Corporation is set in a dark future, and centers around the Universal Cybernetics Corporation, or U.C.C., responsible for employing a large percentage of the population of London and is a keystone in the stability of the economy, thus controlling the government's popularity. U.C.C.'s London headquarters' factory is under the government suspicion of illegally producing genetically engineered hostile mutants. The U.C.C. is a successful "corporation" that works with pride on (legal) genetic experiments, cybernetic implants and body modifications. Recently, however, one of the U.C.C.'s experiments has escaped and is wreaking havoc on London, which is where the player comes in, taking control of a national security spy (or a "cyber cop" in the North American Genesis version) working for the agency known as ZODIAC, assigned to infiltrate and expose the illegal activity. The player is given the option of choosing between one of six agents (two men, two women, and two androids, each with variable ability and skill levels). The game is played in a first-person perspective, rendered with 3D polygon environments. The agent lands on the building's roof with the goal of to progressing from the fifth floor down to the basement on level eight. The mission involves the search of incriminating evidence, which would allow the authorities to shut down the illegal genetic experiments taking place. Game elements include hacking electronic door locks from terminals, avoiding alarm triggers and security cameras, battling enemies, and staying alive through the planned use of the items bought in advance before the mission. The conservation of energy is key, but more batteries can be found as floor pick-up items. In a special menu the player is able to heal wounds on specific parts of body, manage various electronic devices scattered throughout the game, apply body modifications and other items, and gather information. In order to reach lower floors, the player must locate special key cards or terminals to acquire higher security clearances to operate the elevators. The Amiga and Atari ST version also had customisable content: a suitable registration card with a request could be sent to Core containing details of the player and a passport-sized photograph attached. Core would then send the player a floppy diskette containing the sent data that could then be loaded after inserting and loading the data from the first disk.
I started this project in Iceland around 2015, almost 6 years from now. Being myself a programmer and gamer since I was a little kid, I had accumulated a lot of computers and games over the years. As I got older and had more time on my hand I started to wonder how I could preserve and share this with others. Let others learn and enjoy them as I had over the years. So I started to reach out with a simple Facebook page, then a website and then came TV interviews, news articles, and even big showrooms at various conventions. So people started to gather more interest in the project, and started donating their own games and computers to the project. And now 6 years later I have more than a house can hold, a storage facility and a container. It NEEDS a location :) I have sketched out many ideas: museum and coffee shop, just a museum, museum- coffee shop and a learning center. Where you can learn how to program, for kids and adults. Programming robots, games and learning how these old computers work. Many models have been tested out and many business plans. Because in the end this has to be self sustainable. Storing, sharing and having such a collection require costs. That is why this website is full of ads, yes I know its not ideal and probably frustrating to browse. But it's one way of covering the costs. But the reason it has been difficult to find a sustainable business plan, is that running a museum has to be in my mind almost 99% risk free. I don't really consider these items to be mine, and therefore I cant gamble or take risks with them. They belong to the public. Last year and 2021, as all of you know has been strange, everything has been on hold. Also posts on this website, YouTube and more. Hopefully that will change this fall. In the meantime I just wanted to let everyone be updated on the state of the Museum project and also let everyone know that every single item is still being carefully taken care of and is just waiting to be displayed and enjoyed wherever and whenever that may be. Thanks for still following and showing interest ! Yngvi Thor We received a collection of various Amiga programs from Inger Le Gué who donated a lot of computers and amiga related software some time ago. Two posts ago we took a look at Deluxe Paint III which was also from her collection of software that made it´s way here :) In 1988 the first Apple Mac emulator, A-Max, was released as an external device for any Amiga. It needed Mac ROMs to function, and could read Mac disks when used with a Mac floppy drive (Amiga floppy drives are unable to read Mac disks.) The version we got here is A-Max II which was released in the early 1990s. A-Max II was contained on a Zorro-compatible card and allowed the user to use actual Mac ROMs to emulate a color Macintosh. In fact, an Amiga 3000 emulating a Mac via A-Max II was significantly faster than the first consumer color Mac, the LC. Here are the instructions on how to install the Mac ROM chips. Above is the picture of inside of the manual. A-Max is a terrific deal for someone who already has an Amiga and needs Macintosh compatibility. If you need to run Mac software such as Excel or Word to be compatible with your office, this solution is cheaper than buying a Macintosh. If you want to integrate an Amiga into an existing Macintosh network and share printers and files easily, A-Max is a great way to go. Also here is the Adventure Construction Set (ACS), a computer game creation system written by Stuart Smith that is used to construct tile-based graphical adventure games. ACS provides a graphical editor for the construction of maps, placement of creatures and items, and a simple menu-based scripting to control game logic. A constructed game is stored on its own disk which can be copied and shared with friends. For some ports (such as Amiga) the ACS software is still needed to play user-constructed games.
Also in the collection was ZoeTrope The Animation System which allowed for animation creation only then available in very high end production systems. I have yet to find more research on this program but you if look closely to the bottom right corner you can see the character from the MTV Dire Straits Money for Nothing video :) Photon Paint is a Hold-And-Modify (HAM) based bitmap graphics editor for the Amiga, first released in 1987. Photon Paint was the first bitmap graphics editor to incorporate 3D solid modeling and texture mapping as an integral part of the program.
