1.
Ridge Racer (2004 video game)
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Ridge Racer, released in Japan as Ridge Racers, is an arcade racing video game developed by Namco for the PlayStation Portable. It is named after the eponymous Ridge Racer video game series to which it belongs, the game was released in Japan on 12 December 2004, in North America on 22 March 2005, and in Europe on 1 September 2005 as a launch title. Available in the game is a playable version of the Namco arcade game New Rally-X. Ridge Racer has been described as a compilation of the series, featuring tracks, cars, Ridge Racer was very well received by critics and was praised for its visuals, gameplay and soundtrack. It was re-released in 2005/2006 as a platinum title, a sequel titled Ridge Racer 2 has also been released for the PSP. Game modes are World Tour, Single race, Time Trial, and Wireless Battle, the game also features a Full Motion Video opening, that shows series mascot Reiko Nagase. Notable in the game is the nitrous boost system, the player has a Nitrous Gauge made up of three nitrous tanks, which at the start of a race are either completely depleted or only partially full. As the player drifts through the corners during the race, their nitrous gauge fills up, when the player fills up one of the three nitrous tanks, it can be activated to achieve a temporary speed boost. The game features a total of 24 courses most taken from previous PlayStation games or the arcade-only title Rave Racer, the first two courses in the game are taken from the original Ridge Racer, although they also appeared in Ridge Racer V. They are both variants on the course, each featuring different diversions part-way through. Seaside Route 765 Ridge City Highway The next two courses are taken from Ridge Racer Revolution and again are both variants on the same course, sunset Drive Crystal Coast Highway Courses #5 and #6 are taken from Rage Racer. Union Hill District Lakeside Parkway Courses #7 and #8 are taken from R4, crimsonrock Pass Diablo Canyon Road The next two courses are all taken from the arcade-only title Rave Racer. Their appearance here marks the first time these courses have ever been playable outside of the arcades, although, in typical Ridge Racer fashion, they share sections of track from previous courses. Silvercreek Dam shares a section of track from Greenpeak Highlands, whereas Downtown Rave City shares a section with Midtown Expressway, the music in the game is a collection of new songs and songs taken from previous Ridge Racer games, arranged across several discs. The Red and Blue discs contain all-new songs put together specifically for the game while the two Classic discs contains a collection of remastered songs from Ridge Racer titles, lastly, the Remix disc contains songs from past titles remixed by the original composer. Speedster Remix - from the PlayStation titles, Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer Revolution, Drive U2 Dancing Remix - from the Arcade title Ridge Racer 2 and the PlayStation title, Ridge Racer Revolution. Rareheroes - featured in many past Ridge Racer titles, Blue Topaz Remix - from the arcade title, Rave Racer. Motor Species Remix - from the PlayStation title, Ridge Racer Type 4, Ridge Racer - A remastered version of the title tune from the PlayStation title, Ridge Racer
2.
Ridge Racer (2011 video game)
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It is the 5th handheld game in the Ridge Racer series. The game was developed by Cellius and published by Namco Bandai Games, the game continues the Ridge Racer tradition of illegal street racing and supports single-player as well as local and Wi-Fi multiplayer games. The game was panned by most video game critics, some of whom have listed it as one of the worst video games of all time, the Hornet from Segas Daytona USA makes a cameo appearance as available DLC, as well as an exclusive song inspired by both franchises. Other cameos include cars with paint schemes derived from The Idolmaster, as well as DoCoMO and Pac-Man-themed versions of the Kamata SYNCi, the DoCoMo and Idolmaster cars are not available outside Japan. Ridge Racer received generally unfavorable reviews according to the aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of one eight, elsewhere, it was critically panned by various publications for its bare-bones nature and a lack of proper progression, unlike other installments in the series. GameSpot criticized the lack of initial content as a ploy to force users to buy its downloadable content. In conclusion, the game was considered a complete and utter ripoff that feels more like a cheap cash-in than a fully thought-out product. IGN similarly criticized the games lack of storyline or progression-based modes or leagues. Ridge Racer was described as racing in a vacuum, barely more than a tech demo, in June 2012, IGN also named Ridge Racer one of its ten Worst Video Games of 2012 So Far
3.
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
4.
Video game music
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Video game music is the soundtrack that accompanies video games. Early video game music was limited to simple melodies of early sound synthesizer technology. With advances in technology, video game music has now grown to include the same breadth and complexity associated with television and film scores, while simple synthesizer pieces are still common, game music now includes full orchestral pieces and popular music. Music in video games can be heard over a title screen, options menu. Today’s soundtracks can also change depending on a player’s actions or situation, Video game music can be one of two options, original or licensed. In order to create or collect this music, teams of composers, music directors, today, original composition has included the work of film composers Harry Gregson-Williams, Trent Reznor, Hans Zimmer, Josh Mancell, Steve Jablonsky, and Michael Giacchino. The popularity of game music has expanded education and job opportunities, generated awards. At the time video games had emerged as a form of entertainment in the late 1970s, music was stored on physical medium in analog waveforms such as compact cassettes. Such components were expensive and prone to breakage under heavy use making them less ideal for use in an arcade cabinet, though in rare cases. Sound effects for the games were also generated in this fashion, an early example of such an approach to video game music was the opening chiptune in Tomohiro Nishikados Gun Fight. The first game to use a background soundtrack was Tomohiro Nishikados Space Invaders. It had four descending chromatic bass notes repeating in a loop, though it was dynamic and interacted with the player, the first video game to feature continuous, melodic background music was Rally-X, released by Namco in 1980, featuring a simple tune that repeats continuously during gameplay. The decision to any music into a video game meant that at some point it would have to be transcribed into computer code by a programmer, whether or not the programmer had musical experience. Some music was original, some was public domain music such as folk songs, Sound capabilities were limited, the popular Atari 2600 home system, for example, was capable of generating only two tones, or notes, at a time. As advances were made in technology and costs fell, a definitively new generation of arcade machines. This was further improved upon by Namcos 1982 arcade game Dig Dug, Dig Dug was composed by Yuriko Keino, who also composed the music for other Namco games such as Xevious and Phozon. Home console systems also had an upgrade in sound ability beginning with the ColecoVision in 1982 capable of four channels. However, more notable was the Japanese release of the Famicom in 1983 which was released in the US as the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985
5.
Computing platform
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Computing platform means in general sense, where any piece of software is executed. It may be the hardware or the system, even a web browser or other application. The term computing platform can refer to different abstraction levels, including a hardware architecture, an operating system. In total it can be said to be the stage on which programs can run. For example, an OS may be a platform that abstracts the underlying differences in hardware, platforms may also include, Hardware alone, in the case of small embedded systems. Embedded systems can access hardware directly, without an OS, this is referred to as running on bare metal, a browser in the case of web-based software. The browser itself runs on a platform, but this is not relevant to software running within the browser. An application, such as a spreadsheet or word processor, which hosts software written in a scripting language. This can be extended to writing fully-fledged applications with the Microsoft Office suite as a platform, software frameworks that provide ready-made functionality. Cloud computing and Platform as a Service, the social networking sites Twitter and facebook are also considered development platforms. A virtual machine such as the Java virtual machine, applications are compiled into a format similar to machine code, known as bytecode, which is then executed by the VM. A virtualized version of a system, including virtualized hardware, OS, software. These allow, for instance, a typical Windows program to run on what is physically a Mac, some architectures have multiple layers, with each layer acting as a platform to the one above it. In general, a component only has to be adapted to the layer immediately beneath it, however, the JVM, the layer beneath the application, does have to be built separately for each OS
6.
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
7.
PlayStation (console)
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The PlayStation is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. The console was released on 3 December 1994 in Japan,9 September 1995 in North America,29 September 1995 in Europe, the console was the first of the PlayStation lineup of home video game consoles. It primarily competed with the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn as part of the generation of video game consoles. The PlayStation is the first computer entertainment platform to ship 100 million units, in 2000, a redesigned, slim version called the PSone was released, replacing the original grey console and named appropriately to avoid confusion with its successor, the PlayStation 2. In 1999, Sony announced the successor to the PlayStation, the PlayStation 2, which is compatible with the PlayStations DualShock controller and games. The last PSone units were sold in winter 2004 before it was discontinued in March 2005. The inception of what would become the released PlayStation dates back to 1986 with a joint venture between Nintendo and Sony, Nintendo approached Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on, tentatively titled the Play Station or SNES-CD. A contract was signed, and work began, Kutaragi was nearly fired by Sony because he was originally working with Nintendo on the side without Sonys knowledge. It was then-CEO, Norio Ohga, who recognized the potential in Kutaragis chip, Ohga kept Kutaragi on at Sony, and it was not until Nintendo cancelled the project that Sony decided to develop its own console. This was also to be the used in SNES-CDs, giving a large degree of control to Sony despite Nintendos leading position in the video gaming market. The product, dubbed the Play Station was to be announced at the May 1991 Consumer Electronics Show, yamauchi decided that the contract was totally unacceptable and he secretly cancelled all plans for the joint Nintendo-Sony SNES CD attachment. After the collapse of the project, Sony briefly considered allying itself with Sega to produce a stand-alone console. The Sega CEO at the time, Tom Kalinske, took the proposal to Segas Board of Directors in Tokyo, Kalinske, in a 2013 interview recalled them saying that’s a stupid idea, Sony doesnt know how to make hardware. They don’t know how to make software either, why would we want to do this. The federal judge presiding over the case denied the injunction and, in October 1991, however, it is theorized that only 200 or so of these machines were ever produced. However, Sony decided in early 1993 to begin reworking the Play Station concept to target a new generation of hardware and software. As part of process the SNES cartridge port was dropped. Early advertising prior to the launch in North America referenced PSX
8.
