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GameDen Game console Timeline

The Arcade Era1971-Original Cabinet Games-

The earliest known Arcade game was ‘The Galaxy Game’ it is the original coin operated arcade game created on the campus of Stanford University

The coin operated arcade game era started from its release and its business model, inserting change into an arcade machine whether it is for more lives or the activation of the game.

1972-The creation of Atari

Atari using the business model of a coin operated arcade machine designed the game ‘Pong’ ‘The first successful ping pong game’ which became popular within the gaming history and was the first arcade game that became more available to play to players

But other companies attempted to produce their own arcade games after the amount of popularity that Pong had received, stopping Atari from being the biggest producer of arcade games.

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1980- The making of Space Invaders

Taito (Taito is best known for producing hit arcade games, such as Space Invaders and Bubble Bobble.)

Released the game ‘Space Invaders’ a pixelated game about shooting columns of aliens as they approach faster each time.

Due to its succession, stores began to have ‘corner arcades’ which was just a corner, with arcade systems to play.

Video game arcades began to be more common in large outlet stores and as individual stores

Popular arcade games included Galaxian, Pacman and Battlezone, games which led to the gaming industry being worth $8,000,000

1980+ Arcades competing against home consoles

late eighties to early nineties was the time of side-scrolling brawlers like Double Dragon and one-on-one fighters such as Street Fighter II drew punters back to the arcades in droves. Whether playing Golden Axe co-operatively, or Mortal Kombat against another individual, the definitive way to experience these games was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the other player in front of a genuine coin-co cabinet.

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Arcade game Decline

The creation of 16-bit games became more popular to home consoles due to their capacity of being able to run the games

Unable to offer superior hardware, coin-ops were no longer publishers' first port of call when it came to new releases, and their profitability took a downturn. The advent of online play meant that gamers no longer had to leave their homes to compete against complete strangers, so arcades' social appeal also diminished making video game revenues drop to around $2.1 billion.

Modern Arcades

In the US, there are a fraction as many arcade parlours as there were back in their heyday, while in Japan, the majority of them now house pachinko machines (although this market is also in decline). Here in the UK, they still adorn seaside resorts.

What remains of the movement by the time the current hardware generation, arcades stood little chance of competing against the likes of Kinect and PS Move technology, but it remains on ‘life support’ thanks to a dedicated niche community.

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Arcade gaming TechnologyArcade games have more interactive controls than home game consoles do, this is what gives them their individual values, and there are arcade controllers that are far more interactive than the average handheld controller, like so;

Some arcade games included fully enclosed dynamic cabinets to thrill the user, adding further edge to the arcade era, things that couldn’t be found in homes, such as rear-projection displays, reproductions of automobile or airplane cockpits, motorcycle or horse-shaped controllers, or highly dedicated controllers such as dancing mats and fishing rods.

Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon(s), which are all based on mathematical expressions, to represent images in computer graphics.

Arcade games such as Battlefront and Star Wars typically used wire frame vector based graphics to create 3D motion.

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Limitations

No online support or Multiplayer Very large & hardware Dependant Older hardware than what’s used today Can crash a lot of the time Rarely used anymore besides dedicated arcades Games are created for them anymore unless they're arcade based Can't save games Basic Graphics (Low quality) Game cannot be changed, one machine per game

Emulation

Emulators such as MAME, Kawaks, Zinc and Nebula all dedicate emulators to playing old arcade games, such as Asteroids, Pac-Man and Missile Command

Other PC Emulators such as ePSXE (PS1 Emulator) Porject64 (N64 Emulator) aim to bring back the old console games to emulation on the PC.

After the release of Playstation Network and Xbox Live, old Arcade games have been revamped to be available on home systems with basic handheld controllers.

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Console GamingThe 8 Generations

First Gen

Although the first video games appeared in the 1950s, they were played on vector displays connected to massive computers, not analog televisions. Ralph H. Baer conceived the idea of a home video game in 1951. In the 1960s he created a working video game console at Sanders Associates, but struggled for years to find a television manufacturer willing to produce the console.

