130-537: The Tower of Druaga is a 1984 arcade action role-playing maze game developed and published in Japan by Namco . Controlling the golden-armored knight Gilgamesh, the player is tasked with scaling 60 floors of the titular tower in an effort to rescue the maiden Ki from Druaga, a demon with eight arms and four legs, who plans to use an artifact known as the Blue Crystal Rod to enslave all of mankind. It ran on
260-728: A plunger . Skee-Ball became popular after being featured at an Atlantic City boardwalk arcade. The popularity of these games was aided by the impact of the Great Depression of the 1930s, as they provided inexpensive entertainment. Abstract mechanical sports games date back to the turn of the 20th century in England, which was the main manufacturer of arcade games in the early 20th century. The London-based Automatic Sports Company manufactured abstract sports games based on British sports, including Yacht Racer (1900) based on yacht racing , and The Cricket Match (1903) which simulated
390-491: A shooter and vehicular combat game released by Sega in 1969, may have been the first arcade game to use a joystick with a fire button, leading to joysticks subsequently becoming the standard control scheme for arcade games. A new type of driving game was introduced in Japan, with Kasco's 1968 racing game Indy 500 , which was licensed by Chicago Coin for release in North America as Speedway in 1969. It had
520-480: A "fantasy Pac-Man ". For the second prototype, Endō took inspiration from Sumerian , Mesopotamian and Babylonian mythology , including The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Tower of Babel . Several characters were named after Mesopotamian and Indian gods, including antagonist Druaga and the goddess Ishtar. The game was made to run on the same hardware setup used in Mappy , which featured horizontal-scrolling and had
650-428: A "tool of the devil" over the youth of that time period, several jurisdictions took steps to label pinball as games of chance and banned them from arcades. After the invention of the electric flipper in 1947, which gave the player more control on the fate of the ball after launching, pinball manufacturers pushed to reclassify pinball as games of skill. New York City's ban on pinball was overturned in 1976 when Roger Sharpe,
780-757: A 16-bit processor, the Apple II GS , was added in 1986. It remained compatible with earlier Apple II models, but the II GS has more in common with mid-1980s systems like the Atari ST , Amiga , and Acorn Archimedes . Despite the introduction of the Motorola 68000 -based Macintosh in 1984, the Apple II series still reportedly accounted for 85% of the company's hardware sales in the first quarter of fiscal 1985. Apple continued to sell Apple II systems alongside
910-566: A 16-bit remake for the PC Engine in 1992. The GB version was re-released in 1996 as part of the compilation title Namco Gallery Vol. 2 , which also included Galaxian , Dig Dug and Famista 4 . A 1997 Windows port was released as part of Namco History Vol. 2 , alongside several other early Namco arcade titles. In 2003, the Famicom version was re-released in Japan for the GameCube as
1040-555: A DOS, and with Wozniak inexperienced in operating system design, Jobs approached Shepardson Microsystems with the project. On April 10, 1978, Apple signed a contract for $ 13,000 with Shepardson to develop the DOS. Even after disk drives made the cassette tape interfaces obsolete they were still used by enthusiasts as simple one-bit audio input-output ports. Ham radio operators used the cassette input to receive slow scan TV (single frame images). A commercial speech recognition Blackjack program
1170-540: A basic prototype game called Quest , where the player would be able to explore inter-locking rooms while defeating enemies and using keys to open doors — an expanded version was then made to run on the Namco Super Pac-Man arcade system, where it was titled The Return of Ishtar . Upon completion, Endō was dissatisfied with the game's heavy use of role-playing elements, leading to the game instead becoming an action-oriented game with puzzle solving, conceived as
1300-574: A breakout cable which connected to the back of the card, the user could attach up to two UniDisk or Apple 5.25 Drives , up to one UniDisk 3.5 drive , and a DE-9 Apple II joystick. Many of the LC's built-in Macintosh peripherals could also be "borrowed" by the card when in Apple II mode, including extra RAM, the Mac's internal 3.5-inch floppy drives, AppleTalk networking, any ProDOS-formatted hard disk partitions,
1430-501: A built-in BASIC programming language. The motherboard holds eight expansion slots and an array of random access memory (RAM) sockets that can hold up to 48 kilobytes . Over the course of the Apple II series' life, an enormous amount of first- and third-party hardware was made available to extend the capabilities of the machine. The IIc was designed as a compact, portable unit, not intended to be disassembled, and cannot use most of
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#17327796737401560-563: A built-in disk controller that could control external drives, composite video (NTSC or PAL), serial interfaces for modem and printer, and a port usable by either a joystick or mouse. Unlike previous Apple II models, the IIc had no internal expansion slots at all. Two different monochrome LC displays were sold for use with the IIc's video expansion port, although both were short-lived due to high cost and poor legibility. The IIc had an external power supply that converted AC power to 15 V DC, though
1690-446: A built-in music synthesizer that far exceeded any other home computer. The Apple II GS evolved the platform while still maintaining near-complete backward compatibility. Its Mega II chip contains the functional equivalent of an entire Apple IIe computer (sans processor). This, combined with the 65816's ability to execute 65C02 code directly, provides full support for legacy software, while also supporting 16-bit software running under