PlayStation Portable
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The PlayStation Portable is a handheld game console developed by Sony. Development of the handheld was announced during E32003, and it was unveiled on May 11,2004, the system was released in Japan on December 12,2004, in North America on March 24,2005, and in the PAL region on September 1,2005. It primarily competed with the Nintendo DS, as part of the generation of video games. The PlayStation Portable became the most powerful system when launched. It was the first real competitor to Nintendos handheld domination, where many challengers, such as SNKs Neo Geo Pocket and Nokias N-Gage and it also features connectivity with the PlayStation 3, other PSPs and the Internet. It is the handheld console to use an optical disc format, Universal Media Disc. The original PSP model was replaced by a model with design changes in 2007. Another remodeling followed in 2008, PSP-3000, which included a new screen, a complete redesign, PSP Go, came in 2009, followed by a budget model, PSP-E1000, in 2011. The PSP line was succeeded by the PlayStation Vita, released in December 2011 in Japan, the PlayStation Vita features backward compatibility with many PlayStation Portable games digitally released on the PlayStation Network, via PlayStation Store. Shipments of the PlayStation Portable ended throughout 2014 worldwide, having sold 80 million units in its 10-year lifetime, Sony first announced development of the PlayStation Portable at a press conference before E32004. Although mock-ups of the system were not present at the conference or E3. Then-CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Jose Villeta called the device the Walkman of the 21st Century in a reference to the multimedia capabilities. Several gaming websites were impressed by the handhelds computing capabilities and looked forward to the potential as a gaming platform. Nintendo had been dominating the market since launching its Game Boy in 1989, with the only close competitor being Segas Game Gear. Later offerings from both SNK and Nokia also failed to cut into Nintendos share, the PSP was called the first legitimate competitor to Nintendo’s dominance in the handheld market by an IDC analyst in 2004. The first concept images of the PSP appeared in November 2002 at the Sony Corporate Strategy Meeting and showed a PSP with flat buttons and no analog stick. Although some expressed concern over the lack of an analog joystick, in addition to announcing more details about the system and its accessories, Sony also released a list of 99 developer companies that had pledged support for the new handheld. Several PSP game demos, such as Konamis Metal Gear Acid and SCE Studio Liverpools Wipeout Pure were also shown at the conference
9.
Mobile phone
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A mobile phone is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while the user is moving within a telephone service area. The radio frequency link establishes a connection to the systems of a mobile phone operator. Most modern mobile telephone services use a network architecture, and, therefore. Mobile phones which offer these and more general computing capabilities are referred to as smartphones, the first handheld mobile phone was demonstrated by John F. Mitchell and Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1973, using a handset weighing c.4.4 lbs. In 1983, the DynaTAC 8000x was the first commercially available mobile phone. From 1983 to 2014, worldwide mobile phone subscriptions grew to seven billion, penetrating 100% of the global population. In first quarter of 2016, the top smartphone manufacturers were Samsung, Apple, a handheld mobile radio telephone service was envisioned in the early stages of radio engineering. In 1917, Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt filed a patent for a pocket-size folding telephone with a thin carbon microphone. Early predecessors of cellular phones included analog radio communications from ships, the race to create truly portable telephone devices began after World War II, with developments taking place in many countries. These 0G systems were not cellular, supported few simultaneous calls, the first handheld mobile phone was demonstrated by John F. Mitchell and Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1973, using a handset weighing c.4.4 lbs. The first commercial automated cellular network was launched in Japan by Nippon Telegraph and this was followed in 1981 by the simultaneous launch of the Nordic Mobile Telephone system in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Several other countries followed in the early to mid-1980s. These first-generation systems could support far more simultaneous calls but still used analog cellular technology, in 1983, the DynaTAC 8000x was the first commercially available handheld mobile phone. In 1991, the digital cellular technology was launched in Finland by Radiolinja on the GSM standard. This sparked competition in the sector as the new operators challenged the incumbent 1G network operators, ten years later, in 2001, the third generation was launched in Japan by NTT DoCoMo on the WCDMA standard. This was followed by 3. 5G, 3G+ or turbo 3G enhancements based on the high-speed packet access family, allowing UMTS networks to have data transfer speeds. By 2009, it had become clear that, at point, 3G networks would be overwhelmed by the growth of bandwidth-intensive applications. Consequently, the industry began looking to data-optimized fourth-generation technologies, with the promise of speed improvements up to ten-fold over existing 3G technologies
10.
Zeebo
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Zeebo is a 3G-enabled entertainment and education system from Zeebo Inc. It enables users to video games, and also connect to the Internet, communicate online. The Zeebo was targeted at developing markets such as Brazil and Mexico, Zeebo Inc. described the Zeebo as bringing the fun and excitement of interactive entertainment and education to those who—until now—have had little or no access to such technology. Zeebo was founded by Reinaldo Normand in 2008, based off a prototype developed by Dave Durnil. The companys stated intention was to create a console with inexpensive games. There are no DVDs and cartridges, games and other content are downloaded wirelessly over broadband cellular networks, in addition to games, the Zeebo system also provides Internet connectivity, enabling users to access educational and information content, communicate via e-mail and do social networking. The Zeebo was first announced in November 2008 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in September of the same year, the price was cut to R$399,00, and the price was reduced again in November to R$299,00. The console was distributed nationwide in Brazil in December 2009, by August,2010, there were approximately 40 games launched for Zeebo in Brazil. On September 1,2010, Zeebo announced that it was adding new capabilities and accessories to the Zeebo in Brazil, including Internet connectivity, the new Brazilian system configuration was priced identical to the previous one, R$299. The company announced that Brazilian owners of previous system configurations can upgrade to the new one for free, the Zeebo was launched in Mexico in November 2009. It shipped to retailers across the country on November 4,2009. The Mexican system configuration was similar to that introduced in September,2010 and includes Internet connectivity, the price was cut to 2249 pesos in April 2010. The Zeebo was available in Brazil and Mexico, reports indicated that the Zeebo was planned to become available in China by 2011. Zeebo Inc. announced an agreement with AT&T in March,2010 and it will also give us a chance to explore opportunities in the US market in the future. However it appears that Tectoy has decided against the Zeebo and on its homepage now states that they are gearing towards a more educational market, on May 27,2011 Zeebo announced its end of operations in Brazil and Mexico. According to the company, all games would undergo a reduction and Zeebonet 3G would remain active until September 30. On the same day, on ZeeboNet 3G, a message was added to the details of the game Turma da Mônica em Vamos Brincar, stating that the game would be unavailable for purchase by the end of the day. Zeebos home page still stated that the company was working on a next generation Android-based platform for launch in 2012
11.
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
12.
North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
13.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
14.
Racing video game
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They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to entirely fantastical settings. In general, they can be distributed along a spectrum anywhere between hardcore simulations, and simpler arcade racing games, Racing games may also fall under the category of sports games. In 1973, Ataris Space Race was an arcade video game where players controlled spaceships that race against opposing ships, while avoiding comets. It was a competitive two-player game controlled using a two-way joystick, the same year, Taito released a similar space-themed racing video game Astro Race, which used an early four-way joystick. The following year, Taito released Speed Race, an early driving racing game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado and it also featured an early racing wheel controller interface with an accelerator, gear shift, speedometer and tachometer. It could be played in either single-player or alternating two-player, where each player attempts to beat the others score, the game was re-branded as Wheels by Midway Games for release in the United States and was influential on later racing games. That same year, Sega released Moto-Cross, an early motorbike racing game, based on the motocross competition. Also known as Man T. T. Sega re-branded the game as Fonz, the game also introduced the use of haptic feedback, which caused the motorcycle handlebars to vibrate during a collision with another vehicle. Road Champion, released by Taito in 1978, was an overhead-view timed car racing game where players try to race ahead of the opposing cars and cross the finish line first to become the winner. In 1979, Segas Head On was a game that played like a maze chase game and is thus considered a precursor to the 1980 hit Pac-Man. Monaco GP, released by Sega in 1979, improved upon previous overhead-view racing games with a scrolling view. It also featured an early example of a radar, to show the cars location on the map. Turbo, released by Sega in 1981, was the first racing game to feature a third-person perspective and it was also the first racing game to use sprite scaling with full-color graphics. The most influential racing game was released in 1982, Pole Position, developed by Namco and published by Atari in North America. It was the first game to be based on a racing circuit, and the first to feature a qualifying lap. While not the first third-person racing game, Pole Position established the conventions of the genre, tX-1, developed by Tatsumi in 1983, was licensed to Namco, who in turn licensed it to Atari in America, thus the game is considered a successor to Pole Position II. It also introduced nonlinear gameplay by allowing players to choose which path to drive through after each checkpoint, if the fuel runs out, the game would end. An early attempt at creating a driving simulator was Tomys Turnin Turbo Dashboard
15.
