History of video games/Print version/Computer games

Computer Gaming

Early Computer Games

See the chapters early games and Dr. Nim for early examples of computer games.

1970-1979

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  An IBM 5100 portable computer. While not used for gaming, it had a large influence on later designs.
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  Common computers released in 1977, the Commodore PET 2001, the Apple II, and the TRS-80 Model I.
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  An Ohio Scientific Challenger 2P
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  AMD 9080 Processor

Games

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  Infocom began producing text adventures in 1979.
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  Dial a Grue

1980-1989

Notable Devices of the 1980's

CPUs

• 16 bit Intel 80286 (286) - 1982-1991
• 32 bit Intel 80386 (386) - 1985-2007
• 32 bit Intel 80486 (486) - 1989-2007

Regional Computers

In the 1980's there was a rivalry between Iraqi users of the Al Warkaa and the Sakhr 170 home gaming computers.

In Wales, Dragon computers were popular.

Gallery

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  ATI Hercules Graphics Card (1986)
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  AdLib Music Synthesizer Card (1987)
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  The Compaq Portable, a popular computer of the 1980's.

1990-1999

By 1990 well used dithering was being used in EGA games to create the illusion of better colors. From the early to late 1990's Color Cycling, the shifting of a palette on a still image, was used to produce resource efficient animations in computer games.

The 1990's saw the first common graphics cards, as well as the first common 3D API's for graphics cards such as Glide.

The introduction of CD-ROMs was initially seen as a way to reduce costs and piracy compared to floppy disks, though pirates quickly gained familiarity with the new format.

In 1994, the first Dreamhack was held in Malung, Sweden.

In 1996 the Marine Doom is made for US military training, a notable early use of FPS games for military training.

The Nvidia GeForce 256, considered as the world's first GPU, was released in 1999. It offered a huge improvement in 3D graphic capabilities.

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  The popularity of Doom was so massive that for a while first person shooters were commonly called "Doom clones"
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  The Quake engine spawned a number of decedent engines.

2000-2009

Valve launches Steam on September 12th, 2003.

Audio Cards remain popular till the end of the decade in many high end gaming rigs, along with brief experiments in gaming themed network and physics acceleration cards.

Events

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  Dreamhack 2004 LAN party
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  PAX 2006 computer gaming.
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  A Korean PC Bang in 2006.
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  NVIDIA SLI at E3 2006

Components

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  GeForce FX5900
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  Powercolor Radeon 9000 AGP video card.
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  Nvidia 7900GS video card.
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  Nvidia 260 GTX. This card shows a trend where static 3D renderings were printed on the card.
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  A Turtle Beach Catalina sound card.
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  A Western Digital VelociRaptor in 2008.
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  A Linksys WRT54GS Router, common during the early to late 2000's.
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  2009 LCD shutter glasses for 3D gaming.

2010-2019

Rise of Steam

We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable.

—Gabe Newell, Interview with the The Cambridge Student - 2011.

In 2011 Valve identifies game piracy as a service problem. In 2013 Steam distributed 75% of digital games on PC.

In 2015 Steam and Bethesda briefly introduced paid mods as a feature, before quickly withdrawing it in response to widespread criticism.

Ray-tracing games started in 2018 and ray-tracing cards were released to be capable of ray-tracing in supported games. The first ray-tracing graphics cards were Nvidia RTX 2060, 2070, 2080, and Titan RTX.

2010's gallery

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  AMD booth at E3 2011
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  NVIDIA GTX 1070 Founders Edition
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  A Blizzard Battle.net Authenticator token in 2016.

2020-2029

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a shortage of computer parts. Despite this the Folding@Home distributed computing project reaches quickly 1.5 Exaflops of capability as thousands of PC gamers donate unused cycles from their computers to tackle biomedical research in the fight against COVID-19.

The Trump Administration began enforcing a new tariff on computer components from China near the end of it's term in mid January 2021, causing GPU prices to significantly increase, sometimes by several hundred dollars.

Some manufactures experimented with PCs in handheld console formfactors. In 2022 Steam released the Steam Deck, which is a handheld console that runs PC games.