In 1972 Magnavox’s Ralph Baer created the ‘Magnavox Odyssey’ the original home game console which could be hooked up to the average TV set, the initial design had a large collection of switched that changes components in the console due to the low CPU.

it was not until Atari's arcade game Pong popularized video games, that the public began to take more notice of the emerging industry. By the autumn of 1975 Magnavox, bowing to the popularity of Pong, cancelled the Odyssey and released a scaled down version that played only Pong and hockey, the Odyssey 100. A second, "higher end" console, the Odyssey 200, was released with the 100 and added onscreen scoring, up to four players, and a third game—Smash.

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Second Gen

in 1976 fairchild released the VES (Video entertainment system) which contained a programmable microprocessor so its cartridges only needed a single ROM chip to store microprocessor instructions which led to RCA and Atari to creating their own Cartridge-based consoles.

The First Video Game Crash of ‘77

With the lack of production of consoles, Pong imitators started to stopped Fairchild and RCA producing more console, leaving only Atari and Magnavox in the console market.

The Rebirth of the home console market

VES continued to gain profit throughout the entire home system crash and Magnavox brought their own programmable cartridge-based consoles to the market but it wasn’t til’ Atari released a home version of the hit arcade game ‘Space invaders’ that the home console industry was revived.

Many consumers bought the Atari consoles based on the fact they could play ‘Space Invaders’ given any time of the day, its success spurred the trend of console manufacturers, who tried to claim rights over many other arcade titles, although there were many other consoles with higher specs than the Atari 2600, it still remained top of the market.

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Video Game crash of 1983

The video game business suffered a severe crash. Due to low quality video games by smaller companies trying to get in on the video game market,

Atari hyping games such as E.T and Pac-man that were poorly developed and resembles nothing of the arcade versions

A growing number of PC users caused consumers and retailers to lose faith in video game consoles, Most video game companies filed for bankruptcy or moved into other industries, abandoning their game consoles. A group of employees from Mattel Electronics formed the INTV Corporation and bought the rights for the Intellivision.

Third generation

In 1983, Nintendo released the Family Computer (or Famicom) in Japan.

The Famicom supported high-resolution sprites, larger color palettes, and tiled backgrounds. This allowed Famicom games to be longer and have more detailed graphics. Nintendo began attempts to bring their Famicom to the U.S. after the video game market had crashed.

Also in 1983, brought the release of the NES which showed 8-bit graphics and dominated the gaming industry, returning faith back into the console market with Super Mario which brought attraction towards Nintendo gaming

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Sega's Master System was intended to compete with the NES, but never gained any significant market share in the US or Japan and was barely profitable. It fared notably better in PAL territories. In Europe and South America, the Master System competed with the NES and saw new game releases even after Sega's next-generation Mega Drive was released.

Fourth Gen

NEC (Nippon Electric Company) brought the first fourth generation console to market with their PC Engine Hudson had previously approached Nintendo, only to be rebuffed by a company still raking in the profits of the NES

NEC advertised their console as "16 bit" to highlight its advances over the NES. This started the trend of all subsequent fourth generations’ consoles being advertised as 16 bit. Many people still refer to this generation as the 16 bit generation, and often refer to the third generation as 8 bit.

The fourth generation graphics chips allowed these consoles to reproduce the art styles that were becoming popular in arcades and on home computers. These games often featured lavish background scenery, huge characters, broader color palettes, and increased emphasis on dithering and texture.

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Fifth Generation

The original fifth gen consoles were the 3DO and Atari Jaguar, although more powerful than the fourth gen systems, neither could match the popularity of Sega or Nintendo.

Atari cancelled their line of home computers, the Atari Portfolio, Stacy laptop and their Atari lynx were all retracted from production when they released the Jaguar. It was a gamble of all or nothing

And to retaliate, Nintendo released the ‘Donkey Kong Country’ which displayed a large range of tones which was by limiting the number of onscreen hues.

Nintendos’ game Starfox used an extra chip within the cartridge to display polygonal graphics which inspired Sega to release Virtua Racing which used the same type of polygonal display.