Arcade cabinet
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A video game arcade cabinet, also known as a video arcade machine or video coin-op, is the housing within which a video arcade games hardware resides. Most cabinets designed since the mid-1980s conform to the JAMMA wiring standard, some include additional connectors for features not included in the standard. Note, Because arcade cabinets vary according to the games they were built for or contain, they may not possess all of the parts listed below, A monitor. They may display either raster or vector graphics, raster being most common, standard resolution is between 262.5 and 315 vertical lines, depending on the refresh rate. Slower refresh rates allow for better vertical resolution, monitors may be oriented horizontally or vertically, depending on the game. Some games use more than one monitor, some newer cabinets have monitors that can display high-definition video. Printed circuit boards or arcade system boards, the actual hardware upon which the game runs, some systems, such as the SNK Neo-Geo MVS, use a main board with game carts. Some main boards may hold multiple game carts as well, a power supply to provide DC power to the arcade system boards and low voltage lighting for the coin slots and lighted buttons. A marquee, a sign above the monitor displaying the games title and they are often brightly colored and backlit. A bezel, which is the border around the monitor and it may contain instructions or artwork. A control panel, a surface near the monitor, upon which the games controls are arranged. Control panels sometimes have playing instructions, players often pile their coins or tokens on the control panels of upright and cocktail cabinets. Coin slots, coin returns and the box, which allow for the exchange of money or tokens. They are usually below the control panel, very often, translucent red plastic buttons are placed in between the coin return and the coin slot. When they are pressed, a coin or token that has become jammed in the mechanism is returned to the player. Early coin slots could be defeated using a gas fire or gas oven igniter held against the steel bodywork of the cabinet. In some arcades, the slot is replaced with a card reader that reads data from a game card bought from the arcade operator. The sides of the cabinet are usually decorated with brightly coloured stickers or paint
16.
Namco System 22
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The Namco System 22 is the successor to the Namco System 21 arcade system board. It debuted in 1992 with Sim Drive in Japan, followed by a debut in 1993 with Ridge Racer. The System 22 was designed by Namco with assistance from graphics & simulation company Evans & Sutherland, the main CPU provides a scene description to the TR3 graphics processing unit and a bank of DSP chips which perform 3D calculations. A variant of the system, called the Super System 22, was released in 1995, the hardware was largely similar to the System 22, but with a slightly higher polygon rate and more special effects possible. According to Namco America the twin seat Ridge Racer arcade unit sold to distribution for $11,995.00 in 1993
17.
Central processing unit
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The computer industry has used the term central processing unit at least since the early 1960s. The form, design and implementation of CPUs have changed over the course of their history, most modern CPUs are microprocessors, meaning they are contained on a single integrated circuit chip. An IC that contains a CPU may also contain memory, peripheral interfaces, some computers employ a multi-core processor, which is a single chip containing two or more CPUs called cores, in that context, one can speak of such single chips as sockets. Array processors or vector processors have multiple processors that operate in parallel, there also exists the concept of virtual CPUs which are an abstraction of dynamical aggregated computational resources. Early computers such as the ENIAC had to be rewired to perform different tasks. Since the term CPU is generally defined as a device for software execution, the idea of a stored-program computer was already present in the design of J. Presper Eckert and John William Mauchlys ENIAC, but was initially omitted so that it could be finished sooner. On June 30,1945, before ENIAC was made, mathematician John von Neumann distributed the paper entitled First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC and it was the outline of a stored-program computer that would eventually be completed in August 1949. EDVAC was designed to perform a number of instructions of various types. Significantly, the programs written for EDVAC were to be stored in high-speed computer memory rather than specified by the wiring of the computer. This overcame a severe limitation of ENIAC, which was the considerable time, with von Neumanns design, the program that EDVAC ran could be changed simply by changing the contents of the memory. Early CPUs were custom designs used as part of a larger, however, this method of designing custom CPUs for a particular application has largely given way to the development of multi-purpose processors produced in large quantities. This standardization began in the era of discrete transistor mainframes and minicomputers and has accelerated with the popularization of the integrated circuit. The IC has allowed increasingly complex CPUs to be designed and manufactured to tolerances on the order of nanometers, both the miniaturization and standardization of CPUs have increased the presence of digital devices in modern life far beyond the limited application of dedicated computing machines. Modern microprocessors appear in electronic devices ranging from automobiles to cellphones, the so-called Harvard architecture of the Harvard Mark I, which was completed before EDVAC, also utilized a stored-program design using punched paper tape rather than electronic memory. Relays and vacuum tubes were used as switching elements, a useful computer requires thousands or tens of thousands of switching devices. The overall speed of a system is dependent on the speed of the switches, tube computers like EDVAC tended to average eight hours between failures, whereas relay computers like the Harvard Mark I failed very rarely. In the end, tube-based CPUs became dominant because the significant speed advantages afforded generally outweighed the reliability problems, most of these early synchronous CPUs ran at low clock rates compared to modern microelectronic designs. Clock signal frequencies ranging from 100 kHz to 4 MHz were very common at this time, the design complexity of CPUs increased as various technologies facilitated building smaller and more reliable electronic devices
18.
Motorola 68020
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The Motorola 68020 is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1984. It is the successor to the Motorola 68010 and is succeeded by the Motorola 68030, a lower cost version was also made available, known as the 68EC020. In keeping with naming practices common to Motorola designs, the 68020 is usually referred to as the 020, the 68020 had 32-bit internal and external data and address buses, compared to the early 680x0 models with 16-bit data and 24-bit address buses. The 68020s ALU was also natively 32-bit, so could perform 32-bit operations in one clock, newer packaging methods allowed the 020 to feature more external pins without the large size that the earlier dual in-line package method required. The 68EC020 lowered cost through a 24-bit address bus, the 68020 was produced at speeds ranging from 12 MHz to 33 MHz. The 68020 added many improvements over the 68010 including a 32-bit arithmetic logic unit, 32-bit external data and address buses, extra instructions, the 68020 had a proper three-stage pipeline. Though the 68010 had a mode, which sped loops through what was effectively a tiny instruction cache. The 68020 replaced this with an instruction cache of 256 bytes. The previous 68000 and 68010 processors could only access word and long word data in memory if it were word-aligned, the 68020 had no alignment restrictions on data access. Naturally, unaligned accesses were slower than aligned accesses because they required an extra memory access, the 68020 has a coprocessor interface supporting up to eight coprocessors. The main CPU recognizes F-line instructions, and uses special bus cycles to interact with a coprocessor to execute these instructions, two types of coprocessors were defined, the floating point unit and the paged memory management unit. Only one PMMU can be used with a CPU, in principle multiple FPUs could be used with a CPU, but it was not commonly done. The coprocessor interface is asynchronous, so it is possible to run the coprocessors at a different clock rate than the CPU, multiprocessing support was implemented externally by the use of a RMC pin to indicate an indivisible read-modify-write cycle in progress. All other processors had to hold off memory accesses until the cycle was complete, software support for multiprocessing included the TAS, CAS and CAS2 instructions. In a multiprocessor system, coprocessors could not be shared between CPUs, while the 68000 had supervisor mode, it did not meet the Popek and Goldberg virtualization requirements due to the single instruction MOVE from SR being unprivileged but sensitive. Under the 68010 and later, this was made privileged, to support virtualization software. The new addressing modes added scaled indexing and another level of indirection to many of the pre-existing modes, though it was not intended, these new modes made the 68020 very suitable for page printing, most laser printers in the early 1990s had a 68EC020 at their core. The 68020 had a small 256-byte direct-mapped instruction cache, arranged as 64 four-byte entries, although small, it still made a significant difference in the performance of many applications
19.
Hertz
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The hertz is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units and is defined as one cycle per second. It is named for Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, the first person to provide proof of the existence of electromagnetic waves. Hertz are commonly expressed in SI multiples kilohertz, megahertz, gigahertz, kilo means thousand, mega meaning million, giga meaning billion and tera for trillion. Some of the units most common uses are in the description of waves and musical tones, particularly those used in radio-. It is also used to describe the speeds at which computers, the hertz is equivalent to cycles per second, i. e. 1/second or s −1. In English, hertz is also used as the plural form, as an SI unit, Hz can be prefixed, commonly used multiples are kHz, MHz, GHz and THz. One hertz simply means one cycle per second,100 Hz means one hundred cycles per second, and so on. The unit may be applied to any periodic event—for example, a clock might be said to tick at 1 Hz, the rate of aperiodic or stochastic events occur is expressed in reciprocal second or inverse second in general or, the specific case of radioactive decay, becquerels. Whereas 1 Hz is 1 cycle per second,1 Bq is 1 aperiodic radionuclide event per second, the conversion between a frequency f measured in hertz and an angular velocity ω measured in radians per second is ω =2 π f and f = ω2 π. This SI unit is named after Heinrich Hertz, as with every International System of Units unit named for a person, the first letter of its symbol is upper case. Note that degree Celsius conforms to this rule because the d is lowercase. — Based on The International System of Units, the hertz is named after the German physicist Heinrich Hertz, who made important scientific contributions to the study of electromagnetism. The name was established by the International Electrotechnical Commission in 1930, the term cycles per second was largely replaced by hertz by the 1970s. One hobby magazine, Electronics Illustrated, declared their intention to stick with the traditional kc. Mc. etc. units, sound is a traveling longitudinal wave which is an oscillation of pressure. Humans perceive frequency of waves as pitch. Each musical note corresponds to a frequency which can be measured in hertz. An infants ear is able to perceive frequencies ranging from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, the range of ultrasound, infrasound and other physical vibrations such as molecular and atomic vibrations extends from a few femtoHz into the terahertz range and beyond. Electromagnetic radiation is described by its frequency—the number of oscillations of the perpendicular electric and magnetic fields per second—expressed in hertz. Radio frequency radiation is measured in kilohertz, megahertz, or gigahertz
20.