1820-539: A candle that can reveal ghosts. Some of these items are required to fully beat the game, and failing to do so will either cause the player to die or make the game unwinnable. A time limit is also present on each floor, and should the player take too long, two indestructible spherical enemies named "Will-o-Wisps" will charge towards Gilgamesh. Should the player forget to get a required item, they will instead be sent back, or "zapped", to an earlier floor to retrieve it. The game's mazes are randomized in each playthrough, although
1950-472: A circular racetrack with rival cars painted on individual rotating discs illuminated by a lamp, which produced colorful graphics projected using mirrors to give a pseudo-3D first-person perspective on a screen, resembling a windscreen view. It had collision detection, with players having to dodge cars to avoid crashing, as well as electronic sound for the car engines and collisions. This gave it greater realism than earlier driving games, and it resembled
2080-459: A coin-operated arcade cabinet in 1971, Galaxy Game and Computer Space , Atari released Pong in 1972, the first successful arcade video game . The number of arcade game makers greatly increased over the next several years, including several of the companies that had been making EM games such as Midway, Bally, Williams, Sega, and Taito. As technology moved from transistor-transistor logic (TTL) integrated circuits to microprocessors ,
2210-565: A combination of some electronic circuitry and mechanical actions from the player to move items contained within the game's cabinet. Some of these were early light gun games using light-sensitive sensors on targets to register hits. Examples of electro-mechanical games include Periscope and Rifleman from the 1960s. EM games typically combined mechanical engineering technology with various electrical components , such as motors , switches , resistors , solenoids , relays , bells, buzzers and electric lights . EM games lie somewhere in
2340-413: A gambling-like experience without running afoul of Japan's strict laws against gambling. Arcade games have generally struggled to avoid being labelled wholly as games of chance or luck , which would qualify them as gambling and require them to be strictly regulated in most government jurisdictions. Games of chance generally involve games where a player pays money to participate for the opportunity to win
2470-503: A gamemode inspired by the game, titled The Hole of Druaga . Gilgamesh and Ki appear in Namco × Capcom as a pair unit. A Mii Fighter costume based on Gilgamesh was released for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and its follow-up Super Smash Bros. Ultimate . An anime series, The Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk , was produced by Japanese studio Gonzo and premiering on April 4, 2008, taking place roughly 80 years after
2600-399: A gun-like peripheral (such as a light gun or similar device), similar to light gun shooter video games. "General" arcade games refer to all other types of EM arcade games, including various different types of sports games. "Audio-visual" or "realistic" games referred to novelty games that used advanced special effects to provide a simulation experience. Merchandiser games are those where
2730-405: A journalist, demonstrated the ability to call a shot to a specific lane to the city's council to prove pinball was a game of skill. Prize redemption games such as crane games and coin drop games have been examined as a mixed continuum between games of chance and skill. In a crane game, for example, there is some skill in determining how to position the crane claw over a prize, but the conditions of
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#17327796737402860-649: A large, enclosed, slanted table with a number of scoring features on its surface. Players launch a steel ball onto the table and, using pinball flippers, try to keep the ball in play while scoring as many points as possible. Early pinball games were mostly driven through mechanical components, while pinball games from the 1930s onward include electronic components such as lights and sensors and are one form of an electro-mechanical game. In limited jurisdictions, slot machines may also be considered an arcade game and installed alongside other games in arcades. However, as slot machines are mostly games of chance, their use in this manner
2990-473: A major success worldwide. It was the first arcade game to cost a quarter per play, and was a turning point for the arcade industry. Periscope revived the novelty game business, and established a "realistic" or "audio-visual" category of games, using advanced special effects to provide a simulation experience. It was the catalyst for the "novelty renaissance" where a wide variety of novelty/specialty games (also called "land-sea-air" games) were released during
3120-532: A multitude of programs developed under the CP/M operating system, including the dBase II database and the WordStar word processor. There was also a third-party 6809 card that would allow OS-9 Level One to be run. Third-party sound cards greatly improved audio capabilities, allowing simple music synthesis and text-to-speech functions. Eventually, Apple II accelerator cards were created to double or quadruple
3250-791: A new OS. The OS eventually included a Macintosh-like graphical Finder for managing disks and files and opening documents and applications, along with desk accessories . Later, the II GS gained the ability to read and write Macintosh disks and, through third-party software, a multitasking Unix-like shell and TrueType font support. The GS includes a 32-voice Ensoniq 5503 DOC sample-based sound synthesizer chip with 64 KB dedicated RAM, 256 KB (or later 1.125 MB) of standard RAM, built-in peripheral ports (switchable between IIe-style card slots and IIc-style onboard controllers for disk drives, mouse, RGB video, and serial devices) and, built-in AppleTalk networking. The final Apple II model
