1.
Neo Geo (system)
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It was the first system in SNKs Neo Geo family. The Neo Geo originally launched as the MVS coin-operated arcade machine, with its games stored on self-contained cartridges, a game cabinet can be exchanged for a different game title by swapping the games ROM Cartridge and cabinet artwork. A home console version was made, called AES. The AES had the same raw specs as the MVS and had full compatibility, as of 2013 it was the most expensive home video game console ever released, costing US$1,125 adjusted for inflation. The Neo Geo was revived along with the overall in December 2012 through the introduction of the Neo Geo X handheld. The Neo Geo MVS was a success during the 1990s, due to the low cost, six ROM slots. Several successful video game series were released for the platform, such as Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Samurai Shodown, The King of Fighters and Metal Slug. Neo Geo hardware production lasted seven years, discontinued in 1997, whereas game software production lasted until 2004, the AES console was succeeded by the Neo Geo CD and the MVS arcade by the Hyper Neo Geo 64. As of March 1997, the Neo Geo and the Neo Geo CD combined had sold 980,000 units worldwide, in 2009, the Neo Geo was ranked 19th out of the 25 best video game consoles of all time by the video game website IGN. Contrary to other popular arcade hardware of the time, the SNK/Alpha Denshi hardware used sprite strips instead of the more common tilemap based backgrounds, the Neo Geo was announced on January 31,1990 in Osaka, Japan and released on April 26,1990. Initially, the AES home system was available for rent to commercial establishments, such as hotel chains, bars and restaurants. When customer response indicated that some gamers were willing to buy a US$650 console, SNK expanded sales, Neo Geos graphics and sound are largely superior to other contemporary home consoles, arcades, and even computers such as the Sharp X68000. The MVS was one of the most powerful units at the time. Furthermore, since the AES was identical to its arcade counterpart, although its high price tag kept it out of the mainstream gaming market, it outlasted the market lifespan of its more popular Nintendo and Sega rivals, and also made a unique niche market for it. In the United States, the consoles debut price was planned to be US$599, however, the price was raised and its American launch debuted as the Gold System at US$649.99. Later, the Gold System was bundled with Magician Lord and Fatal Fury, the Silver System package, launched at US$399.99, includes one joystick controller and does not include a game. Other games were launched at about US$200 and up, at double or quadruple the competition, these premium prices made the console accessible only to a niche market. When realtime 3D graphics became the norm in the arcade industry, despite this, Neo Geo arcade games retained profitability through the mid-1990s, and the system was one of three 1995 recipients of the American Amusement Machine Associations Diamond Awards
2.
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
3.
Handheld game console
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A handheld game console is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls, and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video consoles and contain the console, screen, speakers. In 1976, Mattel introduced the first handheld game with the release of Auto Race. Later, several companies—including Coleco and Milton Bradley—made their own single-game, the oldest true handheld game console with interchangeable cartridges is the Milton Bradley Microvision in 1979. Nintendo is credited with popularizing the handheld console concept with the release of the Game Boy in 1989, the origins of handheld game consoles are found in handheld and tabletop electronic game devices of the 1970s and early 1980s. These electronic devices are capable of playing only a game, they fit in the palm of the hand or on a tabletop. In 1978, handheld games were described by Popular Electronics magazine as nonvideo electronic games. This synthesis happened in 1976, when Mattel began work on a line of calculator-sized sports games that became the worlds first handheld electronic games. The project began when Michael Katz, Mattels new product category marketing director, told the engineers in the group to design a game the size of a calculator. Our big success was something that I conceptualized—the first handheld game, I asked the design group to see if they could come up with a game that was electronic that was the same size as a calculator. —Michael Katz, former marketing director, Mattel Toys, the result was the 1976 release of Auto Race. Followed by Football later in 1977, the two games were so successful that according to Katz, these simple electronic handheld games turned into a $400 million category, Mattel would later win the honor of being recognized by the industry for innovation in handheld game device displays. Soon, other manufacturers including Coleco, Parker Brothers, Milton Bradley, Entex, in 1979 the LCD-based Microvision, designed by Smith Engineering and distributed by Milton-Bradley, became the first handheld game console and the first to use interchangeable game cartridges. In 1979, Gunpei Yokoi, traveling on a bullet train, Yokoi then thought of an idea for a watch that doubled as a miniature game machine for killing time. Starting in 1980, Nintendo began to release a series of games designed by Yokoi called the Game & Watch games. For later, more complicated Game & Watch games, Yokoi invented a cross shaped directional pad or D-pad for control of on-screen characters, the result was the Nintendo Game Boy. In 1982, the Bandai LCD Solarpower was the first solar-powered gaming device, some of its games, such as the horror-themed game Terror House, features two LCD panels, one stacked on the other, for an early 3D effect. In 1983, Takara Tomys Tomytronic 3D simulates 3D by having two LED panels that were lit by light through a window on top of the device
4.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
5.
