and Time Warner Interactive Group were all consolidated as Time Warner Interactive. In 1996 after a bid by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell. Midway left the market to concentrate on home systems in 2001. Midway Games West produced games for home systems, but was disbanded by Midway in early 2003 after a slump in game sales, until 2009, Midway Games West still existed as a holding entity whose primary function was to be the copyright and trademark owner for its franchises. In July 2009, all of the property of Midway was sold to Warner Bros. Entertainment, ultimately bringing the Atari Games properties and history back to Warner one final time, a History of Atari Games Corp. / Midway Games West
7.
Hasbro Interactive
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Hasbro Interactive was an American video game production and publishing subsidiary of Hasbro, the large game and toy company. Several of its studios were closed in early 2000 and most of its properties were sold to Infogrames which completed its studios closures in 2001, Hasbro Interactive was formed late in 1995 in order to compete in the video game arena. Several Hasbro properties, such as Monopoly and Scrabble, had already been made into video games by licensees such as Virgin Interactive. With Hasbros game experience, video games seemed like an extension of the company. Hasbro Interactives objective was to develop and publish games based on Hasbro property, in 1997, revenues increased 145% going from USD$35 million to $86 million. Hasbro acquired the rights for 300 games when it purchased Avalon Hill, with those acquisitions Hasbro Interactive revenues increased 127% in 1998 to $196 million and profits of $23 million. Hasbro Interactive was growing so fast that there was talk of reaching $1 billion in revenues by 2002 and they also purchased the remaining brands and other intellectual property rights of Atari Corp. from JTS, and engaged in some other video game licensing, such as Frogger from Konami. They sought to use Hasbro board game brands, MicroProse titles, Avalon Hill, Hasbro Interactive became the #3 video game publisher within three years of its founding. But in 1999, Hasbro Interactive lost $74 million on revenues of $237 million a growth of just 20% over the previous year. Late in 1999 with several game projects underway and dozens of new employees, many of who moved just to work for the company, the studios affected included the former MicroProse offices located in Alameda, California and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. A game development company, Vicious Cycle Software, was started by employees laid off in the North Carolina Hasbro Interactive studio closing, in 4 years, Hasbro Interactives revenue increased 577%. By the middle of 2000, the bubble had burst, Hasbro share price had lost 70% of its value in just over a year. Faced with these difficulties, in January 2001, Hasbro sold 100% of Hasbro Interactive to the French software company Infogrames, Hasbro Interactives sale price was $100 million being $95 million as 4.5 million common shares of Infogrames and $5 million in cash. Under the terms of the agreement, Infogrames gained the rights to develop games based on Hasbro properties for a period of 15 years plus an option for an additional 5 years based on performance. Hasbro Interactive became Infogrames Interactive and after May 2003 was renamed to Atari Interactive, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Infogrames Entertainment, Infogrames still maintains ownership of the original Atari properties received through Hasbro which are kept in their Hasbro Interactive originated placeholder, Atari Interactive, Inc. On June 9,2005, Hasbro bought back the digital gaming rights for their properties from Atari for $65 million, Hasbro bought back the digital rights to Transformers, My Little Pony, Tonka, Magic, The Gathering, Connect Four, Candyland and Playskool. Hasbro Interactive published over 160 games on interactive media. E. D. Z. — PlayStation, Windows Monopoly — Windows, PlayStation Mr. Potato Heads Activity Pack — Windows Mr
8.
Atari Interactive
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Atari Interactive is a name used by several separate groups and corporations since the mid-1990s. In 1996, it was the name of Atari Corporations PC publishing division and it is currently the name of a wholly owned subsidiary of Atari, SA, who is the current owner of the Atari brand and various other properties formerly belonging to Hasbro Interactive. It was formed in 2001, when IESA acquired Hasbro Interactive, in 2003, IESA then changed the company name entirely to Atari Interactive, Inc. as part of its worldwide reorganization to focus on use of the Atari brand. On January 2,1996, at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show, planning to initially launch with four titles, Tempest 2000, Highlander, The Last of the MacLeods, Baldies, and FlipOut. Further releases were to include Missile Command 3D, Return to Crystal Castles, Interactive Rocky Horror Show, and Virtual War. By February 12, however, Atari Corporation was announcing a merger with drive manufacturer JTS. In 2001, Hasbro sold Hasbro Interactive and its subsidiaries to French publisher Infogrames Entertainment, IESA then renamed it to Infogrames Interactive, Inc. On May 7,2003, IESA officially reorganized its subsidiaries into Atari-branded names, all three Ataris emerged from bankruptcy one year later and the entering of the social casino gaming industry with Atari Casino. Frederic Chesnais, who now heads all three companies, stated their entire operations consist of a staff of 10 people, history of video games Atari Inc. s Official Site
9.
Atari, Inc. (Atari, SA subsidiary)
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Atari, Inc. was founded in 1993 as GT Interactive Software Corp. In 1999, Infogrames Entertainment, SA acquired a controlling interest in GT Interactive, renaming it Infogrames, as part of Infogrames Entertainments company-wide re-branding in May 2003, Infogrames, Inc. finally became known as Atari, Inc. On October 11,2008, Infogrames completed its acquisition of Atari, on January 21,2013, Atari, Inc. filed for bankruptcy, with President Jim Wilson stating plans to try and split off from parent Atari, SA. That same year the publisher saw the release of their first shareware title, in its first year, revenue reached $10.3 million. GT was the first publisher to allow developers to retain their Intellectual Property, GT Interactive revenue soared 880% and reached $101 million in its second year of existence, with profits reaching $18 million. GT Interactives partnership with id Software scored another hit with Doom II, Hell on Earth, in February GTI obtained the publishing rights to games based on Mercer Mayer property, which included Little Critter and Little Monster. GT Interactive began to set up displays at Kmart and Walmart for low cost software, in December GT Interactive Software debuted on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the stock symbol GTIS. Raising $140 million with its public offering, it was one of the biggest IPOs of the year. GT Interactive offered 10 million shares to the public at $14 each, during GTIs IPO, Joseph Cayre sold more than 1.4 million shares,9. 2% of his shares, for a $20 million return. GTI reported a revenue growth of 134% in the year to $234.4 million but, in the first sign of trouble ahead. In January GT Interactive obtained the rights for the highly anticipated Quake from id Software. In February GT Interactive and Target signed an agreement in which GTI became the primary consumer software supplier to all Targets 675 stores. In June 1996 GTI acquired WizardWorks, publisher of the Deer Hunter series, for 2.4 million shares and FormGen, Quake was also released in June by GT Interactive for PC. It sold 1.8 million copies, becoming a PC classic, in July, the game developer Humongous Entertainment was bought by GT Interactive for 3.5 million shares, or $76 million. In 1995, Humongous Entertainments revenue had risen to $10 million, the deal gave GT Interactive rights to successful childrens software titles such as the Putt-Putt franchise as well as the Freddi Fish and Spy Fox series. In November GTI acquired Warner Interactive Europe for $6.3 million in cash, in a further sign of uncertainty for its future, GTI, for the year, reported a net income increase of only 11% over the previous year to $25.1 million. Revenue growth also decelerated to 56%, revenue for the year was $365 million, making matters worse, net income in the fourth quarter reduced 16. 8% to $8.5 million when compared to 1995s fourth quarter. In January GTI bought One Stop, a European value software publisher, in June GTI signed a deal with MTV, the deal gave GTI the rights to publish games based on Beavis and Butt-head and Æon Flux
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Nolan Bushnell
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Nolan Kay Bushnell is an American electrical engineer and businessman. He established Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheeses Pizza Time Theatre chain, Bushnell has started more than twenty companies and is one of the founding fathers of the video game industry. Nolan, who is co-founder and chairman of Brainrush, believes that Brainrush will be his biggest success, Nolan is credited with Bushnells Law, an aphorism about games easy to learn and difficult to master being rewarding. He was one of computer science students of the 1960s who played the historic Spacewar. The University of Utah was heavily involved in computer graphics research, Bushnell worked at Lagoon Amusement Park for many years in high school and college while living in his hometown of Ogden, Utah. He was particularly interested in the arcade games, where theme park customers would have to use skill and luck to ultimately achieve the goal. He liked the concept of getting people curious about the game and he would use his love for games and theme parks to help launch both Atari and Chuck E. Cheeses Pizza-Time Theaters. Bushnells first marriage was to Paula Rochelle Nielson with whom he has 2 children, Bushnells oldest child, Alissa, worked with him at uWink. His second marriage was to Nancy with whom he has 6 children, Bushnell was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but is no longer an active member. A1999 Time article described him as a lapsed Mormon and described him smoking a pipe, the Bushnells now live in Southern California. In June 2008 it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio would portray Bushnell in the film Atari, Bushnell was featured in the documentary film Something Ventured as well as Atari, Game Over. In 1969, Bushnell and colleague Ted Dabney formed Syzygy with the intention of producing a Spacewar clone known as Computer Space, in order to keep the company alive while the machine was being prototyped, the two took on a route servicing broken pinball machines. Dabney built the prototype and Bushnell shopped it around, looking for a manufacturer and they made an agreement with Nutting Associates, a maker of coin-op trivia and shooting games, who produced a fiberglass cabinet for the unit that included a coin-slot mechanism. Computer Space was a failure, though sales exceeded $3 million. Bushnell felt that Nutting Associates had not marketed the game well and they instead incorporated under the name Atari, a reference to a check-like position in the game Go. They rented their first office on Scott Boulevard in Sunnyvale, California, contracted with Bally Manufacturing to create a driving game, Bushnell later bought out Dabney, who was forced out after Nolan told him he would transfer all the assets to another corporation and leave Ted with nothing. After Bushnell attended a Burlingame, California demonstration of the Magnavox Odyssey, Alcorn incorporated many of his own improvements into the game design, such as scoring and sound, and Pong was born. Pong proved to be popular, Atari released a large number of Pong-based arcade games over the next few years as the mainstay of the company
11.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
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France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
13.
