Atari 8-bit family

The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 and manufactured until 1992. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU running at 1.79 MHz, roughly twice that of similar designs, and were the first home computers designed with custom co-processor chips. This architecture allowed the Atari designs to offer graphics and sound capabilities that were more advanced than contemporary machines like the Apple II or Commodore PET, and gaming on the platform was a major draw; Star Raiders is widely considered the platform's killer app. Another computer with custom graphics hardware and similar performance would not appear until the Commodore 64 in 1982.

The original Atari 400 and 800 models were released with a series of plug-n-play peripherals that used Atari's "SIO" serial bus system, an early analog of the modern USB. To meet stringent FCC requirements, the early machines were completely enclosed in a solid cast aluminum block, which made them physically robust but expensive to produce. Over the following decade, the original models were replaced by the XL and XE series which had the same basic logical design, but were of much lighter construction and less expensive to build.

Bit (disambiguation)

A bit is a unit of information storage on a computer.

Bit or BIT may also refer to:

Tools and engineering

Arts and entertainment

Organisations

Education

Bit (money)

The word bit is a colloquial expression referring to specific coins in various coinages throughout the world.

United States

In the United States, the bit is equal to one eighth of a dollar or 12 ¹⁄₂ cents. In the U.S., the "bit" as a designation for money dates from the colonial period, when the most common unit of currency used was the Spanish dollar, also known as "piece of eight", which was worth 8 Spanish silver reales. One eighth of a dollar or one silver real was one "bit".

With the adoption of the decimal U.S. currency in 1794, there was no longer a U.S. coin worth ¹⁄₈ of a dollar but "two bits" remained in the language with the meaning of one quarter dollar, "four bits" half dollar, etc. Because there was no one-bit coin, a dime (10¢) was sometimes called a short bit and 15¢ a long bit. (The picayune, which was originally ¹⁄₂ real or ¹⁄₂ bit (6 ¹⁄₄¢), was similarly transferred to the US 5¢-piece.)

In addition, Spanish coinage, like other foreign coins, continued to be widely used and allowed as legal tender by Chapter XXII of the Act of April 10, 1806 until the Coinage Act of 1857 discontinued the practice.

List of Tron characters

This article covers notable characters of Tron franchise, including all of its various cinematic, literary, video game adaptations and sequels.

Development

For the first film, Richard Rickitt explains that to "produce the characters who inhabit the computer world, actors were dressed in costumes that were covered in black-and-white computer circuitry designs....With coloured light shining through the white areas of their costumes, the resulting characters appeared to glow as if lit from within....optical processes were used to create all of the film's computerized characters..." Frederick S. Clarke reports that "Tron: Legacy will combine live action with CGI," adding that "several characters...will be completely digital..."

Tron

Kevin Flynn

Kevin Flynn is a former employee at the fictional software company ENCOM and the protagonist of the first film. He is played by Jeff Bridges.

At the start of the first film, he is manager of "Flynn's", a video arcade where he impresses his patrons with his skills at games that (unknown to them) he designed at ENCOM, but remains determined to find evidence that CEO Ed Dillinger plagiarised Flynn's work to advance his position within the company. Throughout most of the film, Flynn travels around the digital world, accompanying the eponymous character Tron; but later discovers that as a User, he commands the physical laws of the digital world, enabling him beyond the abilities of an ordinary program. Eventually, he enables Tron to destroy the Master Control Program shown to oppress the digital world, and upon return to the material world obtains the evidence necessary to expose Dillinger, and becomes ENCOM's CEO himself.

Atari

Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972, currently by Atari Interactive, a subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA (ASA). The original Atari, Inc. founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company's products, such as Pong and the Atari 2600, helped define the electronic entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.

In 1984, the original Atari Inc. was split due to its role in the video game crash of 1983, and the arcade division was turned into Atari Games Inc. Atari Games received the rights to use the logo and brand name with appended text "Games" on arcade games, as well as rights to the original 1972–1984 arcade hardware properties. The Atari Consumer Electronics Division properties were in turn sold to Jack Tramiel's Tramel Technology Ltd., which then renamed itself to Atari Corporation. In 1996, Atari Corporation reverse-merged with disk-drive manufacturer JT Storage (JTS), becoming a division within the company.

List of Go terms

Players of the game of Go often use jargon to describe situations on the board and surrounding the game. Such technical terms are likely to be encountered in books and articles about Go in English as well as other languages. Many of these terms have been borrowed from Japanese, mostly when no short equivalent English term could be found. This page gives an overview of the most important terms.

Use of Japanese terms

Although Go originated in China, the current English and Western technical vocabulary borrows a high proportion of terms from the Japanese language because it was through Japan that Go was introduced to Western culture.

Many of these terms are from a jargon used for technical Go writing and to some extent specially developed for Go journalism. Some authors of English-language Go materials avoid use of Japanese technical terms, and the way they are applied can differ in subtle ways from the original meanings.

A very small number of Korean-language terms have come into use (e.g. haengma as a way of describing the development of stones).

Atari 1020

The Atari 1020 was a four-colour computer plotter sold by Atari, Inc. for the Atari 8-bit home computer family.

The 1020 was based on a plotter mechanism manufactured by ALPS. The same mechanism formed the basis of several other low-cost plotters produced around the same time, including the Commodore 1520, the Oric MCP40, the Tandy/Radio Shack CGP-115, the Texas Instruments HX-1000 and the Mattel Aquarius 4615. However, the 1020 connected via the Atari 8-bit's proprietary SIO interface, eliminating the need for an 850 serial/parallel interface module, but limiting its use to Atari 8-bit computers.

The 1020 was capable of 20-, 40- and 80-column text and graphics using a friction-fed roll of paper approximately 11.5 cm in width. Graphics were generated using one of four coloured pens to draw lines, using a combination of the horizontally moving pen barrel and the vertically scrolling paper to create diagonal lines.

Control of the plotter was possible from Atari BASIC.

References

External links