3380-528: A new wave of EM arcade games emerged that were able to generate significant earnings for arcade operators. Periscope , a submarine simulator and light gun shooter , was released by Nakamura Manufacturing Company (later called Namco) in 1965 and then by Sega in 1966. It used lights and plastic waves to simulate sinking ships from a submarine, and had players look through a periscope to direct and fire torpedoes, which were represented by colored lights and electronic sound effects. Sega's version became
3510-407: A new wave of arcade video games arose, starting with Taito's Space Invaders in 1978 and leading to a golden age of arcade video games that included Pac-Man (Namco, 1980), Missile Command (Atari, 1980), and Donkey Kong (Nintendo, 1981). The golden age waned in 1983 due to an excess number of arcade games, the growing draw of home video game consoles and computers, and a moral panic on
3640-563: A player shot the screen at the right time, it would trigger a mechanism that temporarily pauses the film and registers a point. The first successful example of such a game was Life Targets , released in the United Kingdom in 1912. Cinematic shooting gallery games enjoyed short-lived popularity in several parts of Britain during the 1910s, and often had safari animals as targets, with footage recorded from British imperial colonies. Cinematic shooting gallery games declined some time after
3770-439: A portion of a cricket game by having the player hit a pitch into one of various holes. Full Team Football (1925) by London-based Full Team Football Company was an early mechanical tabletop football game simulating association football, with eleven static players on each side of the pitch that can kick a ball using levers. Driving games originated from British arcades in the 1930s. Shooting gallery carnival games date back to
3900-631: A pre-order bonus for Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean . Several Japanese mobile phone ports were released, the first of these being a 2002 Java version, followed by an i-Mode release in 2003. In 2009, a digital version was released on the Wii Virtual Console as one of the four launch titles for the Virtual Console Arcade service, alongside Mappy , Gaplus and Star Force . The Famicom version
4030-456: A prize, where the likelihood to win that prize is primarily driven by chance rather than skill. Akin to sweepstakes and lotteries, slot machines are typically cataloged as games of chance and thus not typically included in arcades outside of certain jurisdictions. Pinball machines initially were branded as games of chance in the 1940s as, after launching the ball, the player had no means to control its outcome. Coupled with fears of pinball being
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4160-422: A prototype game called Quest with interlocking mazes, revised to run on an arcade system; the original concept was scrapped due to Endō disliking the heavy use of role-playing elements, instead becoming a more action-oriented game. In Japan, The Tower of Druaga was widely successful, attracting millions of fans for its use of secrets and hidden items. It is cited as an important game of its genre for laying down
4290-408: A prototypical arcade racing video game , with an upright cabinet, yellow marquee, three-digit scoring, coin box, steering wheel and accelerator pedal. Indy 500 sold over 2,000 arcade cabinets in Japan, while Speedway sold over 10,000 cabinets in North America, becoming the biggest arcade hit in years. Like Periscope , Speedway also charged a quarter per play, further cementing quarter-play as
4420-520: A strong presence in arcades for much of the 1970s. In Japan, EM games remained more popular than video games up until the late 1970s. In the United States, after the market became flooded with Pong clones, the Pong market crashed around the mid-1970s, which led to traditional Chicago coin-op manufacturers mainly sticking to EM games up until the late 1970s. EM games eventually declined following
4550-413: A sword — some will require multiple hits to defeat. Gilgamesh can also block a projectile by facing it with his shield. Each floor also has a hidden item that can be uncovered by completing tasks, such as defeating a certain number of enemies or inputting a specific code with the joystick. These items include a pickaxe that can destroy walls, boots that will drastically increase Gilgamesh's walking speed, and
4680-508: A time, by turning them over and notching a hole for the write protect sensor. The first disk operating systems for the Apple II were DOS 3.1 and DOS 3.2, which stored 113.75 KB on each disk, organized into 35 tracks of 13 256-byte sectors each. After about two years, DOS 3.3 was introduced, storing 140 KB thanks to a minor firmware change on the disk controller that allowed it to store 16 sectors per track. (This upgrade
4810-520: A vertical screen layout, while the 60 floors were inspired by the Sunshine 60 , the tallest building in Asia at the time. Music for the game was composed by Junko Ozawa, who also created a unique sound driver for the music. The promotional arcade flyer used miniature dioramas with cardboard cutouts instead of drawings, a response to Namco president Masaya Nakamura 's hatred towards manga . The last frame in
4940-518: Is a series of microcomputers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1977 to 1993. The first Apple II model , that gave the series its name, was designed by Steve Wozniak , and was first sold on June 10, 1977. Its success led to it being followed by the Apple II Plus , Apple IIe , Apple IIc , and Apple IIc Plus , with the 1983 IIe being the most popular. The name is trademarked with square brackets as Apple ][ , then, beginning with