Raster graphics
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Raster images are stored in image files with varying formats. A raster is technically characterized by the width and height of the image in pixels, the printing and prepress industries know raster graphics as contones. The opposite to contones is line work, usually implemented as vector graphics in digital systems, the word raster has its origins in the Latin rastrum, which is derived from radere. It originates from the scan of cathode ray tube video monitors. By association, it can refer to a rectangular grid of pixels. The word rastrum is now used to refer to a device for drawing musical staff lines, most modern computers have bitmapped displays, where each on-screen pixel directly corresponds to a small number of bits in memory. The screen is refreshed simply by scanning through pixels and coloring them according to set of bits. The refresh procedure, being speed critical, is implemented by dedicated circuitry. Most computer images are stored in raster graphics formats or compressed variations, including GIF, JPEG, and PNG, three-dimensional voxel raster graphics are employed in video games and are also used in medical imaging such as MRI scanners. GIS programs commonly use rasters that encode geographic data in the values as well as the pixel locations. Raster graphics are resolution dependent, meaning they cannot scale up to a resolution without loss of apparent quality. This property contrasts with the capabilities of graphics, which easily scale up to the quality of the device rendering them. Raster graphics deal more practically than vector graphics with photographs and photo-realistic images, typically, a resolution of 150 to 300 PPI works well for 4-color process printing. However, for printing technologies that perform color mixing through dithering rather than through overprinting, printer DPI and image PPI have a different meaning. Thus, for instance, printing an image at 250 PPI may actually require a printer setting of 1200 DPI, when an image is rendered in a raster-based image editor, the image is composed of millions of pixels. At its core, an image editor works by manipulating each individual pixel. Most pixel-based image editors work using the RGB color model, and this article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the relicensing terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later
21.
Palette (computing)
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In computer graphics, a palette is a finite set of colors. Palettes can be optimized to improve accuracy in the presence of software or hardware constraints. Depending on the context, the palette and related terms such as Web palette. Selected colors or picked colors, In this case, the selection, generally from a wider explicitly available full palette, is always chosen by software. For example, the standard VGA display adapter is said to provide a palette of 256 simultaneous colors from a total of 262,144 different colors, default palette or system palette, The given selected colors have been officially standardized by some body or corporation. For example, the well known Web-safe colors for use with Internet browsers, on an individual image, color map or color table, The limited color selection is stored inside the given indexed color image file. For example, the registers of the Commodore Amiga are known both as their color palette and their CLUT, depending on sources. GUI palettes An arrangement of a set of user or system colors that can be chosen. In such cases, the color palette or user color palette are common equivalents. This usage resembles a true artists palette, a palette for choosing colors can be also a floating palette. An application can, in turn, show different image thumbnails in a mosaic on screen. It is obvious that the program cannot load all the adaptive palettes of every displayed image thumbnail at the time in the hardware color registers. A solution is to use a unique, common master palette or universal palette and this is done by selecting colors in such way that the master palette comprises a full RGB color space in miniature, limiting the possible levels that the red, green and blue components may have. This kind of arrangement is referred as a uniform palette. The normal human eye has sensibility to the three colors in different degrees, the more to the green, the less to the blue. So RGB arrangements can take advantage of this by assigning more levels for the green component and it is more general to use only 6R×6G×6B =216, 6R×8G×5B =240 or 6R×7G×6B =252, which leave room for some reserved colors. This way, and with further dithering, the color image can nearly match the original. But this creates a heavy dependence between the pixels and its adaptive palette
22.
NeGcon
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The neGcon is a third-party controller for the PlayStation manufactured by Namco. The neGcon was a design in that the left and right halves of the controller were connected by a swivel joint. The full extent of this twist was available to the console as an analogue measurement, also unusual for its time were the buttons. The neGcon removed the L2 and R2 buttons as well as the select button, the neGcon replaced the digital circle and triangle buttons with digital A and B buttons, and also replaced the R1 shoulder button with a digital R shoulder button. The neGcon featured the digital D-Pad as one area similar to competing consoles controllers, the remaining buttons received more elaborate treatment. The X and square buttons were replaced with analogue Ⅰ and Ⅱ buttons and these buttons were in a recessed well and had approximately 7mm of travel. The users thumb could be rested on the edge of the well and this allowed the tip of the thumb to be accurately pivoted to depress the Ⅰ and Ⅱ buttons varying distances. This allowed very precise control with little learning, the L shoulder button was also analogue, with about 5mm of travel. The R shoulder button had a 5mm throw like the L shoulder button, the neGcon worked by means of gears turning the shafts of potentiometers. The center pivot of the neGcon utilized a ring-gear driving a pinion on the shaft of the potentiometer, lack of space inside the unit precluded an analogue R shoulder button. However, extended use caused the swivel joint to wear, the neGcons design was prompted by Namcos desire to accurately replicate the dual-lever controls of their arcade game Cyber Sled on the PlayStation. The design of the neGcon, while initially seeming very unwieldy, was in very good for racing games. The analogue Ⅰ and Ⅱ buttons were used as the accelerator and brake. The neGcon could be gripped with the fists facing forward and the thumbs upwards, twisting the arms at the elbows would turn the hands around a circle, as well as twist the wrists relative to each other, producing steering input. Although this was the most natural way to use the controller, the WipEout series also supported the neGcon. The number of non-racing games which supported the neGcon was limited, Tempest X3, based on the rotary-controlled Tempest arcade game, is also supported. Although the neGcon was not strictly protocol-compatible with the standard PS1 controller, because of this, a neGcon could be used in most games that didnt require the use of R2, L2 or select buttons. It even worked in the built-in ROM memory card librarian and CD player programs, however, due to the long throw of the Ⅰ and Ⅱ buttons, the neGcon was not a top-quality substitute for a regular PS1 controller
23.
Glossary of video game terms
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This glossary of video game terms lists the general video game industry terms as commonly used in Wikipedia articles. 1-up In games where players have a number of lives to complete a game or level, 1v1 Abbreviation of 1 versus 1, which means two players battling against each other. 8-bit A descriptor for hardware or software that arose during the generation of video game consoles. 16-bit A descriptor for hardware or software that arose during the generation of video game consoles. 2D graphics The game features 2-dimensional objects,2. 5D graphics A game consisting of 3D graphics set in a 2D plane of movement, where objects outside of this 2D plane can have an effect on the gameplay. 32-bit A descriptor for hardware or software that arose during the generation of video game consoles. 4X A genre of video games, short for explore, expand, exploit. 64-bit A descriptor for hardware or software that arose during the generation of video game consoles. AAA A high-budget game with a development team, or game studios that make them. AAA games are usually multiplatform, have multimillion dollar marketing budgets, abandonware The idea of a game being forgotten about, or abandoned by the developers for multiple different reasons, one being copyright issues. Act See Level Action point A subunit of a players turn, for example, during each turn, a player can take a set number of actions, each costing a point. Action role-playing game A genre of role-playing video games where battle actions are performed in real-time instead of a turn-based mechanic. Actions per minute The total number of actions the player can perform in a minute, ADS Aiming Down Sights, or, Aim Down Sights. Refers to the alternate method of firing a gun in an FPS game. AFK Abbreviation of Away From Keyboard, generally said through a chat function in online multiplayer games when a player intends to be temporarily unavailable. Often used in gaming to grind, sometimes facetiously used in reference to irritated bystanders. Aimbot A first-person shooter cheat that lets players shoot other player-characters without aiming, in most cases, the reticle locks on to a target within the players line of sight and the player only has to pull the trigger. Aimbots are one of the most popular cheats in multiplayer FPS, alpha release An initial, incomplete version of a game, alpha versions are usually released early in the development process to test a games most critical functionality and prototype design concepts
24.
The Best (PlayStation)
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The Best, stylized as the Best, is a Sony PlayStation budget range in Japan and parts of Asia. Similar budget ranges include Greatest Hits in North America, Essentials in PAL regions, for the PlayStation, The Best was followed by PS one Books when the PS one was released in 2001. These games were top selling popular titles that were available again in a low-priced version under this new label. Games released under the PS one Books label did not come in standard jewel cases like other PlayStation games, the games instruction booklets were typically placed outside of the case, with both booklet and case sealed in plastic packaging. The software contained on the discs was usually the original retail game, PS one Books titles were still being released until late 2006. The first PlayStation 3 The Best titles were released on March 19,2008, however Armored Core 4 had been prior released as early as January 10,2008 in the Best Collection
25.