Video game
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A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device such as a TV screen or computer monitor. The word video in video game referred to a raster display device. Some theorists categorize video games as an art form, but this designation is controversial, the electronic systems used to play video games are known as platforms, examples of these are personal computers and video game consoles. These platforms range from large mainframe computers to small handheld computing devices, the input device used for games, the game controller, varies across platforms. Common controllers include gamepads, joysticks, mouse devices, keyboards, the touchscreens of mobile devices, and buttons, or even, with the Kinect sensor, a persons hands and body. Players typically view the game on a screen or television or computer monitor, or sometimes on virtual reality head-mounted display goggles. There are often game sound effects, music and, in the 2010s, some games in the 2000s include haptic, vibration-creating effects, force feedback peripherals and virtual reality headsets. In the 2010s, the game industry is of increasing commercial importance, with growth driven particularly by the emerging Asian markets and mobile games. As of 2015, video games generated sales of USD74 billion annually worldwide, early games used interactive electronic devices with various display formats. The earliest example is from 1947—a Cathode ray tube Amusement Device was filed for a patent on 25 January 1947, by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, and issued on 14 December 1948, as U. S. Written by MIT students Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanens on a DEC PDP-1 computer in 1961, and the hit ping pong-style Pong, used the DEC PDP-1s vector display to have two spaceships battle each other. In 1971, Computer Space, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was the first commercially sold and it used a black-and-white television for its display, and the computer system was made of 74 series TTL chips. The game was featured in the 1973 science fiction film Soylent Green, Computer Space was followed in 1972 by the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home console. Modeled after a late 1960s prototype console developed by Ralph H. Baer called the Brown Box and these were followed by two versions of Ataris Pong, an arcade version in 1972 and a home version in 1975 that dramatically increased video game popularity. The commercial success of Pong led numerous other companies to develop Pong clones and their own systems, the game inspired arcade machines to become prevalent in mainstream locations such as shopping malls, traditional storefronts, restaurants, and convenience stores. The game also became the subject of articles and stories on television and in newspapers and magazines. Space Invaders was soon licensed for the Atari VCS, becoming the first killer app, the term platform refers to the specific combination of electronic components or computer hardware which, in conjunction with software, allows a video game to operate. The term system is commonly used
14.
Atari, SA
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Atari, SA is an international French holding company headquartered in Paris, France. It was originally called Infogrames Entertainment, SA and its subsidiaries include Atari London Studio, Atari Interactive and Atari, Inc. All three subsidiaries have since exited bankruptcy, and are all going through a vigorous turnaround campaign, during their fiscal year meeting, IESA announced that it would be changing its corporate name to an Atari-branded name, in line with the use of the name for its subsidiaries. In reference to this, Atari, Inc. s CEO Jim Wilson said, Weve gotten rid of the Infogrames and Atari duality and we are one simplified company, under one management team, under one brand. Infogrames May 29 earnings report stated, The Board agreed to change Infogrames Entertainment’s name to Atari, on April 19,2010, Atari, SA announced Nolan Bushnell along with Tim Virden would join the companys Board of Directors. As of March 31,2011, the Board of Directors consisted of Frank Dangeard, Jim Wilson, Tom Virden, Gene Davis, Alexandra Fichelson. Jim Wilson As of August 2014, the Board of Directors consisted of Frédéric Chesnais, Frank Dangeard, Tom Virden, Erik Euvrard, however, BlueBay shareholders later interrupted the sale process of its holding in Atari. BlueBay later converted the conversion of a portion of the ORANEs held by them, as part of the agreement, the €20.9 million Credit Facility Agreement was extinguished via €10. On January 21,2013, Atari, Inc, in July 2013, Atari began to sell its game assets, developers and the famous tripod logo and the Atari name in auction. The Battlezone and Moonbase Commander games were bought by Rebellion Developments, the Backyard Sports franchise was sold to Epic Gear LLC and later to Day 6 Sports Group LLC. Tommo, Inc. bought Humongous Inc. and over 300 different games Total Annihilation was sold to Wargaming and lastly, Atari also had plans to sell off the Test Drive and RollerCoaster Tycoon franchises. Eden Games also closed down during the Bankruptcy, but reopened up a year later as an independent developer, in 2014, All 3 Ataris emerged from bankruptcy and entered the social casino gaming industry with Atari Casino. Frédéric Chesnais, who now heads all three companies, stated their entire operations consist of a staff of 10 people, in December 2016,3 years after the bankruptcy sale, Atari sold the Test Drive franchise to BigBen Interactive. In 2015, Atari announced a strategy that would focus on re-releasing the catalog of Atari games. The strategy is focused on games, MMO games, mobile games and licensing activities. Upon release the game was met with negative reception, RollerCoaster Tycoon World for PC, enabling players to create original theme parks with incredible attractions. This is the follow-up to RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 for PC, pridefest, an LGBT-friendly mobile social simulation game, enabling players to manage their cities and design their own parades, while creating a network of friends. Atari Group, name acquired from Hasbro Interactive in January 2001, Atari Interactive in New York, New York, U. S founded as Hasbro Interactive in 1995, acquired in January 2001 and renamed Infogrames Interactive
15.
Sunnyvale, California
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Sunnyvale is a city located in Santa Clara County, California. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 140,095, Sunnyvale is the seventh most populous city in the San Francisco Bay Area and one of the major cities comprising Silicon Valley. It lies along the historic El Camino Real and Highway 101, Sunnyvale was also the home to Onizuka Air Force Station, often referred to as the Blue Cube due to the color and shape of its windowless main building. The facility, previously known as Sunnyvale Air Force Station, was named for the deceased Space Shuttle Challenger astronaut Ellison Onizuka and it served as an artificial satellite control facility of the United States armed forces until August 2010 and has since been decommissioned and demolished. Library services for the city are provided by the Sunnyvale Public Library, when the Spanish first arrived in the 1770s at the Santa Clara Valley, it was heavily populated by the Ohlone Native Americans. In 1777, Mission Santa Clara was built by Ohlone who converted to Christianity, in 1842, Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas was granted to Francisco Estrada and his wife Inez Castro. Portions of the land given in this grant later developed into the cities of Mountain View, two years later, in 1844, another land grant was provided to Lupe Yñigo, one of the few Native Americans to hold land grants. His land grant was first called Rancho Posolmi, named in honor of a village of the Ohlone that once stood in the area, Rancho Posolmi was later known as Rancho Ynigo. Martin Murphy Jr. came to California with his father as part of the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party in 1844, in 1850, Martin Murphy Jr. bought a piece of Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas for $12,500. Murphy established a farm and ranch named Bay View. Murphy had the first wood frame house in Santa Clara County, the house was demolished in 1961 but was reconstructed in 2008 as the Sunnyvale Heritage Park Museum. When he died in 1884, his land was divided among his heirs, in 1860, The San Francisco and San Jose Rail Road was allowed to lay tracks on Bay View and established Murphy Station. Lawrence Station was later established on the edge of Bay View. In the 1870s, county property tax laws, imports and soil degradation caused wheat farming to become uneconomical in Santa Clara County, small fruit orchards replaced the large wheat farms. In 1871, James and Eloise Dawson established the first fruit cannery in the county, fruit agriculture for canning soon became a major industry in the county. The invention of the rail car further increased the viability of an economy based upon fruit. The fruit orchards became so prevalent that in 1886, the San Jose Board of Trade called Santa Clara County the Garden of the World, in the 1880s, Chinese workers made up 48 percent of the farm labor in Santa Clara County. This percentage reduced over time after the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, in the following decade, the 1890s, multitudes of immigrants from Italy, the Azores, Portugal, and Japan arrived to work in the orchards
16.