In 2022 Intel released its first graphics cards: the Arc A750 and A770. These GPUs supported RTX 3060 performance for cheaper prices in games, especially DirectX 12 ones. DirectX 9 support was improved on these GPUs in 2023.

2020's gallery

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  Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition

References

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  An Amiga 500 configured for games.

History

Launch

The Commodore Amiga 1000 was launched in 1985 for $1,295.At the launch of the Amiga, artist Andy Warhol promoted the capabilities of the system for use in art.

The cost reduced low end Amiga 500 followed in 1987.

Use by creatives

Many game developer studios such as Psygnosis and Sensible Software got their start developing games for the Amiga. To keep publishers updated before the proliferation of the internet, Amiga Developer Krister Karlsson recounted sending VHS tapes and floppy disks to his publisher in the mail.

Other developers used the audio and graphical capabilities of the Amiga to develop games for other platforms. Junichi Masuda used an Amiga when creating the music for Pokémon Gold and Silver.

Technology

Specs are for the Amiga 1000. Following models had different specs.

Compute

The Amiga 1000 is powered by the 16 bit Motorola 68000 clocked at 7.14 megahertz.

The Amiga 1000 has 256 kilobytes of RAM by default.

Software

Amiga computers ran the Amiga Workbench operating system, with Amiga Workbench 1.0 released in October 1985 with powerful multitasking and graphical capabilities.

Gallery

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  An Amiga 500 system.
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  An Amiga 600
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  An Amiga 1000 system.
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  An Amiga 1200 system.
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  An Amiga 3000 computer.
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  An Amiga 4000T system.

References

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  The Amstrad CPC464 computer.

History

Lord Sugar in 2009.

The Amstrad CPC 464 was launched on April 12, 1984.

CPC is short for Colour Personal Computer.

Over two million CPC computers were sold, with high popularity in continental western Europe.

Technology

The CPC 464 is powered by an 8-bit Zilog Z80 processor clocked at four megahertz.

The system has 64 kilobytes of RAM, with 42 kilobytes being available to the user.

Gallery

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  3 inch floppy disks used by Amstrad.

References

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  An Apple II with 1977 accessories attached, including game pads.

History

The Apple II was launched in April 1977.

The Apple II was discontinued in 1993, having been a critical platform in the Computer market, and by extension the computer gaming market, for well over a decade and a half.

Around 2017 a massive effort was made to preserve as much Apple II software as possible, before media degradation made some software lost to history.

Technology

These specs are for the original Apple II. Later models offered enhanced capabilities.

Compute

The Apple II is powered by an 6502 processor clocked at 1 megahertz.

The Apple II originally shipped with 4 kilobytes of RAM, and could be expanded to 48 kilobytes.

Hardware

The Apple II shipped with an 8 kilobyte ROM.

Gallery

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  The old garage of Steve Jobs in Los Altos, California.
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  An Apple II running a game.
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  Mystery House running on an Apple II.
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  An 1977 advertisement for the Apple II encourages not only playing games with the system, but also creating them.
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  The Apple II owned by John Romero.

History

The Atari 800 and 400 were released in 1979 with the 400 costing $550 and the 800 costing $1000.

Technology

Compute

The Atari 400 and the Atari 800 are powered by an 8-bit 6502 processor clocked at 1.79 megahertz.

The Atari 400 has eight kilobytes of RAM in early models and 16 kilobytes of RAM in later models. The Atari 800 has 16 kilobytes of RAM in early models and 48 kilobytes of RAM in later models.

Gallery

Atari 400

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Atari 800

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Accessories

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  An Asteroids cartridge for Atari 8 bit computers.
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  Atari Touch Tablet
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  Atari touch tablet next to an Atari 800XL
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  Atari 850

References

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  A BBC Micro computer.

History

The BBC Micro was launched in December 1981.

The BBC Micro is sometimes nicknamed the Beeb.

The BBC Micro was discontinued in 1994.

BBC Micro developer Acorn Computers would later develop the ARM architecture, which would later be used by a number of gaming systems.

Technology

The BBC Micro is powered by an 8-bit MOS 6502 processor.

The BBC Micro has 32 kilobytes of RAM.

Gallery

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  A classroom with BBC micro computers.
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  A woman plays a game on the BBC Micro.