Nintendo was the last to release a fifth gen console, coming in with the staggering N64 which was the original 64-bit console, its graphics had been unseen and with games such as Mario 64 and Legend of Zelda Ocarina of time, it was the highlight of the generation.

Sixth Gen

Sixth generation began a move towards PC-like gaming consoles as well as using CD’s and DVD’s to programme games into.

Sega released the Dreamcast in 1998 which implemented a type of media known as the GD-Rom created to stop software piracy.

Sony’s Playstation 2 was released in 2000, with the ability to play DVD’s and run games on CD’s all in the same slot, it was a rather big selling point and as of 2011, 150 Million units were sold.

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Microsoft released their first game console, the Xbox in 2001, it was the original console to feature a hard-drive to save games onto, the first that had an Ethernet port for playing online and the start of the Microsoft XBOX live service

Seventh Gen

Seventh generation saw the releases of big consoles such as the Xbox 360 and the Ps3, which supported new kinds of HD graphics and blu-ray discs.

All 7th Gen consoles had the technology to support wireless controllers, and they had the new ‘Kinect’ for the Xbox which added more interactivity to the Xbox, but was inspired by the release of the Wii’s wireless motion sensing controller.

Eighth Gen

Other than usual graphic enhancements, so far the 8th generation has seen upgrades such as stereoscopic 3d support and more interactivity with game consoles such as the Wii U, with the PS4 adding new motion sensing controllers and the Xbox one bringing in a new advanced CPU and hardware.

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Limitation to all types of console

With the issues of lumbering a console around to play it elsewhere, you’d have to be within your own home to be able to play it

Newer consoles have decided to scrap the idea of being able to play older game gens discs in the console itself.

There is also a greater difficulty developing for consoles, which is only just offset by the benefit of a fixed specification, in that developers can't develop the game directly onto a console like you can with a PC.

TV Game history1953

A programme called Winky Dink and You, begins the move towards interactive TV. Kids in the US buy a special transparent sheet to place over the screen and then using ordinary crayons, help the show's characters draw things like pathways or tools. The series is discontinued because children begin drawing directly on the TV screen.

1959

First use of telephone call-ins during NBC's Today Show.

1964

AT&T shows the first video telephone at the New York World's Fair.

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1970

BBC technicians use the vertical blanking interval - the space between television frames - to send messages between transmitter sites around the UK. This technology was later developed into teletext. The technicians remain anonymous.

1972

BBC announces Ceefax. ITV announces Oracle.

1974

The launch of Ceefax

1977

The world's first commercial interactive TV service opens in Ohio. Qube offers 30 channels divided between broadcast TV, pay-per-view and interactive programming. Despite its popularity, it is not a commercial success.

1979

Prestel is launched in the UK. Although designed to be used on TV sets using a special adaptor (with a modem), many users access the service via home computers. First commercially available technology to link the TV with the telephone.

1988

The BBC broadcasts What's your Story?, a children's TV programme presented by Sylvester McCoy. The show asks viewers to phone in with suggestions of what happens next. The best ideas are then used.

1993

Oracle changes its name to Teletext and uses the Fastext buttons for its quiz, Bamboozle. The buttons enable users to navigate pages more quickly.

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1994

Channel Four programme Gamesmaster takes messages from an internet chat room and puts them on to TV via Teletext subtitles. There are delays in the messages appearing on screen so although popular, it only runs for one season. Videotron pilots interactive TV in the south-east. The analogue system allows viewers to choose content and make sports bets. Kellogg's Frosties broadcast an interactive ad.

April 1996

BT runs an interactive TV trial in Ipswich and Colchester. Interactive ads for Walkers Crisps allow viewers to play a quiz, watch the 10 greatest goals or play a spot-the-bag game.

June 1996

Television Par Satellite becomes the first broadcaster to launch digital interactive services fully. Rival Canal+ follows suit.

October 1998

Sky Digital launches its 140-channel service via satellite. The handset gives access to TV guides on screen, though customers wait a year before the interactive shopping service Open is available.