Arcade game
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An arcade game or coin-op is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games. While exact dates are debated, the age of arcade video games is usually defined as a period beginning sometime in the late 1970s. The old Midways of 1920s-era amusement parks provided the inspiration and atmosphere for later arcade games, in the 1930s the first coin-operated pinball machines emerged. These early amusement machines differed from their later electronic cousins in that they were made of wood and they lacked plungers or lit-up bonus surfaces on the playing field, and used mechanical instead of electronic scoring-readouts. By around 1977 most pinball machines in production switched to using solid-state electronics both for operation and for scoring, another Sega 1969 release, Missile, a shooter and vehicle-combat simulation, featured electronic sound and a moving film strip to represent the targets on a projection screen. In 1970 Midway released the game in North America as S. A. M. I, in the course of the 1970s, following the release of Pong in 1972, electronic video-games gradually replaced electro-mechanical arcade games. In 1972, Sega released a game called Killer Shark. In 1974, Nintendo released Wild Gunman, a shooter that used full-motion video-projection from 16 mm film to display live-action cowboy opponents on the screen. The 1978 video game Space Invaders, however, dealt a yet more powerful blow to the popularity of electro-mechanical games, in 1971 students at Stanford University set up the Galaxy Game, a coin-operated version of the Spacewar video game. This ranks as the earliest known instance of a video game. Later in the year, Nolan Bushnell created the first mass-manufactured game, Computer Space. In 1972, Atari was formed by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, Atari essentially created the coin-operated video game industry with the game Pong, the first successful electronic ping pong video game. Pong proved to be popular, but imitators helped keep Atari from dominating the fledgling coin-operated video game market, taitos Space Invaders, in 1978, proved to be the first blockbuster arcade video game. Its success marked the beginning of the age of arcade video games. Space Invaders, Galaxian, Pac-Man, Battlezone, Defender, by 1981, the arcade video game industry was worth $8 billion. By the late 1980s, the video game craze was beginning to fade due to advances in home video game console technology. By 1991, US arcade video game revenues had fallen to $2.1 billion, the pseudo-3D sprite/tile scaling was handled in a similar manner to textures in later texture-mapped polygonal 3D games of the 1990s
17.
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
18.
Home computer
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Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, however, a home computer often had better graphics and sound than contemporaneous business computers. Their most common uses were playing games, but they were also regularly used for word processing, doing homework. Home computers were usually not electronic kits, home computers were already manufactured in stylish metal or plastic enclosures. There were, however, commercial kits like the Sinclair ZX80 which were home and home-built computers since the purchaser could assemble the unit from a kit. For example, using a typical 1980s home computer as a home automation appliance would require the computer to be powered on at all times. Personal finance and database use required tedious data entry, by contrast, advertisements in the specialty computer press often simply listed specifications. Since most systems shipped with the BASIC programming language included on the system ROM, many users found programming to be a fun and rewarding experience, and an excellent introduction to the world of digital technology. Often the only difference may be the outlet through which they are purchased. Another change from the computer era is that the once-common endeavour of writing ones own software programs has almost vanished from home computer use. As early as 1965, some projects such as Jim Sutherlands ECHO IV explored the possible utility of a computer in the home. In 1969, the Honeywell Kitchen Computer was marketed as a gift item, and would have inaugurated the era of home computing. Computers became affordable for the public in the 1970s due to the mass production of the microprocessor starting in 1971. Early microcomputers such as the Altair 8800 had front-mounted switches and diagnostic lights to control and indicate internal system status, while two early home computers could be bought either in kit form or assembled, most home computers were only sold pre-assembled. The keyboard - a feature lacking on the Altair - was usually built into the case as the motherboard. Ports for plug-in peripheral devices such as a display, cassette tape recorders, joysticks. Usually the manufacturer would sell peripheral devices designed to be compatible with their computers as extra cost accessories, peripherals were not often interchangeable between different brands of home computer, or even between successive models of the same brand. To save the cost of a monitor, the home computer would often connect through an RF modulator to the family TV set
19.
Pong
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Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games and the first sports arcade video game. It is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade games such as Computer Space came before it. The game was manufactured by Atari, which released it in 1972. Allan Alcorn created Pong as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, Bushnell based the idea on an electronic ping-pong game included in the Magnavox Odyssey, which later resulted in a lawsuit against Atari. Surprised by the quality of Alcorns work, Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney decided to manufacture the game, soon after its release, several companies began producing games that copied Pongs gameplay, and eventually released new types of games. As a result, Atari encouraged its staff to more innovative games. The company released several sequels that built upon the gameplay by adding new features. During the 1975 Christmas season, Atari released a version of Pong exclusively through Sears retail stores. It was also a success and led to numerous copies. The game has been remade on numerous home and portable platforms following its release, Pong has been referenced and parodied in multiple television shows and video games, and has been a part of several video game and cultural exhibitions. Pong is a sports game that simulates table tennis. Players use the paddles to hit a back and forth. The aim is for player to reach eleven points before the opponent. Pong was the first game developed by Atari, after producing Computer Space, Bushnell decided to form a company to produce more games by licensing ideas to other companies. The first contract was with Bally Manufacturing Corporation for a driving game, soon after the founding, Bushnell hired Allan Alcorn because of his experience with electrical engineering and computer science, Bushnell and Dabney also had previously worked with him at Ampex. Prior to working at Atari, Alcorn had no experience with video games, to acclimate Alcorn to creating games, Bushnell gave him a project secretly meant to be a warm-up exercise. Bushnell told Alcorn that he had a contract with General Electric for a product, in 2011, Bushnell stated that the game was inspired by previous versions of electronic tennis he had played before, Bushnell played a version on a PDP-1 computer in 1964 while attending college
20.
Atari 2600
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The Atari 2600 is a home video game console by Atari, Inc. This format contrasts with the model of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware. The console was sold as the Atari VCS, an abbreviation for Video Computer System. Following the release of the Atari 5200 in 1982, the VCS was renamed to the Atari 2600, after the units Atari part number, CX2600. The 2600 was typically bundled with two controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridge, initially Combat. Ted Dabney and Nolan Bushnell developed the Atari gaming system in the 1970s, originally operating under the name Syzygy, Bushnell and Dabney changed the name of their company to Atari in 1972. In 1973, Atari Inc. had purchased an engineering think tank called Cyan Engineering to research next-generation video game systems, and had been working on a prototype known as Stella for some time. Unlike prior generations of machines that use custom logic to play a number of games, its core is a complete CPU. It was combined with a RAM-and-I/O chip, the MOS Technology 6532, the first two versions of the machine contain a fourth chip, a standard CMOS logic buffer IC, making Stella cost-effective. Some later versions of the console eliminated the buffer chip, programs for small computers of the time were generally stored on cassette tapes, floppy disks, or paper tape. In 1976, Fairchild Semiconductor released their own CPU-based system, the Video Entertainment System. Stella was still not ready for production, but it was clear that it needed to be there were a number of me too products filling up the market. Atari Inc. didnt have the flow to complete the system quickly. Nolan Bushnell eventually turned to Warner Communications, and sold the company to them in 1976 for US$28 million on the promise that Stella would be produced as soon as possible. Key to the success of the machine was the hiring of Jay Miner. Once that was completed and debugged, the system was ready for shipping, the unit was originally priced at US$199, and shipped with two joysticks and a Combat cartridge. In a move to compete directly with the Channel F, Atari Inc. named the machine the Video Computer System, as the Channel F was at that point known as the VES, for Video Entertainment System. The VCS was also rebadged as the Sears Video Arcade and sold through Sears, Roebuck, another breakthrough for gaming systems was Ataris invention of a computer-controlled opponent, rather than the usual two-player or asymmetric challenges of the past
21.
Video game crash of 1983
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The North American video game crash of 1983 was a massive recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985. Revenues had peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983, the crash was a serious event that brought an abrupt end to what is retrospectively considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America. The crash almost destroyed the industry, and led to the bankruptcy of several companies producing home computers. Analysts of the time expressed doubts about the viability of video game consoles. The crash had several causes, including the saturation of the market, the full effects of the industry crash would not be felt until 1985. The North American video game crash of 1983 was caused by a combination of factors. At the time of the North American crash, there were many consoles on the market, including the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, ColecoVision, Odyssey 2 and the Fairchild II. Each of these consoles had its own library of games produced by the console maker, the first microcomputers such as the Altair 8800 and Apple I were marketed to a niche of electronics hobbyists as most required assembly from a kit. In 1977, pre-assembled machines with BASIC in ROM became available, including the Trio of 77, the Apple II, Commodore PET, the latter two retailed for under $1,000, but lacked game joysticks and high-resolution color video. Third-party developers created games for all of these platforms, the TRS-80 benefited from Radio Shacks retail stores, which displayed computers and accessories locally in an era where many personal computers were mail-ordered from manufacturers. In 1979, Atari unveiled the Atari 400 and 800 computers, built around a chipset originally meant for use in a console. In 1981, IBM introduced the IBM5150 PC with a $1,565 base price, by 1982, new desktop computer designs were commonly providing better color graphics and sound than game consoles and personal computer sales were booming. The TI 99/4A and the Atari 400 were both at $349, Radio Shacks Color Computer sold at $379, and Commodore International had just reduced the price of the VIC-20 to $199, by 1983 consumers found that most predicted uses of home computers were unrealistic, except for games. Children used most home computers—Coleco planned to market its Adam home computer to boys age 8 to 16, the two groups that really fuel computer purchases—so games dominated home computers software libraries. A1984 compendium of reviews of Atari 8-bit software used 198 pages for games compared to 167 for all other software types, because computers generally had more memory and faster processors than a console, they permitted more sophisticated games. They could also be used for such as word processing. Games were easier to duplicate, since they could be packaged as floppy disks or cassette tapes instead of ROM modules and this opened the field to a cottage industry of third-party software developers. Writeable storage media allowed players to save games in progress, a feature for increasingly complex games which was not available on the consoles of the era
22.
