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🔗 Video games 🔗 Computing

Habitat is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by LucasArts. It is the first attempt at a large-scale commercial virtual community that was graphic based. Initially created in 1985 by Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar, the game was made available as a beta test in 1986 by Quantum Link, an online service for the Commodore 64 computer and the corporate progenitor to AOL. Both Farmer and Morningstar were given a First Penguin Award at the 2001 Game Developers Choice Awards for their innovative work on Habitat. As a graphical MUD it is considered a forerunner of modern MMORPGs unlike other online communities of the time (i.e. MUDs and massively multiplayer onlines with text-based interfaces). Habitat had a GUI and large user base of consumer-oriented users, and those elements in particular have made Habitat a much-cited project and acknowledged benchmark for the design of today's online communities that incorporate accelerated 3D computer graphics and immersive elements into their environments.

🔗 Video games 🔗 Computing

"ABAQ" redirects here. ABAQ is also the callsign for TV station ABQ in Alpha, Queensland.

The Atari Transputer Workstation (also known as ATW-800, or simply ATW) is a workstation class computer released by Atari Corporation in the late 1980s, based on the INMOS transputer. It was introduced in 1987 as the Abaq, but the name was changed before sales began. Sales were almost non-existent, and the product was canceled after only a few hundred units had been produced.

🔗 Video games 🔗 Video games/Nintendo

Link: The Faces of Evil, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon and Zelda's Adventure are action-adventure games produced by Philips for their CD-i format as part of Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda video game series. Not designed for Nintendo platforms, the games owe their existence to negotiations related to Nintendo's decision not to have Philips create a CD add-on to the Super NES. During these negotiations, Philips secured the rights to use Nintendo characters in CD-i third-party developer games. The Faces of Evil and The Wand of Gamelon were developed by Animation Magic and were both released in North America on October 10, 1993, and Zelda's Adventure was developed by Viridis and was released in North America on June 5, 1994. The games were given little funding or development time, and Nintendo provided only cursory input. None of the games are canonical to the Zelda franchise.

CD-i players did not sell well and the games saw relatively small sales figures. Though the games initially received largely positive reviews, they have been universally criticized since the mid-2000s. This is attributed to the reaction of many gamers to the obscure games' full motion video cutscenes when they first became widely available through video-sharing websites such as YouTube. The cutscenes are perceived to be of poor quality. Because the aging early 1990s visual effects of the titles failed to live up to the graphic effects of the 2000s, and because for many fans this was their first experience of the games, the CD-i Zelda titles have developed a critical reputation as particularly poor based largely on animation quality and to an extent awkward controls. In the eyes of "devout" hardcore gamers, according to Edge, the games are now considered "tantamount to blasphemy".

Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon are played using the side-scrolling view introduced in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, while Zelda's Adventure has a top-down view reminiscent of the original The Legend of Zelda. All the CD-i Zelda games begin with animated FMVs to illustrate the capabilities of the CD-ROM format, save Zelda's Adventure, which begins with a live-action video.

🔗 Video games 🔗 Computer science 🔗 Mathematics

Fast inverse square root, sometimes referred to as Fast InvSqrt() or by the hexadecimal constant 0x5F3759DF, is an algorithm that estimates ​¹⁄_√x, the reciprocal (or multiplicative inverse) of the square root of a 32-bit floating-point number x in IEEE 754 floating-point format. This operation is used in digital signal processing to normalize a vector, i.e., scale it to length 1. For example, computer graphics programs use inverse square roots to compute angles of incidence and reflection for lighting and shading. The algorithm is best known for its implementation in 1999 in the source code of Quake III Arena, a first-person shooter video game that made heavy use of 3D graphics. The algorithm only started appearing on public forums such as Usenet in 2002 or 2003. At the time, it was generally computationally expensive to compute the reciprocal of a floating-point number, especially on a large scale; the fast inverse square root bypassed this step.

The algorithm accepts a 32-bit floating-point number as the input and stores a halved value for later use. Then, treating the bits representing the floating-point number as a 32-bit integer, a logical shift right by one bit is performed and the result subtracted from the number 0x5F3759DF, which is a floating point representation of an approximation of √2¹²⁷. This results in the first approximation of the inverse square root of the input. Treating the bits again as a floating-point number, it runs one iteration of Newton's method, yielding a more precise approximation.

The algorithm was originally attributed to John Carmack, but an investigation showed that the code had deeper roots in both the hardware and software side of computer graphics. Adjustments and alterations passed through both Silicon Graphics and 3dfx Interactive, with Gary Tarolli's implementation for the SGI Indigo as the earliest known use. It is not known how the constant was originally derived, though investigation has shed some light on possible methods.

With subsequent hardware advancements, especially the x86 SSE instruction rsqrtss, this method is not generally applicable to modern computing, though it remains an interesting example both historically and for more limited machines.

🔗 Video games 🔗 Computing 🔗 Japan

The X68000 (Japanese: エックス ろくまんはっせん, Hepburn: Ekkusu Rokuman Hassen) is a home computer created by Sharp Corporation, first released in 1987, sold only in Japan.

The first model features a 10 MHz Motorola 68000 CPU (hence the name), 1 MB of RAM, and no hard drive; the last model was released in 1993 with a 25 MHz Motorola 68030 CPU, 4 MB of RAM, and optional 80 MB SCSI hard drive. RAM in these systems is expandable to 12 MB, though most games and applications do not require more than 2 MB.