TurboGrafx-16
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It was the first console released in the 16-bit era, albeit still utilizing an 8-bit CPU. Originally intended to compete with the Nintendo Entertainment System, it ended up competing with the Sega Genesis, the TurboGrafx-16 has an 8-bit CPU, a 16-bit video color encoder, and a 16-bit video display controller. The GPUs are capable of displaying 482 colors simultaneously, out of 512, with dimensions of 14 cm×14 cm×3.8 cm, the PC Engine once held the record for the worlds smallest game console. In France, the system was released shortly after its American debut under its original Japanese name, in the United Kingdom, Telegames released a slightly altered version of the American model simply as the TurboGrafx in 1990 in extremely limited quantities. This model was released in Spain through selected retailers. The TurboGrafx-16 failed to break into the North American market and sold poorly, however, in Japan the PC Engine was very successful. Two major revisions, the PC Engine SuperGrafx and the PC Engine Duo, were released in 1989 and 1991, the entire series was succeeded by the PC-FX in 1994, which was only released in Japan. The TurboGrafx-16 was an effort between the relatively young Hudson Soft and NEC Home Electronics. NECs interest in entering the video game market coincided with Hudsons failed attempt to sell designs for then-advanced graphics chips to Nintendo. The TurboGrafx-16 was the first video game console to have a CD-ROM peripheral, NEC released the CD-ROM² in Japan on December 4,1988, and released the TurboGrafx-CD in the United States on August 1,1990. The TurboGrafx-CD had a price of $399.99. Fighting Street and Monster Lair were the TurboGrafx-CD launch titles, Ys Book I & II soon followed, the TurboGrafx-16 was released in the New York City and Los Angeles test market in late August 1989. Initially, the TurboGrafx-16 was marketed as a competitor to the NES and early television ads touted the TG-16s superior graphics. These ads featured a montage of the TG-16s launch titles, Blazing Lazers, China Warrior, Vigilante, Alien Crush. The TG-16 was also in competition with the Sega Genesis. The Genesis launch was accompanied by an ad campaign mocking NECs claim that the TurboGrafx-16 was the first 16-bit console, NEC claimed that it had sold 750,000 TG-16 consoles in the United States, and 500,000 CD-ROM units worldwide, by March 1991. That year NEC released the PC Engine Duo in Japan, a model which could play HuCards and CD-ROM² discs, the console was licensed to Turbo Technologies Incorporated, who released it in North America in 1992 as the TurboDuo. In addition to standard CD-ROM² format discs, the Duo could also play games in the newly introduced Super CD-ROM² format due to its greater RAM size, the unit came into competition with the Sega CD, which was released almost immediately after
6.