Jack Tramiel
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Jack Tramiel was a Polish American businessman, best known for founding Commodore International. The Commodore PET, Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore 64 are some home computers produced while he was running the company, Tramiel later formed Atari Corporation after he purchased the remnants of the original Atari, Inc. from its parent company. Tramiel was born as Idek Trzmiel into a Jewish family, the son of Abram Josef Trzmiel, after the German invasion of Poland in 1939 his family was transported by German occupiers to the Jewish ghetto in Łódź, where he worked in a garment factory. When the ghettos were liquidated his family was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp and he was examined by Josef Mengele and selected for a work party, after which he and his father were sent to the labor camp Ahlem near Hanover, while his mother remained at Auschwitz. Like many other inmates, his father was reported to have died of typhus in the camp, however. Tramiel was rescued from the camp in April 1945 by the 84th Infantry Division of the US army. On 10 November 1947, Tramiel immigrated to the United States and he soon joined the U. S. Army, where he learned how to repair office equipment, including typewriters. In 1953, while working as a driver, Tramiel bought a shop in the Bronx to repair office machinery. He named it Commodore Portable Typewriter, Tramiel wanted a military-style name for his company, but names such as Admiral and General were already taken, so he settled on the Commodore name. In 1955, Tramiel signed a deal with a Czechoslovak typewriter manufacturer Zbrojovka Brno NP to assemble, in 1962, Commodore went public, but the arrival of Japanese typewriters in the U. S. market made the selling of Czechoslovakian typewriters unprofitable. Stung twice by the source, Gould suggested that Tramiel travel to Japan to learn why they were able to outcompete North Americans in their own local markets. It was during this trip that Tramiel saw the first digital calculators, when Commodore released its first calculators, combining an LED display from Bowmar and an integrated circuit from Texas Instruments, it found a ready market. However, after realizing the size of the market, TI decided to cut Commodore out of the middle. When their lead designer, Chuck Peddle, told Tramiel that calculators were an end and computers were the future. Peddle responded with the Commodore PET, based on his companys MOS Technology 6502 processor and it was first shown, privately, at the Chicago Consumer Electronics Show in 1977, and soon the company was receiving 50 calls a day from dealers wanting to sell the computer. The PET became a success—especially in the field, where its all-in-one design was a major advantage. Much of their success with the PET came from the decision to sell directly to large customers. The first PET computers were sold primarily in Europe, where Commodore had also introduced the first wave of digital handheld calculators, Commodore responded with the VIC-20, and then the Commodore 64, which became the best-selling home computer of all time
23.
Computer Space
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Computer Space is a space combat arcade game developed in 1971 as one of the last games created in the early history of video games. Created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in partnership as Syzygy Engineering, Computer Space is a derivative of the 1962 computer game Spacewar. Possibly the first video game to spread to multiple computer installations and it features a rocket, controlled by the player, engaged in a missile battle with a pair of flying saucers set against a background starfield. The goal is to more hits than the enemy spaceships within a set time period. The game is enclosed in a fiberglass cabinet in one of four colors. The game was designed by Bushnell and Dabney during 1970–71 to be a version of Spacewar. After they built an early proof of concept and founded Syzygy Engineering, working in partnership with Nutting, the pair ran their first location test in August 1971, one month prior to the display of a similar prototype called Galaxy Game, also based on Spacewar. After encouraging initial results, though mixed responses from distributors, Nutting ordered a production run of 1,500 units with the anticipation of a hit game. The game spawned one clone game, Star Trek, and Nutting produced a version of Computer Space in 1973 without involvement from Syzygy before closing in 1976. Syzygy went on to be incorporated as Atari, with their arcade game the successful Pong. Although not as influential as Pong, Computer Spaces release marked the start of the commercial video game industry. One of these games was Spacewar, created in 1962 for the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-1 minicomputer by Steve Russell and others in the programming community at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The two-player game has the players engage in a dogfight between two spaceships, set against the backdrop of a starfield, with a central star exerting gravitational force upon the ships. The original developers of Spacewar considered ways to monetize the game, the first commercial video game based on Spacewar would not be released until Computer Space in 1971. In Computer Space, the controls a rocket as it attempts to shoot a pair of flying saucers while avoiding enemy fire. The monochrome game has the three ships flying on a plane, set against the backdrop of a starfield. Missiles are fired one at a time, and there is a period between launches. The players rocket follows Newtonian physics, remaining in motion even when the player is not accelerating, the flying saucers stay in place or glide in a zig-zag pattern around the screen in tandem, with one staying a constant distance directly below the other
24.
Allan Alcorn
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Allan Alcorn is an American pioneering engineer and computer scientist. He grew up in San Francisco, California, and attended the University of California, Berkeley, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences in 1971. He worked for the video company Ampex, where he met Ted Dabney and several other people that would end up being constants through the Atari. Apple, Cyan Engineering and Pizza Time Theater companies, Alcorn was the designer of the video arcade game Pong, creating it under the direction of Nolan Bushnell and Dabney. Pong was a hit in the 1970s, Alcorn later became an Apple Fellow, and led and consulted to a variety of startups during the tech boom. In 1998, Alcorn co-founded Zowie Intertainment, a spinoff from Interval Research, there he developed a childs playset with a location system that allowed a PC to respond to the childs play. In 2000, Zowie Entertainment was acquired by Lego, in 2011, Alcorn co-founded Hack the Future, a technology festival and hackathon for elementary school children. Alcorn was portrayed by David Denman in the 2013 biographical drama Jobs, a two and a half hour interview with Al Alcorn
25.
Magnavox Odyssey
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The Magnavox Odyssey is the first commercial home video game console. It was developed by a team led by Ralph H. Baer at Sanders Associates and released by Magnavox in the United States in September 1972. The Odyssey consists of a white, black, and brown box which connects to a television set and two rectangular controllers attached by wires. It is capable of displaying three square dots on the screen in black and white, with differing behavior for the dots depending on the game played. The idea for a game console was thought up by Baer in August 1966. The seventh, known as the Brown Box, was shown to several manufacturers before Magnavox agreed to produce it in January 1971, the console spawned the Magnavox Odyssey series of dedicated consoles, as well as the 1978 Magnavox Odyssey². One of the 28 games made for the system, a ping pong game, was an inspiration for Ataris successful Pong arcade game, in turn driving sales of the console. The release of the Odyssey marked the end of the history of video games. The Odyssey consists of a black, white, and brown oblong box connected by wires to two rectangular controllers. The reset button does not reset the game, but instead is used by different games to reset individual elements, the system can be powered by six C batteries, which were included. An optional AC power supply was sold separately, the Odyssey lacks sound capability and can only display monochrome white shapes on a blank black screen. Internally, the Odyssey architecture is composed of digital computing parts, the circuitry is implemented in diode–transistor logic using discrete transistors and diodes, rather than the newly emerging transistor–transistor logic integrated circuits, due to cost concerns. The games themselves do not use cartridges like later consoles, and these cards modify the internal circuitry like a set of switches or jumpers, causing the Odyssey to display different components and react to inputs differently. Multiple games use the cards, with different instructions given to the player to change the style of game. The Odyssey is capable of displaying three square dots and a line on the screen. Two of the dots are controlled by the two players, and the third by the system itself, the main console has two dials, one of which moves the vertical line across the screen, and one which adjusts the speed of the computer-controlled dot. Different games direct the player to adjust the dials to different positions, the games include plastic overlays which stick to the television via static cling, to create visuals for the game. Different games that use the game card can have different overlays, which can change a game with the same controls from, for example
26.
Go (board game)
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Go is an abstract strategy board game for two players, in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent. The game was invented in ancient China more than 2,500 years ago and it was considered one of the four essential arts of the cultured aristocratic Chinese scholar caste in antiquity. The earliest written reference to the game is recognized as the historical annal Zuo Zhuan. The modern game of Go as we know it was formalized in Japan in the 15th century CE, despite its relatively simple rules, Go is very complex, even more so than chess, and possesses more possibilities than the total number of atoms in the visible universe. Compared to chess, Go has both a board with more scope for play and longer games, and, on average. The playing pieces are called stones, one player uses the white stones and the other, black. The players take turns placing the stones on the vacant intersections of a board with a 19×19 grid of lines, beginners often play on smaller 9×9 and 13×13 boards, and archaeological evidence shows that the game was played in earlier centuries on a board with a 17×17 grid. However, boards with a 19×19 grid had become standard by the time the game had reached Korea in the 5th century CE, the objective of Go—as the translation of its name implies—is to fully surround a larger total area of the board than the opponent. Once placed on the board, stones may not be moved, capture happens when a stone or group of stones is surrounded by opposing stones on all orthogonally-adjacent points. The game proceeds until neither player wishes to make another move, when a game concludes, the territory is counted along with captured stones and komi to determine the winner. Games may also be terminated by resignation, as of mid-2008, there were well over 40 million Go players worldwide, the overwhelming majority of them living in East Asia. As of December 2015, the International Go Federation has a total of 75 member countries, Go is an adversarial game with the objective of surrounding a larger total area of the board with ones stones than the opponent. As the game progresses, the players position stones on the board to map out formations, contests between opposing formations are often extremely complex and may result in the expansion, reduction, or wholesale capture and loss of formation stones. A basic principle of Go is that a group of stones must have at least one liberty to remain on the board, a liberty is an open point bordering the group. An enclosed liberty is called an eye, and a group of stones with two or more eyes is said to be unconditionally alive, such groups cannot be captured, even if surrounded. A group with one eye or no eyes is dead and cannot resist eventual capture, the general strategy is to expand ones territory, attack the opponents weak groups, and always stay mindful of the life status of ones own groups. The liberties of groups are countable, situations where mutually opposing groups must capture each other or die are called capturing races, or semeai. In a capturing race, the group with more liberties will ultimately be able to capture the opponents stones, capturing races and the elements of life or death are the primary challenges of Go
27.