Greatest Hits (PlayStation)
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Greatest Hits are video games for the North American Sony PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Portable consoles that have been officially re-released at a lower price by Sony. While the term Greatest Hits only applies to selections in America, equivalent programs exist in PAL territories, Japan and Asia, Korea, the program parallels other budget range software by Sega, Nintendo, and Microsoft to promote best-selling games on their consoles as well. Typical for marketing labels like Greatest Hits and Xbox Classics, Greatest Hits titles are colloquially referred to as red label. This refers to the band that is added to the packaging to differentiate it from regular releases. A game can earn this distinction if it meets certain sales criteria within two years after its release, the original versions of the game are often sought after as collectables. There are also White label games, which are collectors editions and these mainly are collections, having all the games in a series in one box. When Sony introduced the program for PlayStation in 1997, games could become Greatest Hits titles after selling at least 150,000 copies, minimum sales required eventually rose to 250,000. When the program came to PlayStation 2 in 2002, games could become Greatest Hits titles after selling at least 400,000 copies, suggested retail prices of Greatest Hits titles were initially $24.99, but they now typically retail for $19.99. Additionally, Sony allows 3rd party developers some flexibility in the pricing of their own Greatest Hits titles, games that are multi-million sellers may become Greatest Hits titles much later than 9 months to maximize profits. It is also a practice for a game to re-release on the Greatest Hits label at a close proximity to the release of that games sequel or follow-up. In 2006, Sony extended the Greatest Hits program to the PlayStation Portable, to qualify, a title must be on the market for at least 9 months and have sold 250,000 copies or more. The Greatest Hits price for PlayStation Portable games typically begins at $19.99, on July 28,2008, the program was introduced on the PlayStation 3. A PlayStation 3 game must be on the market for 10 months, PlayStation 3 Greatest Hits titles currently sell at $29.99. Since the PS4s release on November 15,2013, there have four titles that have been named Greatest Hits for the PlayStation 4 with an as of yet unknown criteria for meeting the label. Occasionally, significant changes are implemented into the game, the following titles have been released on the Greatest Hits label for PlayStation. The following titles have been released on the Greatest Hits label for PlayStation 2, the following titles have been released on the Greatest Hits label for PlayStation 3. The following titles have been released on the Greatest Hits label for PlayStation Portable, the following titles have been given the Greatest Hits label on PlayStation 4 in Asia. Nintendo Selects Platinum Hits Official US PlayStation sites list Official US PlayStation sites list Official US PlayStation sites list
26.
Essentials (PlayStation)
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Essentials is the Sony PlayStation budget range in the PAL region, which covers Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Africa. It was launched in January 1997 as the Platinum range but was renamed for PSP in 2010. Similar budget ranges from Sony include the Greatest Hits and The Best labels for the North American and Japanese markets, Platinum Range titles were recognisable by a platinum/silver coloured band on the games casing. This band runs along the top of the cases front, in old PlayStation 2 platinum games it is also common for the silver band to act as a border and to contain the games original cover, which is shrunk to fill about 75% of the platinum cover. The PlayStation logo is repeated twice on the front case, once on the platinum border, the new PlayStation 2 platinum games feature a new layout. They have a border, and silver outlines around the shrunk original game cover. There is also a red orb located at the bottom of the game cover with the words Platinum on it. The platinum band can also be seen on the manual, PlayStation Portable platinum games use the original games disc design whilst PlayStation 3 platinum games use the original disc design with a platinum design on the disc. To become a Platinum release it was required that a game have over 400,000 total worldwide sales after generally one year on the market. After reaching the level of sales, Sony often dropped the prices of the original title to Platinum pricing levels. The Platinum distinction has since extended to the PSP and the PlayStation 3. The first PS3 titles were released on August 1,2008
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Sega Saturn
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The Saturn has a dual-CPU architecture and eight processors. Its games are in CD-ROM format, and its library contains several arcade ports as well as original titles. Development of the Saturn began in 1992, the same year Segas groundbreaking 3D Model 1 arcade hardware debuted. The Saturn was initially successful in Japan, but failed to sell in numbers in the United States after its surprise May 1995 launch. After the debut of the Nintendo 64 in late 1996, the Saturn rapidly lost market share in the U. S. where it was discontinued in 1998, having sold 9.26 million units worldwide, the Saturn is considered a commercial failure. The failure of Segas development teams to release a game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, although the Saturn is remembered for several well-regarded games, including Nights into Dreams. The Panzer Dragoon series, and the Virtua Fighter series, its reputation is mixed due to its hardware design. Segas management has been criticized for its decision-making during the systems development, released in 1988, the Genesis was Segas entry into the fourth generation of video game consoles. In mid-1990, Sega CEO Hayao Nakayama hired Tom Kalinske as president, however, the release of a CD-based add-on for the Genesis, the Sega CD, had been commercially disappointing. Sega also experienced success with arcade games, in 1992 and 1993, the companys new Sega Model 1 arcade system board showcased Sega AM2s Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter, which played a crucial role in popularizing 3D polygonal graphics. The Model 1 was a system board, and bringing home releases of its games to the Genesis required more than its hardware could handle. Several alternatives helped to bring Segas newest arcade games to the console, such as the Sega Virtua Processor chip used for Virtua Racing, development of the Saturn was supervised by Hideki Sato, Segas director and deputy general manager of research and development. According to Sega project manager Hideki Okamura, the Saturn project started over two years before the system was showcased at the Tokyo Toy Show in June 1994, the name Saturn was initially the systems codename during development in Japan, but was eventually chosen as the official product name. In 1993, Sega and Japanese electronics company Hitachi formed a joint venture to develop a new CPU for the Saturn, the Saturn was ultimately designed around a dual-SH2 configuration. According to Kazuhiro Hamada, Segas section chief for Saturn development during the systems conception, the chip has a calculation system similar to a DSP, but we realized that a single CPU would not be enough to calculate a 3D world. According to Kalinske, Sega of America fought against the architecture of Saturn for quite some time, seeking an alternative graphics chip for the Saturn, Kalinske attempted to broker a deal with Silicon Graphics, but Sega of Japan rejected the proposal. Silicon Graphics subsequently collaborated with Nintendo on the Nintendo 64, publicly, Kalinske defended the Saturns design, Our people feel that they need the multiprocessing to be able to bring to the home what were doing next year in the arcades. In 1993, Sega restructured its internal studios in preparation for the Saturns launch, New teams, such as Panzer Dragoon developer Team Andromeda, were formed during this time
28.
Sega
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Nonetheless, Sega remains the worlds most prolific arcade producer, with over 500 games in over 70 franchises on more than 20 different arcade system boards since 1981. Sega, along with their sub-studios, are known for their multi-million selling game franchises, such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Virtua Fighter, Phantasy Star, Yakuza, Segas head offices are located in Tokyo. Segas North American division, Sega of America, is headquartered in Irvine, California, Segas European division, Sega Europe, is headquartered in London. After the war, the founders sold that company and established a new distributor called Service Games and this company provided coin-operated slot machines to U. S. bases in Japan and changed its name again to Service Games of Japan by 1953. David Rosen, an American officer in the United States Air Force stationed in Japan and this company eventually became Rosen Enterprises, and in 1957, began importing coin-operated games to Japan. On May 31,1960, Service Games Japan was closed, Three days later, two new companies were established to take over its business activities, Nihon Goraku Bussan and Nihon Kikai Seizo. By 1965, Rosen Enterprises grew to a chain of over 200 arcades, Rosen then orchestrated a merger between Rosen Enterprises and Nihon Goraku Bussan, becoming chief executive of the new company, Sega Enterprises, which derived its name from Service Games. Within a year, Sega began the transition from importer to manufacturer, with the release of the submarine simulator game, the game sported light and sound effects considered innovative for that time, eventually becoming quite successful in Japan. It was soon exported to both Europe and the United States, becoming the first arcade game in the US to cost 25 cents per play, in 1969, Rosen sold Sega to American conglomerate Gulf and Western Industries, although he remained as CEO following the sale. Under Rosens leadership, Sega continued to grow and prosper, and in 1974, Gulf and Western made Sega Enterprises, a subsidiary of an American company renamed Sega Enterprises, Inc. allowing them to take the companys stock public. Sega prospered heavily from the gaming boom of the late 1970s. In 1982, Segas revenues surpassed $214 million and that year they introduced the first game with isometric graphics, Zaxxon, the industrys first stereoscopic 3D game, SubRoc 3D, and the first laserdisc video game, Astron Belt. Astron Belt wasnt released in the U. S. until 1983, other notable games from Sega during this period are Head On, Monaco GP, Carnival, Turbo, Space Fury, Astro Blaster, and Pengo. In 1983-4, Sega published Atari 2600 versions of some of its arcade games, Carnival, Space Fury, Turbo, and Zaxxon were licensed to Coleco as launch titles for the ColecoVision console in 1982. Some of these and other titles were licensed to different companies for 8-bit computer versions, the Atari 8-bit computer port of Zaxxon is from Datasoft, for example, while the Commodore 64 port is from Synapse. An overabundance of games in 1983 led to the game crash. Seeking an alternate source of revenue from the arcade market, Sega designed and released its first home video game console. G&W sold the U. S. assets of Sega Enterprises that same year to pinball manufacturer Bally Manufacturing, nakayama became the new CEO of Sega, Robert Deith chairman of the board, and Rosen became head of its subsidiary in the United States
29.