5070-510: Is highly limited. They are most often used for gambling. Sport games are indoor or miniaturized versions of popular physical sports that can be played within an arcade setting often with a reduced ruleset. Examples include air hockey and indoor basketball games like Super Shot . Sports games can be either mechanical, electro-mechanical or electronic. A general category of arcade games are those played for tickets that can be redeemed for prizes. The gameplay itself can be of any arcade game, and
5200-504: The Babylonian Castle Saga series. The first was released in 1986, The Return of Ishtar , which was based on the original prototype for Druaga . It was developed by Endō's game company, Game Studio , and published by Namco in arcades. Taking place right after the events of the original, two players controlled Gilgamesh and Ki as they made their way to the bottom of Druaga's tower with the Blue Crystal Rod. In 1996 it
5330-607: The Apple II J-Plus (Japan). In these models, Apple made the necessary hardware, software and firmware changes in order to comply to standards outside of the US. The Apple II Plus was followed in 1983 by the Apple IIe, a cost-reduced yet more powerful machine that used newer chips to reduce the component count and add new features, such as the display of upper and lowercase letters and a standard 64 KB of RAM. The IIe RAM
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5460-436: The Namco Super Pac-Man arcade hardware, modified with a horizontal-scrolling video system used in Mappy . Druaga was designed by Masanobu Endō , best known for creating Xevious (1983). It was conceived as a "fantasy Pac-Man " with combat and puzzle solving, taking inspiration from games such as Wizardry and Dungeons & Dragons , along with Mesopotamian , Sumerian and Babylonian mythology . It began as
5590-459: The Sega Model 3 remaining considerably more advanced than home systems through the late 1990s. However, the improved capabilities of home consoles and computers to mimic arcade video games during this time drew crowds away from arcades. Up until about 1996, arcade video games had remained the largest sector of the global video game industry , before arcades declined in the late 1990s, with
5720-464: The 1910s. The first light guns appeared in the 1930s, with Seeburg Ray-O-Lite (1936). Games using this toy rifle were mechanical and the rifle fired beams of light at targets wired with sensors. A later gun game from Seeburg Corporation , Shoot the Bear (1949), introduced the use of mechanical sound effects. Mechanical maze games appeared in penny arcades by the mid-20th century; they only allowed
5850-583: The 1970s have since advanced with similar improvement in technology as with arcade video games. Past machines used discrete electro-mechanical and electronic componentry for game logic, but newer machines have switched to solid-state electronics with microprocessors to handle these elements, making games more versatile. Newer machines may have complex mechanical actions and detailed backplate graphics that are supported by these technologies. Alternatives to pinball were electro-mechanical games (EM games) that clearly demonstrated themselves as games of skill to avoid
5980-520: The 1970s. Periscope also established a trend of missile-launching gameplay during the late 1960s to 1970s. In the late 1960s, Sega began producing gun games which resemble shooter video games , but which were EM games that used rear image projection to produce moving animations on a screen . It was a fresh approach to gun games that Sega introduced with Duck Hunt , which began location testing in 1968 and released in January 1969. Missile ,
6110-411: The 19th century. To build on this, coin-operated automated amusement machines were created, such as fortune telling and strength tester machines as well as mutoscopes , and installed along with other attractions at fairs, traveling carnivals, and resorts. Soon, entrepreneurs began housing these coin-operated devices in the same facilities which required minimal oversight, creating penny arcades near
6240-492: The 2009 Wii Virtual Console release in North America was met with a largely negative reception for its obtuse design, which many said was near-impossible to finish without a guidebook, alongside its high difficulty and controls. The Tower of Druaga is an action role-playing maze video game. Controlling the knight Gilgamesh, the player must scale all 60 floors of the tower to rescue the maiden Ki from Druaga, an eight-armed and four-legged demon who plans to use an artifact called
6370-491: The American coin-operated amusement machine industry, including 120 arcade game distributors and manufacturers. The Amusement & Music Operators (AMOA), a trade founded in 1957. It was composed by 1,700 members up to 1995. In music industry , forged license-compliance programs with right groups ASCAP, BMI or SESAC, and it represented the country's licensed jukebox owners. Apple II Apple II ("apple two ")
6500-541: The Apple II could boot into the CP/M operating system and run WordStar , dBase II , and other CP/M software. With the release of MousePaint in 1984 and the Apple II GS in 1986, the platform took on the look of the Macintosh user interface, including a mouse. Much commercial Apple II software shipped on self-booting disks and does not use standard DOS disk formats. This discouraged the copying or modifying of
6630-690: The Apple II series looked similar, featuring much clean white space and showing the Apple rainbow logo prominently. For several years up until the late 1980s, Apple used the Motter Tektura font for packaging, until changing to the Apple Garamond font. Apple ran the first advertisement for the Apple II, a two-page spread ad titled "Introducing Apple II", in BYTE in July 1977. The first brochure,
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#17327796737406760-642: The Apple logo on the casing was represented using rainbow stripes, which remained a part of Apple's corporate logo until early 1998. The earliest Apple IIs were assembled in Silicon Valley , and later in Texas; printed circuit boards were manufactured in Ireland and Singapore . An external 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch floppy disk drive, the Disk II , attached via a controller card that plugged into one of