History

The Classic Mac operating systems are considered to be releases from System 1 in 1984 to System 9 in 1999.

Despite Apple's troubles during the run of the Classic Mac OS, the Classic Mac OS did see some games released for it.

Notable games

Caper in the Castro

A 1989 point and click hypercard game for MacOS which was among the first video games to feature a significant plot focused on LGBTQ subject matter.

1993

Pathways into Darkness

A first person action adventure game by Bungie.

Read more about Pathways into Darkness on Wikipedia.

1994

Emora Kart

An early clone of the then recently released Super Famicom and Super Nintendo Entertainment System game Mario Kart.

Marathon

The first game in the Marathon trilogy of sci-fi first person shooters by Bungie.

Read more about Marathon on Wikipedia.

1995

Marathon 2: Durandal

The second game in the Marathon trilogy of sci-fi first person shooters by Bungie.

Read more about Marathon 2: Durandal on Wikipedia.

1996

Marathon Infinity

The final game in the Marathon trilogy by Bungie.

Read more about Marathon Infinity on Wikipedia.

Gallery

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  The original 1984 Macintosh, sporting 128 kB of RAM.
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  A Macintosh Quadra computer from the early 1990's.
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  The iMac G3, a popular Mac of the late 1990's, which symbolized Steve Jobs's return to Apple.

References

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  A recreation of a typical Commodore 64 gaming scene in the 1980's.

History

The Commodore 64 was introduced in 1982 for $595, a price considered low given it's specs and enabled by Commodore's in house manufacturing. The manufacturing price of each commodore 64 was about $135 giving Commodore about a $460 margin before shipping, advertising, and other costs are considered.

In time, the price of the Commodore 64 would drop to $200 and the manufacturing costs of the Commodore 64 would drop to $25.

The Commodore 64 was discontinued in 1994, with 17 million Commodore 64 computers sold.

Technology

Compute

The Commodore 64 is powered by the 8-bit MOS Technology 6510 CPU, clocked at 1.023 megahertz in NTSC regions or 0.985 megahertz in PAL regions.

The Commodore 64 has 64 kilobytes of RAM.

Hardware

The Commodore 64 can generate three channels of audio via a SID 6581 chip.

Media

The only type of media that the Commodore 64 accepts without needing external peripherals are ROM cartridges. Cartridges were mostly used for video games and programming languages, but later also saw (and continue to see) usage for hardware enhancement.

The system was compatible with the Commodore Datasette tape drive, on which many users relied to load software, both retail, pirate or simply custom-written.

Much of the software was also distributed on 5¼-inches floppy disks to be read by Commodore 1541 or compatible drives, connected to the system through its "Commodore" bus. Similarly to previous Commodore disk drives, the 1541s worked like computers on their own, running Commodore DOS to load and save data, as well as interacting with the C64.

Notable Games

1987

• Bad Street Brawler / Street Hassle - A beat up up released on multiple platforms. An early example of a game which allowed players to pet dogs.

Gallery

Commodore 64

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  The Commodore 64 computer is built into the keyboard.
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Audio output

- This is an example of the Audio capabilities of the SID 6581 chip.

- This is an example of Automatic Mouth speech synthesis output from a Commodore 64.

References

The Digicomp I computer, a distant relative of Dr. Nim.

History

Dr. Nim was a mechanical consumer computed dedicated to playing a single computer game released in the 1960's.

Technology

Dr. Nim can play against a human opponent, or it can play against itself. Dr. Nim also had a difficulty setting between perfect play which was between un-winnable without cheating, and winnable.

Dr. Nim uses a special board and 18 marbles for operation.

References

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  The FM Towns
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  Two models of the FM Towns II.

History

The Fujitsu pavilion at Expo 85.

The FM Towns was a Fujitsu computer that excelled at gaming and released in Japan in February 1989 for 338,000 yen.

The die of an Intel 80386DX processor, similar to the one used in the FM Towns.

The Towns part of the name is said to be a reference to Charles Hard Townes, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964. As Charles Hard Townes invented the laser , the name is perhaps appropriate for the CD-ROM based computer, which uses a laser to read optical media.