Neo Geo CD
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Neo Geo CD is the second home video game console of SNK Corporations Neo Geo family, released in September 9,1994, four years after its cartridge-based equivalent. This is the platform, converted to the cheaper CD format retailing at $49 to $79 per title. The system was originally priced at US$399, or £399 in the UK, the units 1X CD-ROM drive is slow, with very long loading times of up to 56 Mbit of data per load. The system can also play Audio CDs, all three versions of the system have no region-lock. The Neo Geo CD was launched bundled with a control pad instead of a joystick like the AES version, however, the original AES joystick can be used with all three Neo Geo CD models. As of March 1997, the Neo Geo CD had sold 570,000 units worldwide, the Neo Geo CD was first unveiled at the 1994 Tokyo Toy Show. Three versions of the Neo Geo CD were released, A front-loading version, only distributed in Japan, a top-loading version, marketed worldwide, as the most common model. The Neo Geo CDZ, an upgraded, faster-loading version, released in Japan only, the front-loading version was the original console design, with the top-loading version developed shortly before the Neo Geo CD launch as a scaled-down, cheaper alternative model. The CDZ was released on December 29,1995 as the Japanese market replacement for SNKs previous efforts. The Neo Geo CD had met with limited due to it being plagued with slow loading times that could vary from 30 to 60 seconds between loads, depending on the game. In response to criticism of the Neo Geo CDs long load times, however, on the eve of the North American launch SNK announced a change of plans. The CDZ was only sold in Japan during its production. However, its loading times, lack of a region lock. The systems technical specs are identical to the previous models except that it includes a double-speed CD-ROM drive, the prototype of the machine that they showed was single speed, and the load time was 14-28 seconds between rounds. You can see that the screen on the right is a load screen, roughly a month after launch, SNK reported that they had sold the Neo Geo CDs entire initial shipment of 50,000 units. They gave it 1 1/2 out of 5 stars, main Processor, Motorola 68000 running at 12 MHz Although the original 68000 CPU was designed by Motorola, there are many clones of this CPU found in the Neo Geo hardware. The most common CPU is the TMP68HC000 manufactured by Toshiba, in addition to the multi-AV port, all Neo Geo CD models had composite RCA A/V and S-Video out jacks on the rear of the console. These include Puzzle Bobble, Janshin Densetsu, Quest of Jongmaster, Power Spikes II, Neo Drift Out, New Technology, a few games which were unreleased in MVS and AES formats were also released exclusively for the Neo Geo CD
7.
Compact disc
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Compact disc is a digital optical disc data storage format released in 1982 and co-developed by Philips and Sony. The format was developed to store and play only sound recordings but was later adapted for storage of data. The first commercially available Audio CD player, the Sony CDP-101, was released October 1982 in Japan, standard CDs have a diameter of 120 millimetres and can hold up to about 80 minutes of uncompressed audio or about 700 MiB of data. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 millimetres, they are used for CD singles, storing up to 24 minutes of audio. At the time of the introduction in 1982, a CD could store much more data than a personal computer hard drive. By 2010, hard drives commonly offered as much space as a thousand CDs. In 2004, worldwide sales of audio CDs, CD-ROMs and CD-Rs reached about 30 billion discs, by 2007,200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide. In 2014, revenues from digital music services matched those from physical format sales for the first time. American inventor James T. Russell has been credited with inventing the first system to record information on an optical transparent foil that is lit from behind by a high-power halogen lamp. Russells patent application was first filed in 1966, and he was granted a patent in 1970, following litigation, Sony and Philips licensed Russells patents in the 1980s. The compact disc is an evolution of LaserDisc technology, where a laser beam is used that enables the high information density required for high-quality digital audio signals. Prototypes were developed by Philips and Sony independently in the late 1970s, although originally dismissed by Philips Research management as a trivial pursuit, the CD became the primary focus for Philips as the LaserDisc format struggled. In 1979, Sony and Philips set up a joint task force of engineers to design a new audio disc. After a year of experimentation and discussion, the Red Book CD-DA standard was published in 1980, after their commercial release in 1982, compact discs and their players were extremely popular. Despite costing up to $1,000, over 400,000 CD players were sold in the United States between 1983 and 1984, by 1988 CD sales in the United States surpassed those of vinyl LPs, and by 1992 CD sales surpassed those of prerecorded music cassette tapes. The success of the disc has been credited to the cooperation between Philips and Sony, who came together to agree upon and develop compatible hardware. The unified design of the disc allowed consumers to purchase any disc or player from any company. In 1974, L. However, due to the performance of the analog format
8.