6890-406: The Blue Crystal Rod to enslave mankind. Gilgamesh will need to locate a key on each floor in order to open a door, allowing him to proceed to the next floor. Each floor contains enemies that Gilgamesh may need to defeat to progress, such as slimes, knights, projectile-firing wizards, ghosts that can travel through walls and fire-spewing dragons. Gilgamesh can defeat these enemies by hitting them with
7020-454: The Brain in 1950. In 1941, International Mutoscope Reel Company released the electro-mechanical driving game Drive Mobile , which had an upright arcade cabinet similar to what arcade video games would later use. It was derived from older British driving games from the 1930s. In Drive Mobile , a steering wheel was used to control a model car over a road painted on a metal drum , with
7150-524: The Disk II became available in 1978, tape-based Apple II software essentially disappeared from the market. The initial price of the Disk II drive and controller was US$ 595, although a $ 100 off coupon was available through the Apple newsletter "Contact". The controller could handle two drives and a second drive (without controller) retailed for $ 495. The Disk II single-sided floppy drive used 5.25-inch floppy disks ; double-sided disks could be used, one side at
7280-658: The IIc itself will accept between 12 V and 17 V DC, allowing third parties to offer battery packs and automobile power adapters that connected in place of the supplied AC adapter. The Apple II GS , released on September 15, 1986, is the penultimate and most advanced model in the Apple II series, and a radical departure from prior models. It uses a 16-bit microprocessor, the 65C816 operating at 2.8 MHz with 24-bit addressing, allowing expansion up to 8 MB of RAM. The graphics are significantly improved, with 4096 colors and new modes with resolutions of 320×200 and 640×400. The audio capabilities are vastly improved, with
7410-529: The IIe, as Apple // . The Apple II was a major advancement over its predecessor, the Apple I , in terms of ease of use, features, and expandability. It became one of several recognizable and successful computers during the 1980s and early 1990s, although this was mainly limited to the US. It was aggressively marketed through volume discounts and manufacturing arrangements to educational institutions, which made it
7540-608: The Macintosh until terminating the II GS in December 1992 and the IIe in November 1993. The last II-series Apple in production, the IIe card for Macintoshes , was discontinued on October 15, 1993; having been one of the longest running mass-produced home computer series, the total Apple II sales of all of its models during its 16-year production run were about 6 million units (including about 1.25 million Apple II GS models) with
7670-710: The Platinum IIe and II GS . Unlike the IIe IIc and II GS , the IIc Plus came only in one version (American) and was not officially sold anywhere outside the US. The Apple IIc Plus ceased production in 1990, with its two-year production run being the shortest of all the Apple II computers. Although not an extension of the Apple II line, in 1990 the Apple IIe Card, an expansion card for the Macintosh LC ,
7800-461: The US arcade standard for over two decades. Atari founder Nolan Bushnell , when he was a college student, worked at an arcade where he became familiar with EM games such as Speedway , watching customers play and helping to maintain the machinery, while learning how it worked and developing his understanding of how the game business operates. Following the arrival of arcade video games with Pong (1972) and its clones, EM games continued to have
7930-558: The Wii Virtual Console port, Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer referred to the game's design as "diabolically obtuse" and criticized Gilgamesh's slow movement, notably with deflecting projectiles. Whitehead also criticized its hidden treasures for being too elusive and for only appealing towards dedicated players, although stated it was an interesting gameplay idea. Brett Alan Weiss of Allgame also criticized its hidden items, especially those required for later levels, as well as
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#17327796737408060-466: The arrival of Space Invaders (1978) and the golden age of arcade video games in the late 1970s. Several EM games that appeared in the 1970s have remained popular in arcades through to the present day, notably air hockey , whac-a-mole and medal games . Medal games started becoming popular with Sega's Harness Racing (1974), Nintendo's EVR Race (1975) and Aruze 's The Derby Vφ (1975). The first whac-a-mole game, Mogura Taiji ("Mole Buster"),
8190-568: The computer's expansion slots (usually slot 6), was used for data storage and retrieval to replace cassettes. The Disk II interface, created by Steve Wozniak , was regarded as an engineering masterpiece for its economy of electronic components. Rather than having a dedicated sound-synthesis chip, the Apple II had a toggle circuit that could only emit a click through a built-in speaker; all other sounds (including two, three and, eventually, four-voice music and playback of audio samples and speech synthesis) were generated entirely by software that clicked
8320-716: The computer's speed. Rod Holt designed the Apple II's power supply. He employed a switched-mode power supply design, which was far smaller and generated less unwanted heat than the linear power supply some other home computers used. The original Apple II was discontinued at the start of 1981, superseded by the Apple II+ . The Apple II Plus, introduced in June 1979, included the Applesoft BASIC programming language in ROM. This Microsoft -authored dialect of BASIC, which