Technology

Compute

The FM Towns is powered by a 32 bit Intel 80386dx processor clocked at 16 megahertz, with a 80387 coprocessor.

The FM Towns contained between 1 and 6 megabytes of RAM depending on the configuration.

Hardware

The FM Towns contained a built in CD-ROM drive standard.

Software

The FM Towns ran the custom Towns OS made by Fujitsu.

References

• 
  An IBM 5150 Personal Computer.

History

Development

The IBM 5100 of 1975 was the first minicomputer made by IBM. APL models of the 5100 could essentially emulate a IBM System 360 mainframe.

The accelerate development the IBM PC was developed in the span of 12 months by extensively using components made by other companies.

Launch

A press release by IBM in late August 1981 touts the capabilities of the IBM 5150, including a brief mention that the system can be used to easily play video games.

The IBM 5150 was released in September of 1981 at a base cost of around $1,565, a home use setup costing around $3005, and a business system costing around $4,500. Because the only thing IBM actually made for the IBM PC was the BIOS, clones of the system existed within a year, though were quickly stopped by legal action. Compaq made a clone with a legally engineered compatible BIOS, paving the way for other clones to create the modern PC platform.

Technology

There are many iterations of the IBM Personal Computer. This section covers the IBM 5150 model.

An 16-bit x86 architecture Intel 8088 CPU clocked at 4.77 megahertz powers the IBM 5150. The IBM 5150 came with 16 kilobytes of RAM standard, and could be configured with up to 256 kilobytes of RAM. The IBM 5150 shipped with 40 kilobytes of ROM.

The only custom part was the BIOS chip. As mentioned earlier, once that was reverse engineered using clean room techniques, many legal clone machines were brought to the market. These clones were often cheaper or sported features the official IBM PC models lacked.

Gallery

IBM 5150

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  An operating IBM 5150.
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  A 1981 IBM PC Motherboard.
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  An IBM VGA graphics card.
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  The original IBM PC Game Control adapter card.
• Gorillas, a demo video game which came with the IBM PC's operating system.
  Gorillas, a demo video game which came with the IBM PC's operating system.
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  A floppy disk duplication setup.

Related IBM Computers

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  An IBM PCjr
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  An IBM PC XT
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  The IBM 5100, a technologically distinct and far less popular predecessor to the IBM PC.
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  An IBM Personal System/1.
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  An IBM Personal System/2 mouse.

Compaq Portable

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Ad-Lib sound output

- An example music file similar to what would run on real Ad-Lib hardware. Note that the IBM PC did not originally ship with this hardware.

References

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  A Sony HitBit HB-10P MSX computer.

History

Launch

The MSX computer standard was announced in 1983 to promote compatibility between computers. The MSX standard was regionally popular in Japan and also in Brazil.

Legacy

Over five million MSX computers were sold.

A Sony HB-G900 MSX2 computer and HBI-G900 videotizer was used on the MIR space station.

Technology

MSX1 spec

MSX1 computers use 8-bit Z80A processors clocked at 3.58 megahertz. Permitted video coprocessors include the TMS 9918/A, TMS 9928/A, or TMS 9929/A.

Gallery

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  Daewoo CPC-300E
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  Dragon MSX 64
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  Sharp HotBit MSX
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  Panasonic FS-A1 MSX2
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  Panasonic FS-A1WSX MSX2+
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  The MIR Space Station Core Module, with a Sony MSX2 visible on the left.

References

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  An NEC PC-8801 computer with a SonySony KV-1311CR Trinitron Monitor.

History

Launch

NEC launched the PC-8800 line in 1981. The system would quickly become a mainstay in Japanese home computer gaming.

Use by creatives

The PC88 was a popular platform for Japanese indie game developers during the 1980's.

Composer Yuzo Koshiro often used the PC-88 when developing music for console games, actively using the system for commercial title development as recently as 2016 with his work on Etrian Odyssey V.

Technology

The technical attributes of the system resulted games for the system possessing a unique aesthetic.

Games

• Snatcher - An early story based game by Hideo Kojima.
• Excite Bike
• Balloon Fight

Super Mario Bros. Special

An infamously poor yet official port of Super Mario Bros for the computer.