Daytona USA (video game)
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Daytona USA is a racing video game developed by Sega AM2 and released by Sega, with a limited release in 1993 followed by a full release in 1994. Compared to the polygons of its predecessor, Virtua Racing, Daytonas 3D-world was fully texture-mapped. Daytona was one of the first video games to feature filtered, texture-mapped polygons, a slightly updated version of Daytona USA was re-released in arcades in 2010 as Sega Racing Classic. On 12 October 2011 Sega announced that Daytona USA would be coming to Xbox Live and this also marked the return of the original name. The game saw its release on 25 October for PlayStation Network, the player is put behind the wheel of a stock car, with the choice of three tracks as well as an automatic or manual transmission. The players objectives are to outrun the competing cars, and complete the race before time runs out, Daytona USA offers multiplayer and introduced the possibility of linking four twin cabinets or eight deluxe cabinets to create an eight-player competition. Linked deluxe cabinets may include a camera pointing towards the drivers seat. Any future game would require a license to use the name Daytona USA, in 2010, Sega released Sega Racing Classic, essentially the same game running in 720p resolution, and the lyric Lets Go Away in the intro & advanced track removed due to licensing issues. Development of Daytona USA began in May 1993, due to unexpectedly slow progress in the Daytona USA port, a number of members of the Virtua Fighter 2 team were reassigned to Daytona USA. Development on the port was completed in April 1995, the soundtrack of Daytona USA was composed by Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, who also performed the vocals. For the arcade version, the songs were sampled onto a Yamaha sound chip, including the drums, for the Sega Saturn version, the songs were re-recorded with real instruments and all the lyrics were re-sung for each audio track in the original soundtrack. Daytona USA was ported to the Sega Saturn as a Western launch title in 1995, the conversion had a somewhat slow frame rate, and featured a reduced draw distance. Daytona USA is compatible with the Arcade Racer steering wheel accessory and it is also compatible with the 3D analog control pad and the Saturn will detect it as the Arcade Racer steering wheel. Daytona USA, Championship Circuit Edition, a reworked and extended version of Daytona USA was released in 1996 for the Saturn, Daytona USA was re-released in 1996 as Daytona USA, Special Edition, The only notable feature is the reworked single cabinet rather than an update. Daytona USA2, an arcade-exclusive sequel utilizing the Sega Model 3 hardware was released in 1998, Daytona USA2001, a remake of Daytona USA and Championship Circuit Edition, was released in 2001 for the Dreamcast, with massive graphical upgrades, online multiplayer and new courses. Despite all this, much criticism was directed at its controls, an enhanced version was released in the arcades in 2010 as Sega Racing Classic. It features a display and new cabinet design. An enhanced port that was faithful to the arcade version was released on PlayStation Network on 25 October 2011
30.
Drifting (motorsport)
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Car drifting is caused when the rear slip angle is greater than the front slip angle, to such an extent that often the front wheels are pointing in the opposite direction to the turn. The desired line is usually dictated by the judge or judges, although the origin of drifting is not known, Japan was one of the birthplaces of drifting as a sport. It was most popular in the All Japan Touring Car Championship races, the famous motorcyclist turned driver, Kunimitsu Takahashi, was the foremost creator of drifting techniques in the 1970s. This earned him several championships and a legion of fans who enjoyed the spectacle of smoking tires, the bias ply racing tires of the 1960s-1980s lent themselves to driving styles with a high slip angle. As professional racers in Japan drove this way, so did the street racers, Keiichi Tsuchiya, known as the Drift King, became particularly interested by Takahashis drift techniques. Tsuchiya began practicing his skills on the mountain roads of Japan. In 1987, several popular car magazines and tuning garages agreed to produce a video of Tsuchiyas drifting skills, the video, known as Pluspy, became a hit and inspired many of the professional drifting drivers on the circuits today. In 1988, alongside Option magazine founder and chief editor Daijiro Inada and he also drifted every turn in Tsukuba Circuit in Japan. One of the earliest recorded drift events outside Japan was in 1996, held at Willow Springs Raceway in Willow Springs, California, hosted by the Japanese drifting magazine and organization Option. Daijiro Inada, the NHRA Funny Car drag racer Kenji Okazaki, rhys Millen and Bryan Norris being two of the entrants. Drifting has then since exploded into a form of motorsport in North America, Australia, Asia, Drifting has evolved into a competitive sport where drivers compete to earn points from judges based on various factors. At the top levels of competition, the D1 Grand Prix in Japan pioneered the sport, the drivers within these series were are able to keep their cars sliding for extended periods of time, often linking several turns. Drifting competitions are judged based on line, angle, speed, style, line involves taking the correct line, which is usually announced beforehand by judges. The show factor is based on things, such as the amount of smoke, how close the car is to the wall or designated clipping point. Angle is the angle of a car and more importantly the wheels in a drift, speed is the speed entering a turn, the speed through a turn. Style is scored on a combination of a rate-to-angle during the initiation, how fluid the car looks through the course, the rate-to-angle is how quickly during initiation or Furidashi and transitions or Furikaeshi a car gets to its sliding angle. Commitment is about how much throttle the driver applies, and the confidence and dedication the driver shows when approaching track edges, the judging takes place on just a small part of the circuit, a few linking corners that provide good viewing, and opportunities for drifting. The rest of the circuit is irrelevant, except as it pertains to controlling the temperature of the tires, there are typically two sessions - a qualifying/practice session, and a final session
31.
Artificial intelligence
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Artificial intelligence is intelligence exhibited by machines. Colloquially, the artificial intelligence is applied when a machine mimics cognitive functions that humans associate with other human minds, such as learning. As machines become increasingly capable, mental facilities once thought to require intelligence are removed from the definition, for instance, optical character recognition is no longer perceived as an example of artificial intelligence, having become a routine technology. AI research is divided into subfields that focus on specific problems or on specific approaches or on the use of a tool or towards satisfying particular applications. The central problems of AI research include reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, natural language processing, perception, general intelligence is among the fields long-term goals. Approaches include statistical methods, computational intelligence, and traditional symbolic AI, Many tools are used in AI, including versions of search and mathematical optimization, logic, methods based on probability and economics. The AI field draws upon computer science, mathematics, psychology, linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience, the field was founded on the claim that human intelligence can be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it. Some people also consider AI a danger to humanity if it progresses unabatedly, while thought-capable artificial beings appeared as storytelling devices in antiquity, the idea of actually trying to build a machine to perform useful reasoning may have begun with Ramon Llull. With his Calculus ratiocinator, Gottfried Leibniz extended the concept of the calculating machine, since the 19th century, artificial beings are common in fiction, as in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein or Karel Čapeks R. U. R. The study of mechanical or formal reasoning began with philosophers and mathematicians in antiquity, in the 19th century, George Boole refined those ideas into propositional logic and Gottlob Frege developed a notational system for mechanical reasoning. Around the 1940s, Alan Turings theory of computation suggested that a machine, by shuffling symbols as simple as 0 and 1 and this insight, that digital computers can simulate any process of formal reasoning, is known as the Church–Turing thesis. Along with concurrent discoveries in neurology, information theory and cybernetics, the first work that is now generally recognized as AI was McCullouch and Pitts 1943 formal design for Turing-complete artificial neurons. The field of AI research was born at a conference at Dartmouth College in 1956, attendees Allen Newell, Herbert Simon, John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky and Arthur Samuel became the founders and leaders of AI research. At the conference, Newell and Simon, together with programmer J. C, shaw, presented the first true artificial intelligence program, the Logic Theorist. This spurred tremendous research in the domain, computers were winning at checkers, solving problems in algebra, proving logical theorems. By the middle of the 1960s, research in the U. S. was heavily funded by the Department of Defense and laboratories had been established around the world. AIs founders were optimistic about the future, Herbert Simon predicted, machines will be capable, within twenty years, Marvin Minsky agreed, writing, within a generation. The problem of creating artificial intelligence will substantially be solved and they failed to recognize the difficulty of some of the remaining tasks
32.
Ridge Racer 2
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Ridge Racer 2 is a racing arcade game that was released by Namco in 1994. It runs on their System 22 hardware, and as the name suggests, it is the sequel to Ridge Racer, as with the four Final Lap games, Four Trax and Suzuka 8 Hours, up to eight players can play simultaneously when four two-player cabinets are linked together. A players number determines their car, because in the original, the gameplay is very much like that of the original. There are six new songs, including remixed ones from the original, the enormous television screen above the entrance to the first tunnel shows footage from Namcos 1979 title Galaxian. All the billboards are for earlier Namco games, there is a mirror at the top of the screen. There is also a change in daylight from day to night, the game was followed by a true sequel, Rave Racer, in 1995. A home release was made as Ridge Racer Revolution for the PlayStation in 1995, Ridge Racer 2 at the Killer List of Videogames Ridge Racer 2 at the Arcade History database
33.
Ridge Racer Revolution
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Ridge Racer Revolution is an arcade racing game developed and published by Namco for the PlayStation in 1995. It is the PlayStation sequel of Ridge Racer, like the original Ridge Racer, the player races computer-controlled cars with the objective of winning a series of races, and supports Namcos NeGcon controller. Ridge Racer Revolution adds two hidden cars, and two-player support via the PlayStation Link cable, and took roughly the time to develop as the first. The intention was to increase the depth and add features, the game borrows most of its soundtrack from Ridge Racer 2. Ridge Racer Revolution was re-released in Japan for the PlayStation The Best range in June 1997, the game received generally positive reviews, although some criticised its similarity to the original. Ridge Racer Revolution was followed by a sequel, Rage Racer, the player drives using automatic transmission or manual transmission. Ridge Racer Revolution supports Namcos NeGcon controller, and adds a mirror when using the in-car view. Ridge Racer Revolution adds a mode, Free Run, in there are no other cars. How fast the cars run depends on which speed grade is used, selectable in Free Run and it is not available in Time Trial. A new feature is the option to select the time of day in which the race takes place, Ridge Racer Revolution features a two-player link-up mode which allows the players access to the original Ridge Racers courses known as Special 1 and Special 2. There are two modes in two-player link-up, Race, identical to its counterpart, and Versus. Versus features an option, increasing the speed of the trailing car. Like the first Ridge Racer, the player starts with four cars. The remaining eight are selectable on winning the game before the title screen. They are mostly unchanged, their names and specifications are similar to the first game, after the player wins the first three circuits, reversed versions are unlocked, and Time Trial features an additional opponent driving a secret car. There are three cars, the 13th Racing of the Novice course, and the new 13th Racing Kid. These cars are unlocked upon winning the respective courses Time Trial race, mirrored tracks that function identically to the original game are accessible. Like the first game, a music CD can be inserted and listened to instead of the soundtrack, unlike the first game, only the last course played is loaded into the PlayStations memory, to switch, the game disc needs to be reinserted before loading
34.