8450-728: The console market surpassing arcade video games for the first time around 1997–1998. Arcade video games declined in the Western world during the 2000s, with most arcades serving highly specialized experiences that cannot be replicated in the home, including lines of pinball and other arcade games, coupled with other entertainment options such as restaurants or bars. Among newer arcade video games include games like Dance Dance Revolution that require specialized equipment, as well as games incorporating motion simulation or virtual reality . Arcade games had remained popular in Asian regions until around
8580-536: The early 1970s, with Pong as the first commercially successful game. Arcade video games use electronic or computerized circuitry to take input from the player and translate that to an electronic display such as a monitor or television set . Coin-op carnival games are automated versions or variations of popular staffed games held at carnival midways . Most of these are played for prizes or tickets for redemption. Common examples include Skee-Ball and Whac-A-Mole . Electro-mechanical games (EM games) operate on
8710-504: The end of the rail – and read and execute code from sector 0. The code contained in there would then pull in the rest of the operating system. DOS stored the disk's directory on track 17, smack in the middle of the 35-track disks, in order to reduce the average seek time to the frequently used directory track. The directory was fixed in size and could hold a maximum of 105 files. Subdirectories were not supported. Most game publishers did not include DOS on their floppy disks, since they needed
8840-1162: The events of the original game. It was followed by a sequel series, The Tower of Druaga: The Sword of Uruk , premiering on January 8, 2009. Several characters from the game have appeared in several other games. A theme based on The Tower of Druaga , with the game's characters is featured in Pac-Man 99 as special DLC. Arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades . Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade video games , pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games or merchandisers . Broadly, arcade games are nearly always considered games of skill , with only some elements of games of chance . Games that are solely games of chance, like slot machines and pachinko , often are categorized legally as gambling devices and, due to restrictions, may not be made available to minors or without appropriate oversight in many jurisdictions. Arcade video games were first introduced in
8970-419: The expansion hardware sold for the other machines in the series. The original Apple II has the operating system in ROM along with a BASIC variant called Integer BASIC . Apple eventually released Applesoft BASIC , a more advanced variant of the language which users can run instead of Integer BASIC. The Apple II series eventually supported over 1,500 software programs. When the Disk II floppy disk drive
9100-675: The features of the later model Apple IIc ) and the Apple IIe Platinum (a modernized case color to match other Apple products of the era, along with the addition of a numeric keypad ). Some of the feature of the IIe were carried over from the less successful Apple III , among them the ProDOS operating system. The Apple IIc was released in April 1984, billed as a portable Apple II because it could be easily carried due to its size and carrying handle, which could be flipped down to prop
9230-583: The first computer in widespread use in American secondary schools, displacing the early leader Commodore PET . The effort to develop educational and business software for the Apple II, including the 1979 release of the popular VisiCalc spreadsheet , made the computer especially popular with business users and families. The Apple II computers are based on the 6502 8-bit processor and can display text and two resolutions of color graphics. A software-controlled speaker provides one channel of low-fidelity audio. A model with more advanced graphics and sound and
9360-513: The foundation for future games, as well as inspiring the idea of sharing tips with friends and guidebooks. Druaga is noted as being influential for many games to follow, including Ys , Hydlide , Dragon Slayer and The Legend of Zelda . The success of the game in Japan inspired several ports for multiple platforms, as well as spawning a massive franchise known as the Babylonian Castle Saga , including multiple sequels, spin-offs, literature and an anime series produced by Gonzo . However,
9490-609: The goal being to keep the car centered as the road shifts left and right. Kasco (short for Kansai Seisakusho Co.) introduced this type of electro-mechanical driving game to Japan in 1958 with Mini Drive , which followed a similar format but had a longer cabinet allowing a longer road. By 1961, however, the US arcade industry had been stagnating. This in turn had a negative effect on Japanese arcade distributors such as Sega that had been depending on US imports up until then. Sega co-founder David Rosen responded to market conditions by having Sega develop original arcade games in Japan. From
9620-570: The growth of home video game systems such as the Nintendo Entertainment System led to another brief arcade decline towards the end of the 1980s. Fighting games like Street Fighter II (1991) and Mortal Kombat (1992) helped to revive it in the early 1990s, leading to a renaissance for the arcade industry. 3D graphics were popularized in arcades during the early 1990s with games such as Sega's Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter , with later arcade systems such as
9750-407: The idea of note sharing with other players. In a 2003 interview, Endō stated he had somewhat regretted making the game as difficult as it is, noting that it might have made players more "paranoid" about finding secrets in games. The Wii Virtual Console release in 2009 was met with a largely negative reception in North America, many criticizing the game's controls, high difficulty and design. Reviewing