🔗 Video games 🔗 Video games/Nintendo

The Satellaview is a satellite modem peripheral produced by Nintendo for the Super Famicom in 1995. Containing 1 megabit of ROM space and an additional 512K of RAM, Satellaview allowed players to download games, magazines and other forms of content through satellite broadcasts provided by Japanese company St.GIGA. To use Satellaview, players had to purchase a special broadcast satellite (BS) tuner directly from St.GIGA or rent one for a six-month fee, and to pay monthly maintenance fees to both St.GIGA and Nintendo. It was attached to the bottom of the Super Famicom via the system's expansion port. It featured heavy support from third-party developers, including Squaresoft, Taito, Konami, Capcom and Seta.

Satellaview was the result of a collaboration between Nintendo and St.GIGA, the latter being known in Japan for its "Tide of Sound" nature sound music. By 1994, St.GIGA was struggling financially due to the Japanese Recession affecting the demand for its music; Nintendo initiated a "rescue" plan by purchasing a stake in the company. Satellaview was produced by Nintendo Research & Development 2, the same team that designed the Super Famicom itself, and was made to cater towards a more adult-oriented market. By 1998, Nintendo's relationship with St.GIGA was beginning to collapse due to the company refusing to go forward with a debt-management plan and failing to secure a government broadcasting license. Nintendo withdrew support for Satellaview in March 1999, with St.GIGA continuing to supply content until June 30, 2000, when it was ultimately discontinued.

The rise of technologically-superior consoles such as the Sega Saturn and PlayStation and its high cost made consumers reluctant to purchase Satellaview, especially due to it only being sold via mail order, or through specific electronic store chains. Despite this, St.GIGA reported seeing over 100,000 subscribers by March 1997. Retrospectively, Satellaview has been praised by critics for its technological accomplishments and the overall quality of its games, particularly those from the Legend of Zelda series. In recent years, it has gained a strong cult following due to much of its content being deemed lost, with video game preservation groups being formed to dump and preserve its games and other services online.

🔗 Video games 🔗 Chess

1K ZX Chess is a 1982 chess program for the unexpanded Sinclair ZX81.

🔗 Video games 🔗 Computing 🔗 Lists 🔗 Computing/Software 🔗 Computing/Free and open-source software

This is a list of commercial video games with available source code. The source code of these commercially developed and distributed video games is available to the public or the games' communities.

🔗 Video games

The Neo Geo (Japanese: ネオジオ, Hepburn: Neojio), stylised as NEO・GEO, also written as NEOGEO, is a cartridge-based arcade system board and fourth-generation home video game console released on April 26, 1990, by Japanese game company SNK Corporation. It was the first system in SNK's Neo Geo family. The Neo Geo was marketed as 24-bit; its CPU is technically a 16/32-bit 68000-based system with an 8/16-bit Z80 coprocessor, while its GPU chipset has a 24-bit graphics data bus.

The Neo Geo originally launched as the MVS (Multi Video System) coin-operated arcade machine. The MVS offers owners the ability to put up to six different cartridges into a single cabinet, a unique feature that was also a key economic consideration for operators with limited floorspace, as well as saving money long-term. With its games stored on self-contained cartridges, a game cabinet can be exchanged for a different game title by swapping the game's ROM cartridge and cabinet artwork. A home console version was also made, called AES (Advanced Entertainment System). It was originally launched as a rental console for video game stores in Japan (called Neo Geo Rental System), with its high price causing SNK not to release it for home use – this was later reversed due to high demand and it came into the market as a luxury console. The AES had the same raw specs as the MVS and had full compatibility, thus managed to bring a true arcade experience to home users. The Neo Geo was revived along with the brand overall in December 2012 through the introduction of the Neo Geo X handheld and home system.

The Neo Geo was a very powerful system when released, more powerful than any video game console at the time, and many arcade systems such as rival Capcom's CPS, which did not surpass it until the CP System II in 1993. The Neo Geo MVS was a success during the 1990s due to the cabinet's low cost, six ROM slots, and compact size. Several successful video game series were released for the platform, such as Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Samurai Shodown, The King of Fighters and Metal Slug. The AES had a very niche market in Japan, though sales were very low in the U.S. due to its high price for both the hardware and software; but it has since gained a cult following and is now considered a collectable. Neo Geo hardware production lasted seven years, discontinued in 1997, whereas game software production lasted until 2004, making Neo Geo the longest supported arcade system of all time. The AES console was succeeded by the Neo Geo CD and the MVS arcade by the Hyper Neo Geo 64. As of March 1997, the Neo Geo and the Neo Geo CD combined had sold 980,000 units worldwide. In 2009, the Neo Geo was ranked 19th out of the 25 best video game consoles of all time by video game website IGN.

🔗 Video games

In video games, grinding is performing repetitive tasks, usually for a gameplay advantage or loot but in some cases for purely aesthetic or cosmetic benefits. Many video games use different tactics to implement, or reduce, the amount of grinding in the gameplay. The general use of grinding is for "experience points", or to improve a character's level. In addition, the behavior is sometimes referred to as pushing the bar (leveling up), farming (acquiring loot repeatedly from one source), or catassing.