PAL region
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The PAL region is a television publication territory that covers most of Asia, Africa, Europe, South America and Oceania. It is so named because of the PAL television standard used in those regions, as opposed to the NTSC standard traditionally used in Japan. Most video games designated as part of the region will not play on NTSC-U/C or NTSC-J region consoles because of regional lockout, while this is the most common occurrence, some Xbox and Xbox 360 games are region-free encoded, since Microsofts policy is for publishers to decide. Sony has a policy for the PlayStation Portable, but most publishers choose not to encode a region on their UMD games. With the exception of Persona 4 Arena, PlayStation 3 Blu-ray Disc games are region-free, all Nintendo home consoles except for the Nintendo Switch have region locking either by software encoding or physical differences in media and consoles. Australia uses PAL version games only for the Wii, PlayStation 3, as most hand-held consoles use their own proprietary display system, incompatibilities of differing TV systems are not relevant. However, the regions often exist for localisation and distribution purposes. The scope of the PAL region varies with systems and publishers, the following countries and areas are normally included in a PAL region release, Along with other Middle Eastern, African, and European countries. Beginning with the Dreamcast and continuing through the generation of consoles. Games ported to PAL have historically been known for having game speed and this was especially prevalent during previous generations when 2D graphics were used almost exclusively. The gameplay of many games with an emphasis on speed, such as the original Sonic The Hedgehog for the Mega Drive, suffered in their PAL incarnations. Despite the possibility and popularity of 60 Hz PAL games, many games, particularly for the PS. Square Enix have long been criticised by PAL gamers for their poor PAL conversions, final Fantasy X runs in 50 Hz mode only, and 16. 7% slower and bordered that while prevalent in previous generations was considered inexcusable at the time of release. In stark contrast, the Dreamcast was the first system to feature PAL60, the Xbox too featured a system-wide PAL60 option in the Dashboard, with almost every game supporting PAL60. Seventh generation PAL consoles such as the Xbox 360 and Wii also feature system-wide 60 Hz support, nintendos Virtual Console service has been criticized due to PAL games running in 50 Hz only, despite the ability to run in 60 Hz mode. In recent years, few PAL releases have lacked the standard PAL mode and offered 60 Hz only, notably Metroid Prime 2, Echoes and Geist for the Nintendo GameCube, PAL NTSC Advanced Television Systems Committee standards SECAM Regional lockout
35.
Transmission (mechanics)
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A transmission is a machine in a power transmission system, which provides controlled application of the power. Often the term refers simply to the gearbox that uses gears and gear trains to provide speed. In British English, the term refers to the whole drivetrain, including clutch, gearbox, prop shaft, differential. In American English, however, the term more specifically to the gearbox alone. The most common use is in vehicles, where the transmission adapts the output of the internal combustion engine to the drive wheels. Such engines need to operate at a high rotational speed, which is inappropriate for starting, stopping. The transmission reduces the engine speed to the slower wheel speed. Transmissions are also used on bicycles, fixed machines. Often, a transmission has multiple gear ratios with the ability to switch between them as speed varies and this switching may be done manually or automatically. Directional control may also be provided, single-ratio transmissions also exist, which simply change the speed and torque of motor output. The output of the transmission is transmitted via the driveshaft to one or more differentials, while a differential may also provide gear reduction, its primary purpose is to permit the wheels at either end of an axle to rotate at different speeds as it changes the direction of rotation. Conventional gear/belt transmissions are not the mechanism for speed/torque adaptation. Alternative mechanisms include torque converters and power transformation, automatic transmissions use a valve body to shift gears using fluid pressures in conjunction with an ecm. Early transmissions included the right-angle drives and other gearing in windmills, horse-powered devices, and steam engines, in support of pumping, milling, most modern gearboxes are used to increase torque while reducing the speed of a prime mover output shaft. This means that the shaft of a gearbox rotates at a slower rate than the input shaft. A gearbox can be set up to do the opposite and provide an increase in speed with a reduction of torque. Some of the simplest gearboxes merely change the rotational direction of power transmission. Many typical automobile transmissions include the ability to select one of several gear ratios, in this case, most of the gear ratios are used to slow down the output speed of the engine and increase torque
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Automatic transmission
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The number of forward gear ratios is often expressed for manual transmissions as well. The most popular form found in automobiles is the automatic transmission. Similar but larger devices are used for heavy-duty commercial and industrial vehicles. This system uses a coupling in place of a friction clutch. These systems have a set of gear ranges, often with a parking pawl that locks the output shaft of the transmission to keep the vehicle from rolling either forward or backward. Some machines with limited speed ranges or fixed engine speeds, such as forklifts and lawn mowers. Despite superficial similarity to other transmissions, traditional automatic transmissions differ significantly in internal operation and drivers feel from semi-automatics and CVTs. In contrast to conventional automatic transmissions, a CVT uses a belt or other torque transmission scheme to allow a number of gear ratios instead of a fixed number of gear ratios. A semi-automatic retains a clutch like a transmission, but controls the clutch through electrohydraulic means. The ability to shift gears manually, often via paddle shifters, can also be found on certain automated transmissions, semi-automatics, the obvious advantage of an automatic transmission to the driver is the lack of a clutch pedal and manual shift pattern in normal driving. This allows the driver to operate the car with as few as two limbs, allowing amputees and other disabled individuals to drive, the automatic transmission was invented in 1921 by Alfred Horner Munro of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and patented under Canadian patent CA235757 in 1923. Being a steam engineer, Munro designed his device to use compressed air rather than hydraulic fluid and they were incorporated into GM-built tanks during World War II and, after the war, GM marketed them as being battle-tested. However, a Wall Street Journal article credits ZF Friedrichshafen with the invention, zFs origins were in manufacturing gears for airship engines beginning in 1915, the company was founded by Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Modern automatic transmissions can trace their origins to an early horseless carriage gearbox that was developed in 1904 by the Sturtevant brothers of Boston and this unit had two forward speeds, the ratio change being brought about by flyweights that were driven by the engine. At higher engine speeds, high gear was engaged, as the vehicle slowed down and engine RPM decreased, the gearbox would shift back to low. Unfortunately, the metallurgy of the time wasnt up to the task, and owing to the abruptness of the gear change, the next significant phase in the automatic transmissions development occurred in 1908 with the introduction of Henry Fords remarkable Model T. The pedals actuated the transmissions friction elements to select the desired gear, in 1934, both REO and General Motors developed semi-automatic transmissions that were less difficult to operate than a fully manual unit. These designs, however, continued to use a clutch to engage the engine with the transmission, parallel to the development in the 1930s of an automatically shifting gearbox was Chryslers work on adapting the fluid coupling to automotive use
37.
Manual transmission
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A manual transmission, also known as a manual gearbox, stick shift, n-speed manual, standard, MT, or in colloquial U. S. English, a stick, is a type of transmission used in motor vehicle applications. The number of gear ratios is often expressed for automatic transmissions as well. Manual transmissions often feature a clutch and a movable gear stick. This type of transmission is called a sequential manual transmission. In a manual transmission, the flywheel is attached to the engines crankshaft, the clutch disk is in between the pressure plate and the flywheel, and is held against the flywheel under pressure from the pressure plate. When the engine is running and the clutch is engaged, the flywheel spins the clutch plate, as the clutch pedal is depressed, the throw out bearing is activated, which causes the pressure plate to stop applying pressure to the clutch disk. This makes the clutch plate stop receiving power from the engine, when the clutch pedal is released, the throw out bearing is deactivated, and the clutch disk is again held against the flywheel, allowing it to start receiving power from the engine. Manual transmissions are characterized by gear ratios that are selectable by locking selected gear pairs to the shaft inside the transmission. Conversely, most automatic transmissions feature epicyclic gearing controlled by brake bands and/or clutch packs to select gear ratio, automatic transmissions that allow the driver to manually select the current gear are called manumatics. A manual-style transmission operated by computer is called an automated transmission rather than an automatic. Operating aforementioned transmissions often use the pattern of shifter movement with a single or multiple switches to engage the next sequence of gear selection. The earliest form of a transmission is thought to have been invented by Louis-René Panhard. This type of transmission offered multiple gear ratios and, in most cases and these transmissions are called sliding mesh transmissions or sometimes crash boxes, because of the difficulty in changing gears and the loud grinding sound that often accompanied. Newer manual transmissions on cars have all gears mesh at all times and are referred to as constant-mesh transmissions, in both types, a particular gear combination can only be engaged when the two parts to engage are at the same speed. To shift to a gear, the transmission is put in neutral. The vehicle also slows while in neutral and that slows other transmission parts, so the time in neutral depends on the grade, wind, for both upshifts and downshifts, the clutch is released while in neutral. Some drivers use the only for starting from a stop. Even though automobile and light truck transmissions are now almost universally synchronized, transmissions for trucks and machinery, motorcycles
38.