March 1999

NTL launches a trial interactive TV service.

July 1999

Cable & Wireless signs 10,000 subscribers. The interactive services allow access to a range of websites. C&W is now part of NTL. Two-Way TV launches its games and quiz service.

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August 1999

Interactive football makes its debut on Sky Digital. Viewers of the Arsenal v Manchester United game can view highlights during the game, access statistics and select different camera angles.

2000

ONdigital launches ONnet, a system that it says allows full internet access via a set-top box.Sky's first interactive ad, for Domino's Pizza.

Autumn 2000

Telewest's Active Digital shopping platform finally goes live after being launched nearly a year before. Services to be rolled out in 2001 include video on demand. NTL rolls out its internet TV service.

March 2001

The Advertising Standards Authority rules that an ONdigital ad "misleadingly exaggerated" its claim that its interactive TV service offered "full internet access".

April 2001

Newham Council in east London announces plans to issue set top boxes to council tenants to report faults.’

‘http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/apr/05/onlinesupplement5’

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Handheld Gaming

Handheld games

A handheld video game console is a lightweight, portable electronic device with a built-in screen, game controls, speakers and replaceable and/or rechargeable batteries or battery pack. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the console, screen, speakers, and controls in one unit, allowing people to carry them and play them at any time or place.In 1976, Mattel introduced the first handheld electronic game with the release of Auto Race. The oldest true handheld game console with interchangeable cartridges is the Milton Bradley Microvision in 1979.

Nintendo is credited with popularizing the handheld console concept with the release of the Game Boy in 1989 and as of 2011 continues to dominate the handheld console market with their DS, DSI and 3DS systems. However, Nintendo's latest handheld, the Nintendo 3DS, has been their largest handheld or video game console investment success in 30 years.

The early years.The idea of handheld video games with interchangeable cartridges wouldn’t take hold for about another decade, but Mattel managed to pry video games away from quarter-swallowing arcades and dim televisions with their successful line of LED-based, single-game handhelds. Most people today will remember Football, but the company also released the creatively-titled Basebal and Basketball, as well as the non-sports titles Missle Attack, Armor Battle, and Sub Chase. Mattel also managed to jump on the retro-chic bandwagon, re-releasing Football and Baseball in 2000.

The Game & Watch series was a handheld electronic games made by Nintendo and created by its game designer Gunpei Yokoi from 1980 to 1991. Most featured a single game that could be played on an LCD screen, in addition to a clock and an alarm. Most titles had a 'GAME A' and a 'GAME B' button. Game B is usually a faster, more difficult version of game A.

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The Game Boy was first introduced in 1989 as a pretty big, pretty plain, colorless portable game console. Four AA batteries got this puppy going for almost 20 hours of gameplay. And the only way to get stereo sound off the Game Boy was if you plugged in some headphones (only has one tiny speaker). Game Boy's software library included some of the best games of all time though like Tetris and Pokémon.

The Lynx was a handheld game console released by Atari in 1989. The Lynx holds the distinction of being the world's first handheld electronic game with a colour LCD display. The system is also notable for its forward-looking features, advanced graphics, and ambidextrous layout. The Lynx was released in 1989, the same year as Nintendo's (monochromatic) Game Boy. However, the Lynx failed to achieve the critical mass required to attract quality third party developers, and was eventually abandoned.

Work began on the console in 1989 under the codename "Project Mercury", as per Sega's policy at the time of codenaming their systems after planets. The system was released in Japan on October 6, 1990, in North America and Europe in 1991, and in Australia in 1992. The launch price was $149.99. Over 250 titles were released worldwide for the Game Gear, although at the time of the console's launch there were only six software titles available. Sega made sure that a wide variety of video game genres were represented on the system, in order to give it a broad appeal. Prices for game cartridges initially ranged from $24.99 to $29.99 each.