Gallery

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  PC-88 VA unit with two games.
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  Memory map of the PC-8801.

Read More

• The Wikibook NEC PC Programmers Reference has information on programing NEC computers, including the PC88 series.

References

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  An 1981 Texas Instruments 99/4A computer with two joysticks attached.

History

TI Basic on a TI-99/4A

The Texas Instruments TI-99/4 was released in 1979 at a cost of $1,150.

The improved Texas Instruments TI-99/4A was released in June 1981 at a cost of $525.

Despite costing less than $100 by fall of 1982, and by being promoted by then popular comedian Bill Cosby, the TI-99/4A was severely challenged in the market by fierce competition in the low end segment, and by the video game crash of 1983.

Production of the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A ended in 1984 with about 2.5 million systems sold.

Technology

Compute

The Texas Instruments TI-99/4A is powered by the 16-bit TMS9900 processor clocked at three megahertz.

A TMS 9918 or TMS 9929 handles video processing.

The TI-99/4A has 16 kilobytes of RAM and 16 kilobytes of video RAM.

Hardware

The TI-99/4A has 26 kilobytes of ROM.

Gallery

360 View

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Details

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  The TI99/4A with cartridge on top.

Accessories

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  Texas Instruments Program Recorder and cassette tape.
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  Program Recorder side with labeled parts.
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  Disk Controller Card.
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  RS-232 Interface Card.
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  32 kilobyte memory expansion card.

History

Like previous versions of Windows, Windows 95 and 98 were based on MS-DOS. However unlike previous versions, starting with Windows 95 DOS became integrated with MS-DOS, rather then a separate product running on top of it. Windows 95 also introduced DirectX, an API that allowed game developers to avoid direct access to hardware. Windows 98 offered improvements related to networking.

Notable games

• Wolfenstein 3D
• Doom
• Quake
• Duke Nukem 3D
• Myst
• Lionel Trains Presents Trans-Con!
• RollerCoaster Tycoon

Gallery

Computers

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  The ThinkPad 365XD with a floppy drive attached, a laptop from 1995.
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  An IBM Aptiva personal computer from the mid 1990s
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  A Compaq Deskpro from the late 1990's.
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  The Olivetti Envision, an Italian Windows 95 computer designed to be easy to use.

Audio

- An example of MIDI music, a common choice for game music on Windows PCs at the time.

Technology

Computer components

CPUs

• 32-bit Pentium - (1993-2000)
• 32-bit AMD K5 - (1996)
• 32-bit Pentium II - (1997-2003)
• 32-bit AMD K6 - (1997)
• 32-bit Athlon Classic - (1999)

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  Pentium 60 SX948
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  AMD 386DX
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  UMC Intel compatible 40MHz Green CPU.
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  CPU Cyrix 486DRx²

Expansion cards

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  Diamond Monster3D Voodoo 1 Graphics Card
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  A GeForce 256
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  SoundBlaster Pro, a common sound card of the era.

References

• 
  A 48k ZX Spectrum computer.

History

Sir Clive Sinclair in 1992.

Launch

The ZX Spectrum was launched in 1982.

A number of Spectrum focused periodicals were in print.

Legacy

In 1992 the ZX Spectrum was discontinued with five million systems sold.

Sir Clive Sinclair passed away in London on Thursday, September 16th, 2021.

Technology

Compute

The ZX Spectrum is powered by an 8-bit Z80A processor clocked at 3.5 megahertz.

Depending on the model the ZX Spectrum has either 16 kilobytes of RAM or 48 kilobytes of RAM.

Hardware

The ZX Spectrum has 16 kilobytes of RAM.

The unintentional "Colour Clash" effect of the ZX Spectrum created a unique aesthetic for games on the system.

Games

1985

Don't Buy This

An early game compilation of poor quality games.

Read more about Don't Buy This on Wikipedia.

Gallery

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  The original ZX Spectrum
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  Sinclair ZX Spectrum+
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  the Sinclair Magnum Light Phaser for the ZX Spectrum.

Notes

Naming

Being primarily used in the UK, the name is pronounced as "Zed" X Spectrum. The system was sometimes known by the nickname "Speccy".