Acceleration
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Acceleration, in physics, is the rate of change of velocity of an object with respect to time. An objects acceleration is the net result of any and all forces acting on the object, the SI unit for acceleration is metre per second squared. Accelerations are vector quantities and add according to the parallelogram law, as a vector, the calculated net force is equal to the product of the objects mass and its acceleration. For example, when a car starts from a standstill and travels in a line at increasing speeds. If the car turns, there is an acceleration toward the new direction, in this example, we can call the forward acceleration of the car a linear acceleration, which passengers in the car might experience as a force pushing them back into their seats. When changing direction, we call this non-linear acceleration, which passengers might experience as a sideways force. If the speed of the car decreases, this is an acceleration in the direction from the direction of the vehicle. Passengers may experience deceleration as a force lifting them forwards, mathematically, there is no separate formula for deceleration, both are changes in velocity. Each of these accelerations might be felt by passengers until their velocity matches that of the car, an objects average acceleration over a period of time is its change in velocity divided by the duration of the period. Mathematically, a ¯ = Δ v Δ t, instantaneous acceleration, meanwhile, is the limit of the average acceleration over an infinitesimal interval of time. The SI unit of acceleration is the metre per second squared, or metre per second per second, as the velocity in metres per second changes by the acceleration value, every second. An object moving in a circular motion—such as a satellite orbiting the Earth—is accelerating due to the change of direction of motion, in this case it is said to be undergoing centripetal acceleration. Proper acceleration, the acceleration of a relative to a free-fall condition, is measured by an instrument called an accelerometer. As speeds approach the speed of light, relativistic effects become increasingly large and these components are called the tangential acceleration and the normal or radial acceleration. Geometrical analysis of space curves, which explains tangent, normal and binormal, is described by the Frenet–Serret formulas. Uniform or constant acceleration is a type of motion in which the velocity of an object changes by an amount in every equal time period. A frequently cited example of uniform acceleration is that of an object in free fall in a gravitational field. The acceleration of a body in the absence of resistances to motion is dependent only on the gravitational field strength g
39.
Solvalou
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Solvalou is a first-person shooter arcade game which was released by Namco in 1991 only in Japan, it runs on Namco System 21 hardware, which displayed the game very smoothly with flat shaded polygons. The game is controlled with an analog joystick with two buttons - one for firing and the other for bombing and it is also the third title in the Xevious series. It also later appeared in Tekken 5, Dark Resurrection as Jack 5s customization, the game was released for the Nintendos Wii Virtual Console service in Japan on March 26,2009, and is one of the first Virtual Console titles to make use of the Wii Remotes pointer. It can also now take six hits before dying - however, after the fourth hit, starts flashing up on the screen, and after the fifth one, the text SHIELD SYSTEM DOWN. This was also the game in the Xevious series that rated the player with a percentage of their accuracy on its high-score table. Solvalou at the Killer List of Videogames Solvalou at the Arcade History database
40.
Mappy
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Mappy is an arcade game by Namco. First introduced in 1983, it was distributed in the United States by Bally/Midway, Mappy is a side-scrolling platform game that features cartoon-like animals, primarily cats and mice. The games main character itself is a mouse, Mappy runs on Namco Super Pac-Man hardware, modified to support horizontal scrolling. The name Mappy is likely derived from mappo, a Japanese slang term for a policeman, the player guides Mappy the police mouse through the mansion of the cats called the Meowkies to retrieve stolen goods. The player uses a joystick to move Mappy and a single button to operate doors. The mansion has six floors, four or five in other versions. Mappy and the move between floors by bouncing on trampolines at various places in the house. Both Mappy and the cats can land on a floor on the way up, when they pass in the air, Mappy is unharmed by the cats, but if Mappy runs into a cat anywhere else, he will lose a life. The trampolines will break if Mappy bounces on them four times in a row, the trampolines change color depending on how many times Mappy has used them without a rest. In addition to the Meowkies, the boss cat Goro also roams around and he is faster, but less aggressive than the Meowkies. Throughout the levels, Goro hides behind the different recoverable objects, if Mappy recovers an item which Goro is hiding behind, the player receives 1000 points. A round is completed all the loot is retrieved. If Mappy tarries too long, a Hurry message appears after which the music and the speed up. If the player waits too long after this, the Gosenzo coin will drop onto the platform and chase Mappy in a manner similar to the Meowkies. The Gosenzo coin can kill Mappy even if he is in the air, the third round and every fourth round after that is a bonus round. Mappy, unbothered by the cats, must bounce across a series of trampolines, popping fifteen different suspended red balloons, a bonus is awarded if all the balloons are popped before the music ends. After every bonus round, a new feature is added to the gameplay, the Hurry message will also appear sooner. A Japan-only port of the game was released for the Famicom and MSX in 1984
41.
Bosconian
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Bosconian is a multi-directional scrolling shooter arcade game which was developed and released by Namco in Japan in 1981. In North America, it was manufactured and distributed by Midway Games, Bosconian allows the players ship to freely roam across open space which scrolls in all directions. The game also has a radar, which tracks the position of the ship, the formation attacks. It uses Namco Galaga hardware, but with a system like that used in Rally-X. The object of Bosconian is to score as many points as possible by destroying enemy missiles and bases, the player controls a small fighter ship that can move in eight directions, and can fire both forward and backward. Each round consists of a number of enemy bases that must all be destroyed to advance to the next round. Each station consists of six cannons arranged in a hexagon, surrounding a central core, the player must either destroy all six cannons or shoot the core to destroy a station, and in later rounds the core is capable of defending itself. Additionally, the player must avoid or destroy stationary asteroids, mines, enemy bases will also occasionally launch formation attacks — destroying the leader causes all remaining enemies to disperse, but destroying all enemies in a formation scores extra bonus points. A spy ship will also appear occasionally, which must be destroyed or the round will go to condition red regardless of how long the player has taken, throughout the game, a digitized voice alerts the player to various events, Blast off. Bosconian does not have an ending, and will continue until the player has lost all of his or her lives. Similar to Galaga, Bosconian rolls over from Round 255 to Round 0, if the player can successfully complete Round 0, the game continues to Round 1, as though the player started a new game. Bosconian won the 1982 Arcade Award for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Coin-Op Game in January 1983, Bosconian was ported to the Sharp X68000, MSX, and Commodore 64, and later appeared in several of Namcos Namco Museum compilations for PlayStation and other consoles. The game has also released in Jakks Pacifics TV game controllers. A home computer sequel, Bosconian 87, was released in 1987 for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, an arcade sequel of sorts called Blast Off was released in 1989, a vertical scrolling shooter which had more in common gameplay-wise with Namcos own Dragon Spirit than with Bosconian. This was especially noticeable in the area of each world. The free-roaming shooter that scrolls in all directions concept would later be used in games, including Konamis Time Pilot. This feature could be disabled entirely for arcade owners who did not want it, by changing a DIP switch setting
42.
Xevious
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Xevious is a vertical scrolling shooter arcade game that was released by Namco in December 1982. It runs on Namco Galaga hardware, and was designed by Masanobu Endō, in North America, the game was manufactured and distributed by Atari, Inc. The game, presumably set in Peru, was notable for the terrain below, which included forests, airstrips, enemy bases. There are various aerial enemy aircraft which fire relatively slow-moving bullets at the player, as well as fast-moving projectiles, Ground enemies are a combination of stationary bases and moving vehicles, most of which also fire slow-moving bullets at the player. The game scrolls through 16 areas, looping back to Area 7 after Area 16, the Solvalou continually advances over varying terrain, and the boundaries between areas are marked only by dense forests being flown over. As the Solvalou continuously flies forward, it is possible to advance without defeating any enemies, Xevious has hidden bonuses which are not mentioned in the instructions, but can be revealed by performing a secret maneuver. Among these is the flag which first appeared in Rally-X. In Xevious the flag gives the player a life when collected. Xevious tells the story of the fight between humankind and the biocomputer GAMP, which controls the forces of planet Xevious. It turns out that the Xevious inhabitants are originally from Earth, during this golden age, the Gamps were human clones used in heavy labor, until they rebelled against their own creators. In order to survive the upcoming Ice Age, they planned to leave earth and they finally selected seven planets that were likely suitable to human life. Right before the departure, a group of humans rebelled and decided to stay on the earth anyway and it is from here that a thousand years after the leaving of the Gamps, the brave pilot Mu and his android companion Eve decided to travel to Xevious to avoid glaciation. They would not receive a welcome from their ancestors, though, captured and imprisoned. Meanwhile, archaeologists Susan Meyer and Akira Sayaka discovered that the Nazca lines could be hiding an ancient weapon that may be used to counterattack Gamps army, Xevious was an early, but not the first, vertically scrolling shooter, and greatly influenced games in this genre. The graphics were revolutionary for their time, and characters are rendered with clarity and effect through careful use of shades of gray. In 1983, Xevious was the first arcade game to have a commercial aired for it for the North American market. Atari promoted the game with the slogan Are you devious enough to beat Xevious. popular musicians Haruomi Hosono and Keisuke Kuwata were known to be fans of the game, and the former produced an album of music from Namco video-games, with Xevious as its centerpiece. A follow-up 12 single featured in its liner notes an entire short story by Endō, set in the world of Xevious