CD-ROM
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A CD-ROM /ˌsiːˌdiːˈrɒm/ is a pre-pressed optical compact disc which contains data. The name is an acronym which stands for Compact Disc Read-Only Memory, computers can read CD-ROMs, but cannot write to CD-ROMs which are not writable or erasable. From the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s, CD-ROMs were popularly used to distribute software for computers, some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both computer data and audio with the latter capable of being played on a CD player, while data is only usable on a computer. An early CD-ROM format was developed by Sony and Denon, introduced at a Japanese computer show in 1984 and it was an extension of Compact Disc Digital Audio, and adapted the format to hold any form of digital data, with a capacity of 540 MiB. The Yellow Book is the standard that defines the format of CD-ROMs. One of a set of books that contain the technical specifications for all CD formats. CD-ROMs are identical in appearance to audio CDs, and data are stored and retrieved in a similar manner. Discs are made from a 1.2 mm thick disc of polycarbonate plastic, data is stored on the disc as a series of microscopic indentations. A laser is shone onto the surface of the disc to read the pattern of pits. This pattern of changing intensity of the beam is converted into binary data. Several formats are used for data stored on discs, known as the Rainbow Books. The Yellow Book, published in 1988, defines the specifications for CD-ROMs, the CD-ROM standard builds on top of the original Red Book CD-DA standard for CD audio. Other standards, such as the White Book for Video CDs, the Yellow Book itself is not freely available, but the standards with the corresponding content can be downloaded for free from ISO or ECMA. There are several standards that define how to structure data files on a CD-ROM, ISO9660 defines the standard file system for a CD-ROM. ISO13490 is an improvement on this standard which adds support for non-sequential write-once and re-writeable discs such as CD-R and CD-RW, as well as multiple sessions. The ISO13346 standard was designed to address most of the shortcomings of ISO9660, and a subset of it evolved into the UDF format, which was adopted for DVDs. The bootable CD specification was issued in January 1995, to make a CD emulate a hard disk or floppy disk, is called El Torito, data stored on CD-ROMs follows the standard CD data encoding techniques described in the Red Book specification. This includes cross-interleaved Reed–Solomon coding, eight-to-fourteen modulation, and the use of pits, the structures used to group data on a CD-ROM are also derived from the Red Book
9.
Neo Geo Pocket Color
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The Neo Geo Pocket Color, is a 16-bit color handheld video game console manufactured by SNK. It is a successor to SNKs monochrome Neo Geo Pocket handheld which debuted in 1998 in Japan, with the Color being fully backward compatible. The Neo Geo Pocket Color was released on March 16,1999 in Japan, August 6,1999 in North America, and on October 1,1999 in Europe, entering markets all dominated by Nintendo. However, Aruze didnt support SNKs video game business enough, leading to SNKs original founder and several employees to leave and form a new company. The Neo Geo Pocket Color did however, last until 2001 in Japan and it was SNKs last video game console, as the company went bankrupt on October 22,2001. Despite its failure the Neo Geo Pocket Color has been regarded as an influential system. Many highly acclaimed games were released for the system, such as SNK vs. Capcom, The Match of the Millennium, King of Fighters R-2 and it also featured an arcade-style microswitched clicky stick joystick, which was praised for its accuracy and being well-suited for fighting games. The systems display and 40-hour battery life were also well received, the U. S. version of the Neo Geo Pocket Color had an exclusive launch on the website eToys in 1999. EToys also sold the initial titles in the plastic snap lock cases. The system debuted in the United States with six launch titles, six different unit colors were available, Camouflage Blue, Carbon Black, Crystal White, Platinum Blue, Platinum Silver, and