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The Watara Supervision is a monochrome handheld game console, originating from Hong Kong, and introduced in 1992 as a cut-price competitor for Nintendo's Game Boy. It came packaged with a game called Crystball, which is similar to Breakout.The console has a slightly larger screen and larger buttons, and its games sold for far less than the Game Boy's. The games were simpler than the Game Boy's, and the console did not sell well. The original design for the console changed significantly through several iterations, and the last Supervisions were sold in 1996.

Nintendo's Virtual Boy was the first portable game console capable of displaying "true 3D graphics." Most video games are forced to use monocular cues to achieve the illusion of three dimensions on a two-dimensional screen, but the Virtual Boy was able to create a more accurate illusion of depth through an effect known as parallax. In a manner similar to using a head-mounted display, the user places their face inside a pair of rubber goggles on the front of the machine, and then an eyeglass-style projector allows viewing of the monochromatic (in this case, black and red) image. It was released on July 21, 1995 in Japan and August 14, 1995 in North America and at a price of around US$180. It met with a lukewarm reception that was unaffected by continued price drops. Nintendo discontinued it the following year.

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The Neo Geo Pocket was SNK's first hand held video game system, released in Japan in late 1998. However lower than expected sales resulted in its discontinuation in 1999, and was immediately succeeded by the Neo Geo Pocket Colour. The system only had a retail release within the Japan and Hong Kong market.

The Game.com was a handheld game console released by Tiger Electronics in September 1997. It featured many new ideas for handheld consoles and was aimed at an older target audience, sporting PDA-style features and functions such as a touch screen and stylus. However, Tiger hoped it would also challenge Nintendo's Game Boy and gain a following among younger gamers too. Unlike other handheld game consoles, the first game.com consoles included two slots for game cartridges and could be connected to a 14.4 kbit/s modem. Later models reverted to a single cartridge slot.

The Game Boy Colour was a response to pressure from game developers for a new and much more sophisticated system of playing, as they felt that the Game Boy, even in its latest incarnation, the Game Boy Pocket, was insufficient. The resultant product was backward compatible, a first for a handheld console system, and leveraged the large library of games and great installed base of the predecessor system. This became a major feature of the Game Boy line, since it allowed each new launch to begin with a significantly larger library than any of its competitors.The processor, which is an 8080 workalike made by Sharp with a few extra (bit manipulation) instructions, has a clock speed of approx. 8 MHz, twice as fast as that of the original Game Boy. The Game Boy Colour also has four times as much memory as the original.

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Wonder Swan is a handheld game console released in Japan by Bandai in 1999. It was developed by the late Gunpei Yokoi's company Koto and Bandai. The Wonder Swan was made to compete with the Neo Geo Pocket Colour and the market leader Nintendo's Game Boy Colour (even though the developer for the Wonder Swan, Gunpei Yokoi, developed the original Nintendo Game Boy).The Wonder Swan was later replaced by the WonderSwan Color. Although some Wonder Swan Color games are compatible with the original WonderSwan, many are designed exclusively for the WonderSwan Color and show a message such as "This cartridge is for Wonder Swan Color only" when run on the original WonderSwan.

Game Boy Advance (GBA) is much faster, has better graphics and better sound (hence the name Advance, you catchin’ on?) And you can network up to four Game Boy Advance units together for multiplayer gameplay on one shared cartridge. What’s not new (and that’s a good thing) is the wide selection of Game Boy games. Since the Game Boy Advance system is backwards-compatible, it can play its own line of games like Super Mario Advance, as well as all games that have already been released for the Game Boy system.

The N-Gage is a mobile telephone and handheld game system based on the Nokia Series 60 platform. It started selling on October 7, 2003. It attempted to lure gamers away from the Game Boy Advance by including cell phone functionality. This was unsuccessful, partly because the buttons, designed for a phone, were not well-suited for gaming and when used as a phone the original N-Gage was described as resembling a "taco".In 2005, Nokia announced that it would move its N-Gage games capabilities onto a series of smartphones. These devices are available since early 2007, and games will be ready for download from the official web site starting from November.