Kee Games
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Kee Games was an arcade game manufacturer that released games from 1973 to 1978. Kee was headed by Joe Keenan, a friend of Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell. Keenan managed to hire several defectors from Atari, and began advertising itself as a competitor, in reality, Kee Games was a wholly owned subsidiary of Atari, created in response to the pinball and arcade distributors of the time who demanded exclusivity deals. Kee Games released several clones of Atari games, allowing Atari to exclusively sell games to two distributors at once, in December 1974, the relationship to Atari was discovered by the public. However, Kees Tank game had been so successful that the wanted to buy the game even without an exclusivity agreement. At the same time, Atari was having financial and management problems, the two companies merged, with Keenan promoted to president of Atari running the business side of things, and Bushnell focusing on engineering. Atari continued to use the Kee Games label to some of their games until 1978, but from the merger on
28.
Pinball
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Pinball is a type of arcade game, in which points are scored by a player manipulating one or more steel balls on a play field inside a glass-covered cabinet called a pinball machine. The primary objective of the game is to score as many points as possible, points are earned when the ball strikes different targets on the play field. A drain is situated at the bottom of the play field, a game ends after all the balls fall into the drain a certain number of times. Secondary objectives are to maximize the time spent playing and to earn bonus games, the origins of pinball are intertwined with the history of many other games. Croquet, golf and paille-maille eventually derived from ground billiards variants, the evolving and specializing outdoor games finally led to indoor versions that could be played on a table, such as billiards, or on the floor of a pub, like bowling and shuffleboard. The tabletop versions of games became the ancestors of modern pinball. Pins took too long to reset when knocked down, so they were fixed to the table. Players could ricochet balls off the pins to achieve the harder scorable holes, a standardized version of the game eventually became known as bagatelle. In 1869, British inventor Montague Redgrave settled in the US and manufactured bagatelle tables in Cincinnati, in 1871 Redgrave was granted US Patent #115,357 for his Improvements in Bagatelle, another name for the spring launcher that was first introduced in Billard japonais. The game also shrank in size to fit atop a bar or counter, the balls became marbles and the wickets became small metal pins. Redgraves popularization of the launcher and innovations in game design are acknowledged as the birth of pinball in its modern form. By the 1930s, manufacturers were producing coin-operated versions of bagatelles, the table was under glass and used M. Redgraves plunger device to propel the ball into the upper playfield. In 1931 David Gottliebs Baffle Ball became the first hit of the coin-operated era, selling for $17.50, the game dispensed five to seven balls for a penny. The game resonated with people wanting cheap entertainment in the Great Depression-era economy, Most drugstores and taverns in the US operated pinball machines, with many locations quickly recovering the cost of the game. Baffle Ball sold over 50,000 units and established Gottlieb as the first major manufacturer of pinball machines, in 1932, Gottlieb distributor Raymond Moloney found it hard to obtain more Baffle Ball units to sell. In his frustration he founded Lion Manufacturing to produce a game of his own design, Ballyhoo, the game became a smash hit. Its larger playfield and ten made it more challenging than Baffle Ball. Moloney eventually changed the name of his company to Bally to reflect the success of this game and these early machines were relatively small, mechanically simple and designed to sit on a counter or bar top
29.
Grass Valley, California
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The city of Grass Valley is the largest city in the western region of Nevada County, California, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 12,860, Grass Valley, which was originally known as Boston Ravine and later officially named Centerville, dates from the California Gold Rush, as does nearby Nevada City. When a post office was established in 1851, it was renamed Grass Valley the following year for unknown reasons, Grass Valley is the location of the Empire Mine and North Star Mine, two of the richest mines in California. George Starr, manager of the Empire Mine, and William Bowers Bourn II, many of those who came to settle in Grass Valley were tin miners from Cornwall, England. They were attracted to the California gold fields because the skills needed for deep tin mining were needed for hardrock gold mining. Many of them specialized in pumping the water out of deep mining shafts. This followed the fall in tin prices as large alluvial deposits began to be exploited elsewhere. Grass Valley still holds on to its Cornish heritage, with such as its annual Cornish Christmas. Pasties are a favorite dish with a few restaurants in town specializing in recipes handed down from the original immigrant generation. Grass Valley is also twinned with the Cornish town of Bodmin, there was formerly a Roman Catholic diocese of Grass Valley. Grass Valley is located at 39°13′9″N 121°3′30″W, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 4.7 square miles, all of it land. A variety of igneous and metamorphic rock supports Grass Valley, granitic rock such as quartz diorite underlies the downtown core and extends south along Highway 49. Metavolcanic rock and diabase underlie areas around the granitic zone, neighborhoods around Nevada County Golf Course and Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital are underlain by ultramafic rock which supports infertile soils of the Dubakella series. Straight, dense ponderosa pine inhabitants the more fertile soils which include Musick series on granitic rock, Grass Valley has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate with warm to hot, dry summers and wet, cool, rainy winters. Summer is very dry, but thunderstorms may occur, the winter rains contribute to a heavy fuel-loading of brush and grass, which dry out during the summer, posing a wildfire hazard. Over the course of a year,34.7 days of 90 °F or hotter and 1.2 days of 100 °F or hotter occur, the 2010 United States Census reported that Grass Valley had a population of 12,860. The population density was 2,711.3 people per square mile. The racial makeup of Grass Valley was 11,493 White,208 Native American,188 Asian,46 African American,9 Pacific Islander,419 from other races, hispanics or Latinos of any race were 1,341 persons
30.
Time-Warner
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Time Warner Inc. is an American multinational media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is currently the third largest entertainment company in terms of revenue, after Comcast. It was also once the worlds largest media conglomerate, Time Warner was first founded in 1990 with the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications. The current company consists largely of the assets of the former Warner Communications, Time Warner currently has major operations in film and television, with a limited amount in publishing operations. Among its most popular assets are HBO, Turner Broadcasting System, The CW Television Network, CNN, DC Comics, and as of August 2016, Hulu, owning 10%. In the past, other divisions of Time Warner included Time Inc. AOL, Time Warner Cable, Warner Books and Warner Music Group, all of these operations were either sold to other investors or spun off as independent companies from 2004 to 2014. On October 22,2016, AT&T announced its intent to acquire Time Warner for $108.7 billion. A strike by the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture, Time Warner consists of three divisions, Home Box Office Inc. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. and Warner Bros. Home Box Office Inc. operates the namesake HBO premium television service as well as sister service Cinemax, hBO- and Cinemax-branded channels are currently available in over 70 countries around the world, and HBO programming is licensed to other television networks in over 150 countries. In 2012, HBO was the #1 premium pay television service in primetime television, in 2013, the network received five Golden Globes and 23 primetime Emmy Awards. HBO’s programming includes the airing of feature films, HBO Documentary Films, HBO original films, the network has developed content distribution platforms, like HBO GO and Max GO to help support and deliver programming to users via online and mobile devices. In 2011, Cinemax launched its first original series, Strike Back. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. operates international news, entertainment, animation, young adult, Turner brands include CNN, HLN, TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies, truTV, Turner Sports, and more. Turners brands and sub brands reach broad domestic and international audiences, in addition to television network programming, Turner manages digital sports entities, including bleacherreport. com NBA. com, PGA. com and NCAA. com. Turner Sports produces sports programming and content for the Turner Networks, Turner Sports’ television line-up includes NBA and MLB games, the NCAA Tournament Games, and the PGA Championship. Turner operates PGA. com and related properties of the PGA under agreements with the PGA. Pictures Group grossed 4.3 billion dollars at the box office
31.
Atari 8-bit family
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The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 and manufactured until 1992. All of the machines in the family are similar and differ primarily in packaging. They are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU running at 1.79 MHz, star Raiders is widely considered the platforms killer app. The original Atari 400 and 800 models were released with a series of plug-n-play peripherals that used Ataris SIO serial bus system, to meet stringent FCC requirements, the early machines were completely enclosed in a solid cast aluminum block, which made them physically robust but expensive to produce. Over the following decade, the models were replaced by the XL and XE series which had the same basic logical design. The Atari 8-bit computer line sold two million units during its production run between late 1979 and mid-1985. They were not only sold through dedicated computer retailers, but department stores such as Sears, the primary competition in the worldwide market was, starting in 1982, the Commodore 64. This was the first computer to offer similar performance. Atari also found a market in Eastern Europe and had something of a renaissance in the early 1990s as these countries joined a uniting Europe. On January 1,1992, Atari corp, officially dropped all remaining support of the 8-bit line. Design of the 8-bit series of machines started at Atari as soon as the Atari 2600 games console was released in late 1977. While designing the 2600 in 1976, the team from Atari Grass Valley Research Center felt that the 2600 would have about a three-year lifespan before becoming obsolete. They started blue sky designs for a new console that would be ready to replace it around 1979, what they ended up with was essentially a greatly updated version of the 2600, fixing its more obvious limitations but sharing a similar overall design philosophy. The newer design would be faster than the 2600, have better graphics, work on the chips for the new system continued throughout 1978 and focused on much-improved video hardware known as the Color Television Interface Adaptor, or CTIA. During this gestation the home computer era began in earnest in the form of the TRS-80, Commodore PET, Warner Communications had purchased Atari from Nolan Bushnell for $28 million in 1976 in order to fund the launch of the 2600. Atari had recently sent Ray Kassar to act as the CEO of the company, Kassar felt the chipset should be used in a home computer to challenge Apple. In order to adapt the machine to this role, it would need to support character graphics, include some form of expansion for peripherals, and run the then-universal BASIC programming language. The CTIA, like the 2600s TIA, was designed to produce Player-Missile graphics, instead of expanding the CTIA to handle these tasks, the designers instead introduced an entirely new chip for this purpose, the Alphanumeric Television Interface Controller, or ANTIC
32.