Stone Blue. In its first two months, the NGCP sold a successful 25,000 units, for the Christmas Holiday season in 1999, SNK spent $4 million on television advertisements that aired on channels including MTV, Comedy Central and Cartoon Network. By May 2000, the NGCP had a 2% market share in the U. S. handheld console market, although compared to the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. On October 21,1999, a redesigned, slimmer version called New Neo Geo Pocket Color was released in Japan and it is 13% smaller than the original Neo Geo Pocket Color, with dimensions 125 x 73 x 27 mm, and also features improved sound output. In June 2000, Aruze decided to discontinue all SNK operations outside Japan, as a result, remaining stock was bought back by SNK for repackaging in Asia. SNK were recalling most of the back-stock of systems and games to be flashed and re-sold in Asia where the system would continue to be sold, some of the back-stock of American NGPC hardware and software began to resurface on the American and Asian markets in 2003. These units frequently appeared bundled with six games stripped of their cases, the cover boxes for Neo Geo Pocket Color were clamshell plastic boxes, similar to the Neo Geo AES. These boxes have been received for their quality. The Japanese versions followed soon after, but the European boxes have always been the plastic boxes, Sega was the only major third-party developer to support the Neo Geo Pocket Color
10.
Computer graphics
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Computer graphics are pictures and films created using computers. Usually, the term refers to computer-generated image data created with help from specialized hardware and software. It is a vast and recent area in computer science, the phrase was coined in 1960, by computer graphics researchers Verne Hudson and William Fetter of Boeing. It is often abbreviated as CG, though sometimes referred to as CGI. The overall methodology depends heavily on the sciences of geometry, optics. Computer graphics is responsible for displaying art and image data effectively and meaningfully to the user and it is also used for processing image data received from the physical world. Computer graphic development has had a significant impact on many types of media and has revolutionized animation, movies, advertising, video games, the term computer graphics has been used a broad sense to describe almost everything on computers that is not text or sound. Such imagery is found in and on television, newspapers, weather reports, a well-constructed graph can present complex statistics in a form that is easier to understand and interpret. In the media such graphs are used to illustrate papers, reports, thesis, many tools have been developed to visualize data. Computer generated imagery can be categorized into different types, two dimensional, three dimensional, and animated graphics. As technology has improved, 3D computer graphics have become more common, Computer graphics has emerged as a sub-field of computer science which studies methods for digitally synthesizing and manipulating visual content. Screens could display art since the Lumiere brothers use of mattes to create effects for the earliest films dating from 1895. New kinds of displays were needed to process the wealth of information resulting from such projects, early projects like the Whirlwind and SAGE Projects introduced the CRT as a viable display and interaction interface and introduced the light pen as an input device. Douglas T. Ross of the Whirlwind SAGE system performed an experiment in 1954 in which a small program he wrote captured the movement of his finger. Electronics pioneer Hewlett-Packard went public in 1957 after incorporating the decade prior, and established ties with Stanford University through its founders. This began the transformation of the southern San Francisco Bay Area into the worlds leading computer technology hub - now known as Silicon Valley. The field of computer graphics developed with the emergence of computer graphics hardware, further advances in computing led to greater advancements in interactive computer graphics. In 1959, the TX-2 computer was developed at MITs Lincoln Laboratory, the TX-2 integrated a number of new man-machine interfaces
11.