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The GameKing is an 8-bit handheld game console produced by the Chinese company TimeTop since 2003. It is based around a 65C02 CPU running at 6.0 MHz and exists in two variations, the original GameKing and the GameKing II, with mostly aesthetic and ergonomic differences.The consoles have above-average sound circuitry capable of multi-channel music and digital sound playback, but have quite inexplicably been equipped with an incredibly poor quality black and white LCD screen, only supporting four shades of grey and having a very low (48 by 32 pixels) resolution, combined with a slow refresh rate, poor readability and adjustments, compared to the original Game Boy.

The quality of its games, graphics wise, can be compared to some of the best built-in cell phone games (excluding Java games), while their playing speed (scrolling etc.) and audio is far superior to those found on cell phones (multi-channel music and digitized samples and voices are quite common in GameKing games).

In November 2003, Nintendo announced that it would be creating a new console for release in 2004. It said that it would not be the successor to the Nintendo GameCube or the Game Boy Advance SP. On January 20, 2004, the console was announced under the codename "Nintendo DS". Nintendo chose to release very few details at that time, only saying that the console would have two separate 3 in. TFT LCD display panels, separate processors, and up to 1 gigabit of semiconductor memory. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said "We have developed Nintendo DS based upon a completely different concept from existing game devices in order to provide players with a unique entertainment experience for the 21st century." In March, the codename was changed to "Nitro" and a document containing most of the console's technical specifications was leaked. In May, the codename was changed back to "Nintendo DS" (DS standing for Dual Screen) and the console was shown in prototype form at E3. All of the features of the console were released by Nintendo at E3. On July 28, 2004, Nintendo revealed a new design, one that was described as "sleeker and more elegant" than the one shown at E3. The codename "Nintendo DS" became the official name of the console that day.

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The PlayStation Portable is a handheld game console released and currently manufactured by Sony Computer Entertainment. Its development was first announced during E3 2003, and it was officially unveiled on May 11, 2004 at a Sony press conference before E3 2004. The system was released in Japan on December 12, 2004, the United States and Canada on March 24, 2005 and in Europe and Australia on September 1, 2005. It is considered the first handheld video game system to use an optical disc format (Universal Media Disc).A new slimmer and lighter version of the PlayStation Portable, titled Slim and Lite, was announced on July 11, 2007 and Sony's press conference at E3 2007. It will be available in the US, Europe and Japan in September 2007 with various colours and a very different box packaging to the current PSP. Among these versions three were physically shown at E3 2007: a white version with a Star Wars imprint, a piano black version and an ice silver version.

The Gizmondo was a handheld gaming console with GPRS and GPS technology, which was manufactured by Tiger Telematics. Launched in 2005, the Gizmondo sold poorly, and by February of 2006 the company discontinued the Gizmondo and was forced into bankruptcy. Gizmondo was overshadowed by Stefan Eriksson's involvement in organized crime.The Gizmondo includes a GPS module for in-car navigation which could also be used to track player movement in real-time for multiplayer games. It also contains a 0.3 Megapixel VGA camera mounted on the rear of the device. The Gizmondo can play MP3/WAV/MIDI music, WMV/MPEG4 videos and a variety of 2D/3D games. It can send email and even SMS/MMS messages, although it lacks the ability to send or receive voice calls.

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Released on November 10, 2005 in South Korea, the GP2X was designed to play video and music, view photos, and play games. It has an open architecture (Linux based), allowing anybody to develop and run software. Also, there is the possibility for additional features (such as support for new media formats) to be added in the future due to the upgradeable firmware.A popular use of the GP2X is to run emulators, which allow one to use software from another system on the GP2X.

http://gaming.wikia.com/wiki/History_of_handheld_game_consoles

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PC GamingHome computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming common during the 1980sIn the late 1970s and early 1980s, from about 1977 to 1983, it was widely predicted that computers would soon revolutionize many aspects of home and family life as they had business practices in the previous decades. Mothers would keep their recipe catalogue in "kitchen computer" databases and turn to a medical database for help with child care, fathers would use the family's computer to manage family finances and track automobile maintenance. Children would use disk-based encyclopaedias for school work and would be avid video gamers. Home automation would bring about the intelligent home of the '80s

The most popular home computers in the USA up to 1985 were: the TRS-80 (1977), various models of the Apple II family (first introduced in 1977), the Atari 400/800 (1979) along with its follow up models the 800XL and 130XE, and the Commodore VIC-20 (1980) and the Commodore 64 (1982)

The original home computer designed for home usage such as storing data and messages was the Apple II released in 1977.