Atari 5200
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The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, commonly known as the Atari 5200, is a home video game console that was introduced in 1982 by Atari Inc. as a higher-end complementary console for the popular Atari 2600. The 5200 was created to compete with the Intellivision, but wound up more directly competing with the ColecoVision shortly after its release, the 5200s internal hardware is almost identical that of Ataris 8-bit computers, although software is not directly compatible between the two systems. The 5200s controllers have a joystick and a numeric keypad along with start, pause. The 360-degree non-centering joystick was touted as offering more control than the eight-way joystick controller offered with the Atari 2600, much of the technology in the Atari 8-bit family of home computer systems was originally developed as a second-generation games console intended to replace the 2600. However, as the system was reaching completion, the computer revolution was starting with the release of machines like the Commodore PET, TRS-80. These machines had less advanced hardware than the new Atari technology, Ataris management decided to enter this market, and the technology was repackaged into the Atari 400 and 800. The chipset used in these machines was created with the mindset that the 2600 would likely be obsolete by the 1980 time frame, Atari later decided to re-enter the games market with a design that closely matched their original 1978 specifications. In its prototype stage, the Atari 5200 was originally called the Atari Video System X - Advanced Video Computer System and it is also rumored that PAM actually stood for Personal Arcade Machine, as the majority of games for the system ended up being arcade conversions. Actual working Atari Video System X machines, whose hardware is 100% identical to the Atari 5200 do exist, the initial 1982 release of the system featured four controller ports, where nearly all other systems of the day had only one or two ports. The 5200 also featured a new style of controller with a joystick, numeric keypad, two fire buttons on each side of the controller and game function keys for Start, Pause. The 5200 also featured the innovation of the first automatic TV switchbox, previous RF adapters required the user to slide a switch on the adapter by hand. The RF box was also where the power supply connected in a unique dual power/television signal setup similar to the RCA Studio IIs, a single cable coming out of the 5200 plugged into the switch box and was used for both electricity and the television signal. The 1983 revision of the Atari 5200 has two controller ports instead of four, and a back to the more conventional separate power supply. It also has changes in the cartridge port address lines to allow for the Atari 2600 adapter released that year, while the adapter was only made to work on the two-port version, modifications can be made to the four-port to make it line-compatible. In fact, towards the end of the models production run. These consoles can be identified by an asterisk in their serial number, the controller prototypes used in the electrical development lab employed a yoke and gimbal mechanism that came from an RC airplane controller kit. This simple design gave smooth linear control and was highly reliable, the design of the analog joystick, which used a weak rubber boot rather than springs to provide centering, proved to be ungainly and unreliable. They quickly became the Achilles heel of the system because of their combination of a complex mechanical design with a very low-cost internal flex circuit system
33.
Amusement arcade
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In some countries, some types of arcades are also legally permitted to provide gambling machines such as slot machines or pachinko machines. Games are usually housed in cabinets, the term used for ancestors of these venues in the beginning of 20th century was penny arcades. Video games were introduced in amusement arcades in the late 1970s and were most popular during the age of arcade video games. Arcades became popular with children and particularly adolescents, which led parents to be concerned that video game playing might cause them to skip school, a penny arcade can be any type of venue for coin-operated devices, usually for entertainment. The term came into use about 1905-1910, the name derives from the penny, once a staple coin for the machines. Coin operated shooter games Penny arcades later led to the creation of video arcades in the 1970s, Arcades catering for video games began to gain momentum in the late 1970s with games such as Space Invaders and Galaxian and became widespread in 1980 with Pac-Man, Centipede and others. The central processing unit in these games allowed for more complexity than earlier games such as Ataris Pong. This emphasis on the gameplay explains why many of these continue to be enjoyed as of 2014. The golden age of arcade games in the 1980s became a peak era of video arcade game popularity, innovation. Color arcade games became more prevalent and video arcades themselves started appearing outside their traditional bowling-alley, designers experimented with a wide variety of game genres, while developers still had to work within strict limits of available processor-power and memory. The era saw the spread of video arcades across North America, Western Europe. The number of arcades in North America, for example. Beginning with Space Invaders, video games also started to appear in supermarkets, restaurants, liquor stores, gas stations. This boom came to an end in the mid-1980s, in what has been referred to as the great coin-op video crash of 1983, on November 30,1982, Jerry Parker, the Mayor of Ottumwa, Iowa, declared his city the Video Game Capital of the World. This initiative resulted in many firsts in video game history, playing a central role in arcade history, Ottumwa saw the birth of the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard and the U. S. National Video Game Team, two organizations that still exist today. These systems essentially provided arcade-only consoles where the video game ROM could be swapped easily to replace a game and this allowed easier development and replacement of games, but it also discouraged the hardware innovation necessary to stay ahead of the technology curve. In fact, several arcade systems such as Segas NAOMI board are arcade versions of home systems, the arcade industry entered a major slump in mid-1994. In the late 1990s, a bar opened in the new Crown Casino complex in Melbourne, Barcode was a games bar with the latest arcade games, the classics, pool tables, air hockey and pinball machines which you could play while consuming alcohol
34.
Nintendo Entertainment System
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The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit home video game console that was developed and manufactured by Nintendo. The best-selling gaming console of its time, the NES helped revitalize the US video game following the video game crash of 1983. With the NES, Nintendo introduced a business model of licensing third-party developers, authorizing them to produce. It was initially released in Japan as the Family Computer on July 15,1983, and was released in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986. In South Korea, it was known as the Hyundai Comboy and was distributed by SK Hynix which then was known as Hyundai Electronics and it was succeeded by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. In 2009, the Nintendo Entertainment System was named the single greatest video game console in history by IGN and it was judged the second greatest console behind the Sega Dreamcast in PC Magazines Top 10 Video Game Consoles of All Time. Following a series of arcade game successes in the early 1980s, Nintendo made plans to create a console called the Famicom. A test model was constructed in October 1982 to verify the functionality of the hardware, because 65xx CPUs had not been manufactured or sold in Japan up to that time, no cross-development software was available and it had to be produced from scratch. Perhaps we could say it is a family computer, meanwhile, Hiroshi Yamauchi decided that the console should use a red and white theme after seeing a billboard for DX Antenna which used those colors. Original plans called for the Famicoms cartridges to be the size of a cassette tape, careful design attention was paid to the cartridge connectors since loose and faulty connections often plagued arcade machines. As it necessitated taking 60 connection lines for the memory and expansion, the controllers were hard-wired to the console with no connectors for cost reasons. There were concerns regarding the durability of the design and that children might step on joysticks left on the floor. Katsuyah Nakawaka attached a Game & Watch D-pad to the Famicom prototype and found that it was easy to use, ultimately though, they installed a 15-pin expansion port on the front of the console so that an optional arcade-style joystick could be used. Uemura added an eject lever to the slot which was not really necessary. He also added a microphone to the controller with the idea that it could be used to make players voices sound through the TV speaker. The console was released on July 15,1983 as the Family Computer for ¥14,800 alongside three ports of Nintendos successful arcade games Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Popeye. The Famicom was slow to gather momentum, a bad chip set caused the release of the system to crash. Following a product recall and a reissue with a new motherboard, the deal was set to be finalized and signed at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in June 1983
35.
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
36.
James J. Morgan
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James J. Morgan is a former American executive who served as CEO of Atari from 1983 to 1984 and CEO of Philip Morris USA from 1994 to 1997. James Morgan first joined Philip Morris in 1963 and he was a member of the Tobacco Institute Communications Committee from 1981 to 1983. Morgan briefly left Philip Morris in 1983 when he was offered the position of CEO at Atari by Warner Communications, at the time he left Philip Morris, Morgan was serving as vice-president of the company. Morgan served as chairman and CEO of Atari from September 1983 until July 1984, after his departure from Atari, Morgan returned to Philip Morris. Morgan was appointed president and CEO in 1994 and retired from Philip Morris on November 1,1997, atari-related interview with James Morgan Article on Morgans plans for Atari
37.