9880-440: The impact of arcade video games on youth. The arcade industry was also partially impacted by the video game crash of 1983 . The arcade market had recovered by 1986, with the help of software conversion kits, the arrival of popular beat 'em up games (such as Kung-Fu Master and Renegade ), and advanced motion simulator games (such as Sega's "taikan" games including Hang-On , Space Harrier and Out Run ). However,
10010-430: The late 1960s to early 1970s, from quiz games and racing games to hockey and football games, many adopting the quarter-play price point. These "audio-visual" games were selling in large quantities that had not been approached by most arcade machines in years. This led to a "technological renaissance" in the late 1960s, which would later be critical in establishing a healthy arcade environment for video games to flourish in
10140-663: The late 1960s, EM games incorporated more elaborate electronics and mechanical action to create a simulated environment for the player. These games overlapped with the introduction of arcade video games, and in some cases, were prototypical of the experiences that arcade video games offered. The late 1960s to early 1970s were considered the "electro-mechanical golden age" in Japan, and the "novelty renaissance" or "technological renaissance" in North America. A new category of "audio-visual" novelty games emerged during this era, mainly established by several Japanese arcade manufacturers. Arcades had previously been dominated by jukeboxes , before
10270-432: The late 19th century. Mechanical gun games had existed in England since the turn of the 20th century. The earliest rudimentary examples of mechanical interactive film games date back to the early 20th century, with "cinematic shooting gallery" games. They were similar to shooting gallery carnival games, except that players shot at a cinema screen displaying film footage of targets. They showed footage of targets, and when
10400-405: The late 2010s as popularity began to wane; when once there were around 26,000 arcades in Japan in 1986, there were only about 4,000 in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 also drastically hit the arcade industry, forcing many of the large long-standing arcades in Japan to close. The American Amusement Machine Association (AAMA) is a trade association established in 1981. It represents
10530-571: The lines of the Commodore Datasette was never produced; Apple recommended using the Panasonic RQ309 in some of its early printed documentation. The uses of common consumer cassette recorders and a standard video monitor or television set (with a third-party RF modulator ) made the total cost of owning an Apple II less expensive and helped contribute to the Apple II's success. Cassette storage may have been inexpensive, but it
10660-490: The machine up into a typing position. Unlike modern portables , it lacked a built-in display and battery. It was the first of three Apple II models to be made in the Snow White design language , and the only one that used its unique creamy off-white color. The Apple IIc was the first Apple II to use the 65C02 low-power variant of the 6502 processor, and featured a built-in 5.25-inch floppy drive and 128 KB RAM, with
10790-453: The middle between fully electronic games and mechanical games. EM games have a number of different genres/categories. "Novelty" or "land-sea-air" games refer to simulation games that simulate aspects of various vehicles, such as cars (similar to racing video games ), submarines (similar to vehicular combat video games), or aircraft (similar to combat flight simulator video games). Gun games refer to games that involve shooting with
10920-458: The number of tickets received are proportional to the player's score. Skee ball is often played as a redemption game, while pachinko is one of the most popular redemption games in Japan. Another type of redemption game are medal game , popular in Japan and southeast Asia, where players must convert their money into special medal coins to play the game, but can win more coins which they can redeem back into prizes. Medal games are design to simulate
11050-427: The opponent's goal; it also used an 8-track player to play back the sounds of the motorbikes. Air hockey itself was later created by a group of Brunswick Billiards employees between 1969 and 1972. EM games experienced a resurgence during the 1980s. Air hockey, whac-a-mole and medal games have since remained popular arcade attractions. After two attempts to package mainframe computers running video games into
11180-566: The original II in terms of electronic functionality. There were small differences in the physical appearance and keyboard. RAM prices fell during 1980–81 and all II+ machines came from the factory with a full 48 KB of memory already installed. After the success of the first Apple II in the United States, Apple expanded its market to include Europe, Australia and the Far East in 1979, with the Apple II Europlus (Europe, Australia) and
11310-404: The peak occurring in 1983 when 1 million were sold. Unlike preceding home microcomputers, the Apple II was sold as a finished consumer appliance rather than as a kit (unassembled or preassembled). Apple marketed the Apple II as a durable product, including a 1981 ad in which an Apple II survived a fire started when a cat belonging to one early user knocked over a lamp. All the machines in
11440-433: The penny arcades, creating the first arcade games. Many were based on carnival games of a larger scope, but reduced to something which could be automated. One popular style were pin-based games which were based on the 19th century game of bagatelle . One of the first such pin-based games was Baffle Ball , a precursor to the pinball machine where players were given a limited number of balled to knock down targets with only