‘The Apple II series is a set of 8-bit home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and introduced in 1977 with the original Apple II.’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_family

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The first range of computers

The first computer in general other than for home uses was the Konrad Zuse - Z1 computer

The Z1 was the first freely programmable computer in the world which used Boolean logic and binary floating point numbers, however it was unreliable in operation.

On October 1977 The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) was a home/personal computer produced by Commodore International. A top-seller in the Canadian and United States educational markets, it was Commodore's first full-featured computer, and formed the basis for their entire 8-bit product line.

Gaming on PC’s

Recognised games in the PC industry include

Tennis for Two

Tennis For Two was an electronic game developed in 1958 on a Donner Model 30 analog computer, which simulates a game of tennis or ping pong on an oscilloscope. Created by American physicist William Higinbotham for visitors at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, it is important in the history of video games as one of the first electronic games to use a graphical display.

Spacewar

Spacewar is one of the earliest known digital computer games. It is a two-player game, with each player taking control of a spaceship and attempting to destroy the other. A star in the center of the screen pulls on both ships and requires manoeuvring to avoid falling into it. In an emergency, a player can enter hyperspace to return at a random location on the screen, but only at the risk of exploding if it is used too often.

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Mazewar

Maze War originated or disseminated a number of concepts used in thousands of games to follow, and is considered one of the earliest examples of, or progenitor of, a first-person shooter

Dungeons of Daggorath

Dungeons of Daggorath is one of the first real-time, first-person perspective role-playing video games. It was produced by DynaMicro for the Tandy (RadioShack) TRS-80 Color Computer in 1982.

Manic Mansion

Maniac Mansion is a 1987 graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. Initially released for the Commodore 64 and Apple II, it was Lucasfilm's foray into video game publishing.

Elite

Elite was one of the first home computer games to use wire-frame 3D graphics with hidden line removal. Another novelty was the inclusion of The Dark Wheel, a novella by Robert Holdstock which influenced new players with insight into the moral and legal codes to which they might aspire.

Doom

Doom is a science-fiction/horror first-person shooter developed and published by id for the PC on December 10, 1993

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Warcraft

World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) created by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994.

Online and Offline

The terms "online" and "offline" (also styled as "on-line" and "off-line") have specific meanings in regard to computer technology and telecommunications. In general, "online" indicates a state of connectivity, while "offline" indicates a disconnected state.

offline storage is computer data storage that is not "available for immediate use on demand by the system without human intervention." Additionally, an otherwise online system that is powered down is considered offline.

Social Gaming

With current technology we can stream movies and pictures from the internet and now it’s possible to stream games

We can now play games with people around the world due to companies like Steam and onlive, who give you the change to choose your own username and what games you want to play and purchase with others, Steams popularity is rising due to the amount of PC gamers rising.

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Coding Home PC’s

An early example of coding a home PC was the ZX spectrum

The Spectrum was among the first mainstream audience home computers in the UK, similar in significance to the Commodore 64 in the USA

This became re-coded in order for Matthew smith to create the game ‘Manic Miner’

Manic Miner is a platform game originally written for the ZX Spectrum by Matthew Smith and released by Bug-Byte in 1983. It is the first game in the Miner Willy series and among the early titles in the platform game genre. The game itself was inspired by the Atari 800 game Miner 2049er.

Limitations

A constant usage of wired internet is needed to access its full potential

It can’t be taken around like laptops can

It’s difficult to fix an issue with the amount of different types of PC’s. all PC’s are individual and have different uses, purchasing one sometimes doesn’t give you all the details.