X-Nico

unusual facts about home computers



Brian Jacks Superstar Challenge

Brian Jacks Superstar Challenge is a 1985 sports simulation game released for various home computers by Martech, licensed by British sportsman, Brian Jacks.

Jimmy White's 'Whirlwind' Snooker

Although the game was not the first to simulate snooker (or pool) in 3D, it made full use of the processing power and graphics capabilities of 16-bit home computers and was praised for its then ground-breaking realism and easy-to-use interface.

Okimate 10

The Okimate 10 by Oki Electric Industry was a low-cost 1980s color printer with interface "plug 'n print" modules for Commodore, Atari, IBM PC, and Apple Inc. home computers.

Programma International

Established in the late 1970s by David Gordon, it published a line of approximately 300 game, programming utility, and office productivity products for the Apple II, Commodore PET, TRS-80 and other personal computer systems.

The Sacred Armour of Antiriad

The Sacred Armour of Antiriad is an action game published by Palace Software in September 1986 for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum home computers.


see also

Cassette magazine

Since the common data storage medium of the earliest home computers was the audio cassette, the first magazine published on a physical computer medium was cassette magazine; CLOAD magazine, for the Radio Shack TRS-80 computer, began publication in 1978, named after the command to load a program from cassette on that computer system.

HVSC

The High Voltage SID Collection, both the name of a project to build a collection of music created on the MOS Technology 6581/8580 SID sound chip in Commodore CBM-II, Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 home computers and the collection itself

Joel Billings

Designed for the TRS-80 and Apple II home computers, it is viewed as the first computer war game ever published.

Overscan

Within the wide diversity of home computers that arose during the 1980s and early 1990s, many machines such as the Sinclair ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 (C64) had borders around their screen, which worked as a frame for the display area.

Parallel World

Parallel World, a video game published by Enix for home computers.

Scene It? Bright Lights! Big Screen!

As in earlier Scene It? games, available for use on standard DVD players as well as on home computers and consoles, the controls are simple; the challenge is in recognizing the scenes and remember the characters or events hinted in the question.

Spam email delivery

The widespread change from Windows 9x to Windows XP for many home computers, which started in early 2002 and was well under way by 2003, greatly accelerated the use of home computers to act as remotely-controlled spam proxies.

Strategic Simulations, Inc.

The company was founded by Joel Billings, a wargame enthusiast, who in summer 1979 saw the possibility of using the new home computers such as the TRS-80 for wargames.

Tony Saint

His credits include 2009's Micro Men (about the men and development stories behind the BBC and Sinclair home computers) the 2008 The Long Walk to Finchley (on the early career of Margaret Thatcher) and the forthcoming A Free Country (a drama series based around Berwick-upon-Tweed declaring independence from both England and Scotland), both for the BBC, and one episode of The Whistleblowers in 2007 for ITV.

Van Wolverton

While nearly all home computers today have some sort of Graphical User Interface, that was not so back then.

Ventilator 202

During the second half of the 1980s, Ventilator 202 broadcast computer software recorded on cassette tapes for popular home computers Galaksija, ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64.

Yamaha YM2151

It was also used in arcade games, starting with Atari's Marble Madness, and later being licensed for use by many other companies including Sega, Konami, Capcom, Data East Pinball and Namco, with its heaviest use in the late 1980s, as well as in the Sharp X1 and Sharp X68000 home computers.