We will be adding more things we got from Inger Le Gué the next weeks so stay tuned to more to come :) Corona Data Systems, later renamed Cordata, was an American personal computer company. It was one of the earliest IBM PC compatible computer system companies. Manufacturing was primarily done by Daewoo of Korea, which became a major investor in the company and ultimately the owner. Corona Portable PC Model PPC-400, arguably the most notable Corona computer, was introduced in 1984. The PPC-400 was remarkable for its elegant and clear screen fonts. The desktop version was the PC-400. When it is stored in a closet your would almost mistake is for a sewing machine :) After Daewoo acquired a 70% share in the company, Corona Data Systems was renamed Cordata in 1986 in order to reflect diversification and to try to distance itself from identification as just a "PC clone" manufacturer. I guess today in 2020 they would also rename it, but for different reasons. One thing you notice when you start the system is the monitor is very very sharp and text just pops out of it. It has 512K Memory installed and MS-DOS version 3.10. Althou they ended up in court with Microsoft because Corona claimed "Our systems run all software that conforms to IBM PC programming standards. And the most popular software does.". So in early 1984, IBM sued Corona and Eagle Computer for copyright violation of the IBM PC BIOS. Corona settled with IBM by agreeing to cease infringement This system has a very simple IO or connections, One Parallel port, One Serial port and then just they keyboard plug at the front of the computer. It also has one HD and one 5 1⁄4-inch floppy disk drive to the left. Super quality build and quite stylish in a retro kind a way. I would have on the kitchen table at all times if it was my decision alone to make : )
Deluxe Paint, often referred to as DPaint, is a bitmap graphics editor series created by Dan Silva for Electronic Arts. The original Deluxe Paint was written for the Commodore Amiga 1000 and released in November 1985. It was eventually ported to other platforms, including an MS-DOS version which became the standard for pixel graphics in video games in the 1990s. Deluxe Paint began as an in-house art development tool called Prism. As author Dan Silva added features to Prism, it was developed as a showcase product to coincide with the Amiga's debut in 1985. Upon release, it was quickly embraced by the Amiga community and became the de facto graphics (and later animation) editor for the platform. Delux Paint was used almost ubiquitously in the making of Amiga games, animation and demoscene productions. It was also used by LucasArts to make graphics for their adventure games such as Monkey Island, and is the source of the name of the main character in the Monkey Island series,
Deluxe Paint had 5 releases, the one we have here is number 3 which added support for Extra Halfbrite ( special display method of the Amiga Computers, allowing more colors on the screen ). New editing modes allowed one to stencil certain colors, and perform blurs on the stencils to produce an effect that could be made to look similar to light-sourcing in a 3D program. Deluxe Paint III added the ability to create cel-like animation, and animbrushes. These let the user pick up a section of an animation as an "animbrush", which can then be placed onto the canvas while it animates. Deluxe Paint III was one of the first paint programs to support animbrushes. This is similar to copy and paste, except one can pick up more than one image.
Deluxe Paint 5 was the last release after Commodore's bankruptcy in 1994. But Dan Silva went on to join the Yost Group, which developed Autodesk's 3D Studio. Tímaflakkarinn kom í verslanir rétt fyrir jólin 1998 og var gefin út af Dímon Hugbúnaðarhús en dreift af Skífunni. Hann var svo gefin út aftur ári seinna á Macintosh vélarnar. Leikurinn átti að kenna krökkum Íslandssögu en hafa á sama tíma skemmtanagildið í fyrirrúmi. Leikurinn gekk út á að spila sem persónan Denni sem finnur hálsmen sem gerir honum kleift að ferðast aftur í tíma. Hann ferðast á fjögur mismunandi tímabil. Denni breytist til dæmis í Vífil sem var annar þræll Ingólfs Arnarsonar, Gissur Einarsson sem var fyrsti lútherski biskupinn á Íslandi og konu sem hét Sigrún og var fórnarlamb í Tyrkjaráninu sem átti sér stað á Íslandi á fyrri helmingi 17. aldar Á hverju tímabili er ákveðinn söguþráður, eins og með Vífil sem var þræll Ingólfs Arnarsonar, sem þurfti að hjálpa honum að finna öndvegissúlurnar og koma upp kofa þar sem Reykjavík er núna og í gegnum þetta tímaflakk lærðu notendur um Íslandssögu. Leikurinn seldist vel á íslenskum mælikvarða þessi jól og var hann söluhæsti leikurinn á þessum tíma, en hann seldist í 3000 eintökum, nokkrum eintökum fleiri en Tomb Raider III með Laura Croft í aðalhlutverki. Eftir velgengni Tímaflakkarans var ákveðið að útbúa leikjavél til að halda áfram þróun annara leikja. Byggt á þeirri leikjavél var næsti leikur þeirra Talnapúkinn ( 1999 ) í samstarfi við Bergljótu Arnalds. Hér fyrir neðan er smá video sem ég setti saman til að sýna uppsetningu á leiknum og svo smá intro og spilun. Það var því miður ekki hægt að sleppa því að fara í gegnum credit listann en það er bara flott að þau sem gerðu leikinn fái að njóta sín í þessu myndbandi líka :) |
Yngvi Th. JohannssonRetro gaming enthusiast and all around computer collector. Check out youtube site for more videos !
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