Hotel
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A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Small, lower-priced hotels may offer only the most basic guest services and facilities, Hotel rooms are usually numbered to allow guests to identify their room. Some boutique, high-end hotels have custom decorated rooms, some hotels offer meals as part of a room and board arrangement. In the United Kingdom, a hotel is required by law to serve food, in Japan, capsule hotels provide a tiny room suitable only for sleeping and shared bathroom facilities. The precursor to the hotel was the inn of medieval Europe. For a period of about 200 years from the mid-17th century, inns began to cater to richer clients in the mid-18th century. One of the first hotels in a sense was opened in Exeter in 1768. Hotels proliferated throughout Western Europe and North America in the early 19th century, Hotel operations vary in size, function, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies have set standards to classify hotel types. Full service hotels often contain upscale full-service facilities with a number of full service accommodations, an on-site full service restaurant. Boutique hotels are independent, non-branded hotels that often contain upscale facilities. Small to medium-sized hotel establishments offer a limited amount of on-site amenities, economy hotels are small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer basic accommodations with little to no services. Extended stay hotels are small to medium-sized hotels that offer full service accommodations compared to a traditional hotel. Timeshare and destination clubs are a form of property ownership involving ownership of a unit of accommodation for seasonal usage. A motel is a small-sized low-rise lodging with direct access to rooms from the car park. Boutique hotels are typically hotels with an environment or intimate setting. A number of hotels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture, some hotels are built specifically as a destination in itself, for example at casinos and holiday resorts. The organizational chart and volume of job positions and hierarchy varies by size, function and class
12.
Osaka
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Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Japan. Historically a merchant city, Osaka has also known as the nations kitchen. Some of the earliest signs of habitation in the Osaka area at the Morinomiya ruins comprise shell mounds, sea oysters. It is believed that what is today the Uehonmachi area consisted of a land with an inland sea in the east. During the Yayoi period, permanent habitation on the plains grew as rice farming became popular, by the Kofun period, Osaka developed into a hub port connecting the region to the western part of Japan. The large numbers of increasingly larger tomb mounds found in the plains of Osaka are seen as evidence of political-power concentration, in 645, Emperor Kōtoku built his Naniwa Nagara-Toyosaki Palace in what is now Osaka, making it the capital of Japan. The city now known as Osaka was at this time referred to as Naniwa, although the capital was moved to Asuka in 655, Naniwa remained a vital connection, by land and sea, between Yamato, Korea, and China. Naniwa was declared the capital again in 744 by order of Emperor Shōmu, and remained so until 745, in 1496, Jōdo Shinshū Buddhists established their headquarters in the heavily fortified Ishiyama Hongan-ji, located directly on the site of the old Naniwa Imperial Palace. Oda Nobunaga began a siege campaign on the temple in 1570 which ultimately resulted in the surrender of the monks. Toyotomi Hideyoshi constructed Osaka Castle in its place in 1583, Osaka was long considered Japans primary economic center, with a large percentage of the population belonging to the merchant class. Over the course of the Edo period, Osaka grew into one of Japans major cities and returned to its ancient role as a lively and its popular culture was closely related to ukiyo-e depictions of life in Edo. By 1780 Osaka had cultivated a vibrant arts culture, as typified by its famous Kabuki, in 1837 Ōshio Heihachirō, a low-ranking samurai, led a peasant insurrection in response to the citys unwillingness to support the many poor and suffering families in the area. Approximately one-quarter of the city was razed before shogunal officials put down the rebellion, Osaka was opened to foreign trade by the government of the Bakufu at the same time as Hyōgo on 1 January 1868, just before the advent of the Boshin War and the Meiji Restoration. Osaka residents were stereotyped in Edo literature from at least the 18th century, jippenisha Ikku in 1802 depicted Osakans as stingy almost beyond belief. Edo writers aspired to samurai culture, and saw themselves as poor but generous, chaste, Edo writers by contrast saw zeeroku as obsequious apprentices, stingy, greedy, gluttonous, and lewd. The modern municipality was established in 1889 by government ordinance, with an area of 15 square kilometres, overlapping todays Chūō. Later, the city went through three major expansions to reach its current size of 223 square kilometres, Osaka was the industrial center most clearly defined in the development of capitalism in Japan. It became known as the Manchester of the Orient, the rapid industrialization attracted many Korean immigrants, who set up a life apart for themselves
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