Namco
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Namco Limited is a Japanese corporation best known as a video game developer and publisher. Following a merger with Bandai in September 2005, the two companies game production assets were spun off into Bandai Namco Games on March 31,2006, Namco was re-established to continue domestic operation of video arcades and amusement parks. Its headquarters are located in Ōta, Tokyo, the companys English name is often officially written as NAMCO. Namco was a front-runner during the age of arcade video games. Pac-Man went on to become the best-selling arcade game in history, Namco was also known for creating successful franchises such as Galaxian, Ridge Racer, Ace Combat, Tekken, as well as the Soul and Tales series. Masaya Nakamura founded the company as Nakamura Manufacturing in 1955, based in Tokyo, the company started out by running childrens rides on the roof of a department store in Yokohama. The business eventually expanded throughout the Tokyo area, Nakamura Manufacturing was reorganized in 1958 and later underwent a name change to Nakamura Manufacturing Company, which would be used to form the acronym NAMCO. In 1970, the company produced a coin-operated mechanical driving simulator called Racer, Atari Japan, the Tokyo-based subsidiary of Atari, was struggling financially by 1974. General manager Hide Nakajima was left in charge of the company after his boss had quit, Nakajima claims that employees had been stealing money and that he had contributed funds from his personal savings in order to pay creditors and stave off bankruptcy. Sega, then a manufacturer of machines, offered to acquire Atari Japan for $50,000. Nakamura put in a bid for $800,000 and shocked others out of competition, the deal was finalized at $500,000 and Bushnell was glad to take it. Debts inherited from Atari Japan would take Nakamura two years to pay off, but the deal had also secured for him a license to distribute Ataris games in Japan for ten years. Nakamura would follow up by opening video arcades featuring Atari games, everyone thought was mad when he paid so much for Atari, but it turned out to be a very wise investment. Nakajima was promoted to president in 1978, and on his recommendation Namco opened a subsidiary, Namco America. The location he chose was across the street from Ataris former headquarters in Sunnyvale, at the time, games were not released in the U. S. under the Namco label. Namco America existed mainly to license Namcos games to companies such as Atari, Galaxian revolutionized the industry as the first video game to use RGB color graphics. It was Pac-Man, however, that would become definitive of Namcos legacy, galaga, a follow-up to Galaxian, was one of the most successful sequels of the era. Dig Dug, Xevious, and Pole Position continued Namcos success in establishing iconic franchises during the Golden Age, during this period, Namco published video games for home consoles and personal computer under the Namcot brand name
38.
Mitsubishi Electric
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Mitsubishi Electric Corporation is a Japanese multinational electronics and electrical equipment manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the companies of Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi Electric manufactures electric and architectural equipment, and is a worldwide producer of photovoltaic panels. The corporation was established on 15 January 1921, in the United States, products are manufactured and sold by Mitsubishi Electric United States headquartered in Cypress, California. Malaysia Singapore South Korea Thailand Mitsubishi Electric Saudi Ltd, televisions The companys most notable products in the United States come from the large-screen HDTV division. Competitors in this market are Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic, JVC, Samsung, Daewoo, LG, the company manufactured direct-view CRT televisions until 2001. The last notable size in this field was a 40 tube size, Mitsubishi manufactured LCD TVs until 2008. Mitsubishi manufactured DLP High Definition TVs until December,2012, the company is now focusing on professional and home theater DLP projection applications, and is no longer manufacturing televisions for the consumer market. Air conditioners EcoCute heat pump water heaters Dehumidifiers Uninterruptible Power Supply systems Mobile phones, Mitsubishi quit the mobile phone business in Apr 2008 after decrease in shipments. They estimated a loss of 17 billion Yen in income before income taxes. The Corporation claims to have achieved the worlds first transmission at 10 Gbit/s between relay equipment boards set at a distance of 500 mm apart, Mitsubishi also previously made Video Cassette Recorders known as the Mitsubishi Black Diamond VCR
39.
Logo
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A logo is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations, and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition. There are purely graphic emblems, symbols, icons and logos, in the days of hot metal typesetting, a logotype was one word cast as a single piece of type. By extension, the term was used for a uniquely set. At the level of communication and in common usage, a companys logo is today often synonymous with its trademark or brand. The arts were expanding in purpose—from expression and decoration of an artistic, storytelling nature, to a differentiation of brands, consultancies and trades-groups in the commercial arts were growing and organizing, by 1890, the US had 700 lithographic printing firms employing more than 8,000 people. Artistic credit tended to be assigned to the company, as opposed to the individual artists who usually performed less important jobs. Playful children’s books, authoritative newspapers, and conversational periodicals developed their own visual and editorial styles for unique, as printing costs decreased, literacy rates increased, and visual styles changed, the Victorian decorative arts led to an expansion of typographic styles and methods of representing businesses. A renewal of interest in craftsmanship and quality also provided the artists and companies with a greater interest in credit, leading to the creation of unique logos and marks. By the 1950s, Modernism had shed its roots as an artistic movement in Europe to become an international, commercialized movement with adherents in the United States. Modernist-inspired logos proved successful in the era of mass visual communication ushered in by television, improvements in printing technology, the current era of logo design began in the 1870s with the first abstract logo, the Bass red triangle. As of 2014, many corporations, products, brands, services, agencies, as a result, only a few of the thousands of ideograms in circulation are recognizable without a name. Ideograms and symbols may be effective than written names, especially for logos translated into many alphabets in increasingly globalized markets. For instance, a written in Arabic script might have little resonance in most European markets. By contrast, ideograms keep the general nature of a product in both markets. In non-profit areas, the Red Cross exemplifies a well-known emblem that does not need an accompanying name, the red cross and red crescent are among the best-recognized symbols in the world. National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and their Federation as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross include these symbols in their logos, branding can aim to facilitate cross-language marketing. Consumers and potential consumers can identify the Coca-Cola name written in different alphabets because of the standard color, the text was written in Spencerian Script, which was a popular writing style when the Coca Cola Logo was being designed. Since a logo is the visual entity signifying an organization, logo design is an important area of graphic design, a logo is the central element of a complex identification system that must be functionally extended to all communications of an organization
40.
Mount Fuji
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Mount Fuji, located on Honshu Island, is the highest mountain in Japan at 3,776.24 m. An active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08, Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres south-west of Tokyo, Mount Fuji is one of Japans Three Holy Mountains along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japans Historic Sites and it was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22,2013. Per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries, UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality. These 25 locations include the mountain itself, Fujisan, in Shinto mythology, Kuninotokotachi is one of the two gods born from something like a reed that arose from the soil when the earth was chaotic. He is known by mythology to reside on top of Mount Fuji, Kuninotokotachi is described as a hitorigami and genderless in Kojiki, while as a male god in Nihon Shoki. Yoshida Kanetomo, the founder of the Yoshida Shintō sect, identified Kuninotokotachi with Amenominakanushi, the current kanji for Mount Fuji, 富 and 士, mean wealth or abundant and a man with a certain status respectively. The origin of the name Fuji is unclear, having no recording of it being first called by this name. A text of the 10th century, Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, says that the name came from immortal, an early folk etymology claims that Fuji came from 不二, meaning without equal or nonpareil. Another claims that it came from 不尽, meaning neverending, a Japanese classical scholar in the Edo era, Hirata Atsutane, speculated that the name is from a word meaning, a mountain standing up shapely as an ear of a rice plant. It is also pointed that huchi means an old woman and ape is the word for fire, research on the distribution of place names that include fuji as a part also suggest the origin of the word fuji is in the Yamato language rather than Ainu. A Japanese toponymist Kanji Kagami argued that the name has the root as wisteria and rainbow. In English, the mountain is known as Mount Fuji, some sources refer to it as Fuji-san, Fujiyama or, redundantly, Mt. Fujiyama. Japanese speakers refer to the mountain as Fuji-san and this san is not the honorific suffix used with peoples names, such as Watanabe-san, but the Sino-Japanese reading of the character yama used in Sino-Japanese compounds. In Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki romanization, the name is transliterated as Huzi, among the most renowned works are Hokusais 36 Views of Mount Fuji and his One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, as well as Utagawa Hiroshiges similarly-titled 36 Views of Mount Fuji. The mountain is mentioned in Japanese literature throughout the ages and is the subject of many poems and it is thought that the first recorded ascent was in 663 by an anonymous monk. The summit has been thought of as sacred since ancient times and was forbidden to women until the Meiji Era, ancient samurai used the base of the mountain as a remote training area, near the present-day town of Gotemba. The shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo held yabusame in the area in the early Kamakura period, the first ascent by a foreigner was by Sir Rutherford Alcock in September 1868, from the foot of the mountain to the top in eight hours and three hours for the descent
41.
Atari ST
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The Atari ST is a line of home computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial ST model, the 520ST, saw limited release in April-June 1985 and was available in July. The Atari ST is the first personal computer to come with a bitmapped color GUI, the 1040ST, released in 1986, is the first personal computer to ship with a megabyte of RAM in the base configuration and also the first with a cost-per-kilobyte of less than US$1. The Atari ST is part of a generation of home computers that have 16 or 32-bit processors,256 KiB or more of RAM. It includes the Macintosh, Commodore Amiga, Apple IIGS, and, in certain markets, ST officially stands for Sixteen/Thirty-two, which refers to the Motorola 68000s 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals. The ST was sold with either Ataris color or monochrome monitor, the systems color graphics modes were only available on the color monitor, while the highest resolution mode needed the monochrome monitor. In some markets, particularly Germany, the machine gained a foothold as a small business machine for CAD. Thanks to its built-in MIDI ports, the ST enjoyed success for running music-sequencer software, the ST was superseded by the Atari STE, Atari TT, Atari MEGA STE, and Falcon computers. The Atari ST was born from the rivalry between home-computer makers Atari, Inc. and Commodore International, when his idea was rejected, Miner left Atari to form a small think tank called Hi-Toro in 1982 and began designing the new Lorraine chipset. The company, which was later renamed Amiga Corporation, was pretending to sell video game controllers to deceive competition while it developed a Lorraine-based computer, Amiga ran out of capital to complete Lorraines development, and Atari, owned by Warner Communications, paid Amiga to continue development work. In return Atari received exclusive use of the Lorraine design for one year as a game console. After one year Atari would have the right to add a keyboard and market the complete computer, as Atari was heavily involved with Disney at the time, it was later code-named Mickey, and the 256K memory expansion board was codenamed Minnie. After leaving Commodore International in January 1984, Jack Tramiel formed Tramel Technology with his sons and other employees and, in April. The company initially considered the National Semiconductor NS320xx microprocessor but was disappointed with its performance and this started the move to the 68000. Tramiel learned that Warner wanted to sell Atari which, in mid-1984, was losing about a million dollars per day, interested in Ataris overseas manufacturing and worldwide distribution network for his new computer, Tramiel negotiated with Warner in May and June 1984. He secured funding and bought Ataris Consumer Division in July, as executives and engineers left Commodore to join Tramiels new Atari Corporation, Commodore responded by filing lawsuits against four former engineers for theft of trade secrets. This company was originally called TTL, later renamed to Atari Corp, at the time of the purchase of Atari Incs assets, there were roughly 900 employees remaining from a high point of 10,000. After the interviews, approximately 100 employees were hired to work at Atari Corp, Amiga Corp. had sought more monetary support from investors in spring 1984
42.
Atari 7800
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The Atari 7800 ProSystem, or simply the Atari 7800, is a home video game console officially released by Atari Corporation in 1986. It is almost fully backward-compatible with the Atari 2600, the first console to have backward compatibility without the use of additional modules and it was considered affordable at a price of US$140. The 7800 has significantly improved graphics hardware over the 2600, and it also shipped with a different model of joystick than the 2600-standard CX40. A few units were released to test markets in June 1984 though, the Atari 7800 ProSystem was the first game system from Atari Inc. designed by an outside company, General Computer Corporation. The system was designed in 1983-84 with a mass market rollout in June 1984. The project was called the Atari 3600, though was later renamed the Atari 7800. Atari had been facing mounting pressure in the form of competition from the ColecoVision, at the same time, the Atari 5200 had been widely criticized for not being able to play Atari 2600 games without an adapter. GCC, which had a background in creating games, designed their new system with a graphical architecture similar to arcade machines of the time. The 7800 allows a number of moving objects that far exceeds previous consoles. Powering the system is a slightly customized 6502 processor, the Atari SALLY, in contrast to the Atari 5200, the Atari 7800 can play almost all Atari 2600 games out of the box, without the need for an adapter. In addition, it features a return to a digital controller, then as an added bonus, GCCs programmers would also do almost all of the Atari 2600,5200 games in 1983-1984 for Atari. atarimuseum. A keyboard was developed, and the keyboard had a port that allowed for the addition of peripherals such as disk drives. To further enhance the experience, GCC had also designed a high score cartridge. On the side of the 7800 was a port, reportedly for a planned connection with a laserdisc player. The 7800 was initially released in southern California in June 1984, following an announcement on May 21,1984 at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show. Thirteen games were announced for the launch, Ms. Pac-Man, Pole Position II, Centipede, Joust, Dig Dug, Desert Falcon, Robotron,2084, Galaga, Food Fight, Ballblazer. Atari was a sponsor of the 1984 Summer Olympics and planned to push the 7800 aggressively in time for Christmas that year, on July 2,1984, Warner Communications sold Ataris Consumer Division to Jack Tramiel. All projects were halted during an evaluation period
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Macy's, Inc.
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Macys, Inc. originally Federated Department Stores, Inc. is an American holding company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. As of 2016, the company operated approximately 888 stores in the United States, Guam and its namesake locations and related operations account for 90 percent of its revenue. According to Deloitte, Macys, Inc. is the worlds largest fashion goods retailer, Lazarus also convinced President Franklin D. After this date Black Friday became a sensation and the most profitable day for Federated. Various Lazarus family members also held key positions on Federateds board and within its various divisions—namely, Foleys, Filenes, Lazarus, Federateds corporate offices were relocated to Cincinnati in 1945. Harris, both of Dallas, Texas, Boston Store of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, MainStreet of Chicago, Illinois, Bullocks, of Los Angeles, magnin, of San Francisco, California, Gold Circle, and Richway Discount Department Stores of Worthington, Ohio. In 1982, Federated acquired the Twin Fair, Inc. discount store chain based in Buffalo, New York, in 1983, it sold most of its infrastructure to JMB Realty. H. Macy & Company sold their credit portfolio in an attempt to prevent filing for bankruptcy, Federated then took over Macys in 1994 while that company was still emerging from its own bankruptcy in 1992. Federated entered e-commerce late, in 1998, FDS Bank was one of the last credit card banks to begin to allow its cardholders to access account information online. The department store chain Sterns, a division of Federated, ceased operations in 2001, in 2003, Federated changed the nameplates of all their non-Macys stores, except Bloomingdales, to include the Macys name. The rebranding process was referred internally to as Project Hyphen, under the plan, Seattle-based The Bon Marché became Bon-Macys, Goldsmiths in Tennessee became Goldsmiths-Macys, Lazarus, Burdines, and Richs also added -Macys to their name. A year later, the hyphenated names were dropped in favor of just Macys. Federated settled an SEC investigation for $14.46 million in 1998 due to unethical debt-collection practices, Federated failed to file reaffirmation agreements with bankruptcy courts. As a result, the changes in the agreements were not legally binding, on July 18,2005, Federated Department Stores announced that it would acquire May Department Stores company for $11 billion in cash and stock. Also part of the buyout was the bridal and formal unit of May, consisting of Davids Bridal, Federated would also assume $6 billion of Mays debt, bringing total consideration to $17 billion. The deal would create the nations largest department store chain with over 1,000 stores, to help finance the deal, Federated agreed to sell its combined proprietary credit card business to Citigroup. The merger was completed on August 30,2005, after an agreement was reached with the State Attorneys General of New York, California, Massachusetts, Maryland. This number could fluctuate pursuant to Federateds negotiations with various mall landlords, on June 22,2006, Macys announced that NRDC Equity Partners, LLC would purchase Lord & Taylor for US$1.2 billion, and completed the sale in October 2006
44.
Silo (store)
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Silo was an electronics retailer that opened in 1947 and operated throughout the United States, and closed in 1995. The western region stores were known for a number of years as Downings in Colorado and Appliance-TV City in Arizona, Silo was founded by Sidney Cooper in Philadelphia, PA, in 1946 following his service in World War II. The company was named for himself and for his wife Lorraine, prior to opening its first retail store, Silo operated as a door-to-door installment business. With the advent of television, Cooper saw an opportunity and seized on it and he opened his first store about 1951 in the Manayunk section of Philadelphia, featuring appliances and televisions. Silo was a discounter, operating under the name Silo Discount Centers. Silo regularly opened on Sundays, violating the Blue laws then in effect, Cooper claimed that it was necessary to open on Sunday in order to serve working families, and was even arrested at least once for doing so. On one such occasion, the press was on hand to cover the arrest, apparently tipped off by Cooper himself, the company grew rapidly, opening stores throughout the tri-state region over the next twenty years. Silo went public in 1962, raising money to fuel its expansion throughout a region bounded by Trenton, NJ, Wilmington, DE. The companys early advertising stressed that the S in Silo stood for savings, service, early store formats of 4,000 to 8,000 square feel were considered large by standards of the day. Later, Silo operated stores of 12,000 to 25,000 square feet, with two outlets of almost 60,000 square feet in Buffalo, NY and New Orleans. Stores were generally freestanding, with some attached to shopping centers or malls, in 1970 Silo made its first foray beyond the Philadelphia metro area, purchasing a number of Downings stores from Sam Bloom in Denver, Colorado. Shortly after, Silo purchased three Appliance-TV City stores in Arizona from its founder, Jay Winslow, the Colorado and Arizona acquisitions enjoyed rapid expansion, as Silo applied its formula of low pricing, huge selection, and hard hitting advertising. The 1970s Silo television jingle, Silo is having a sale, was so pervasive, in a later example, typical Silos hard-hitting price promotions, a 1986 advertisement offered a stereo system for 299 bananas. Customers in Seattle and in El Paso took this offer literally, Silo honored its offer, trading 32 stereos in Seattle and three in El Paso for bananas. The stores lost $10,465 on these transactions, in 1972 Silo launched Audio World, a wholly owned subsidiary which sold stereo systems and audio components. Initially a few freestanding stores in the greater Philadelphia area, by 1974 Audio World departments were being incorporated all existing. In 1976 Cooper died at the age of 57 and leadership of the passed to his son-in-law Barry Feinberg. At the time of Coopers death, Silo operated 40 stores with revenues of $60 million, Feinberg expanded an already aggressive advertising campaign and eschewed Coopers approach of geographic expansion by acquisition