11570-450: The player against the pre-set programming of the game. However, arcade video games that replicate gambling concepts, such as video poker machines, had emerged in the 1980s. These are generally treated as games of chance, and remained confined to jurisdictions with favorable gambling laws. Game of skill amusements had been a staple of fairs since the 19th century. Further, the invention of coin-operated vending machines had come about in
11700-519: The player attempts to win a prize by performing some physical action with the arcade machine, such as claw crane games or coin pusher games. Pachinko is a type of mechanical game originating in Japan. It is used as both a form of recreational arcade game and much more frequently as a gambling device, filling a Japanese gambling niche comparable to that of the slot machine in Western gambling. Coin-operated photo booths automatically take and develop three or four wallet-sized pictures of subjects within
11830-626: The player to manipulate the entire maze, unlike later maze video games which allowed the player to manipulate individual elements within a maze. Coin-operated pinball machines that included electric lights and features were developed in 1933, but lacked the user-controlled flipper mechanisms at that point; these would be invented in 1947. Though the creators of these games argued that these games were still skill-based, many governments still considered them to be games of luck and ruled them as gambling devices. As such, they were initially banned in many cities. Pinball machines were also divisive between
11960-439: The player's "wimpy" attack and time limit. Lucas M. Thomas of IGN was the most critical of the game, lambasting its "arbitrary, off the wall" item requirements, slow pace and high difficulty, calling it "woefully boring and pointless" to play. He also noted that the player would need a walkthrough in order to fully beat it. The success of The Tower of Druaga would spawn a wave of sequels and spin-off games, collectively known as
12090-450: The poster has Gilgamesh wearing the horned helmet fighting Druaga, meant to imply that players would need it in order to finish the game. The Tower of Druaga was released for arcades in Japan in June 1984. Druaga was ported to several Japanese game systems, including the MSX (1984), Family Computer (1985) and Fujitsu FM-7 (1985). A portable Game Boy version was released in 1990, while
12220-464: The rounded "a" of the logotype echoed the "bite" in the logo. This logo was developed simultaneously with an advertisement and a brochure; the latter being produced for distribution initially at the first West Coast Computer Faire . Since the original Apple II, Apple has paid high attention to its quality of packaging, partly because of Steve Jobs ' personal preferences and opinions on packaging and final product appearance. All of Apple's packaging for
12350-517: The same show. A specific variety designed for arcades, purikura , creates selfie photo stickers. Purikura are essentially a cross between a traditional license/passport photo booth and an arcade video game, with a computer which allows the manipulation of digital images . Introduced by Atlus and Sega in 1995, the name is a shortened form of the registered trademark Print Club ( プリント倶楽部 , Purinto Kurabu ) . They are primarily found in Asian arcades. Pinball machines are games that have
12480-407: The screen, with NTSC composite video output suitable for display on a TV monitor, or on a regular TV set by way of a separate RF modulator . The original retail price of the computer was US$ 1,298 (equivalent to $ 6,500 in 2023) (with 4 KB of RAM) and US$ 2,638 (equivalent to $ 13,300 in 2023) (with the maximum 48 KB of RAM). To reflect the computer's color graphics capability,
12610-526: The serial ports, mouse, and real-time clock. The IIe card could not, however, run software intended for the 16-bit Apple II GS . Mike Markkula , a retired Intel marketing manager, provided the early critical funding for Apple Computer. From 1977 to 1981, Apple used the Regis McKenna agency for its advertisements and marketing. In 1981, Chiat-Day acquired Regis McKenna's advertising operations and Apple used Chiat-Day. At Regis McKenna Advertising,
12740-437: The series, except the IIc, share similar overall design elements. The plastic case was designed to look more like a home appliance than a piece of electronic equipment, and the case can be opened without the use of tools. All models in the Apple II series have a built-in keyboard, with the exception of the II GS which has a separate keyboard. Apple IIs have color and high-resolution graphics modes , sound capabilities and
12870-670: The small space, and more recently using digital photography . They are typically used for licenses or passports, but there have been several types of photo booths designed for amusement arcades. At the Amusement & Music Operators Association (AMOA) show in October 1975, Taito introduced an arcade photo booth machine that combines closed-circuit television (CCTV) recording with computer printing technology to produce self-portrait photographs. Two other arcade manufacturers introduced their own computerized arcade photo booth machines at
13000-641: The software on the disks, and improved loading speed. The first Apple II computers went on sale on June 10, 1977 with a MOS Technology 6502 (later Synertek ) microprocessor running at 1.023 MHz , 4 KB of RAM , an audio cassette interface for loading programs and storing data, and the Integer BASIC programming language built into the ROMs . The video controller displayed 40 columns by 24 lines of monochrome, upper-case-only (the original character set matches ASCII characters 0x20 to 0x5F) text on
13130-530: The speaker at just the right times. The Apple II's multiple expansion slots permitted a wide variety of third-party devices, including Apple II peripheral cards such as serial controllers , display controllers, memory boards, hard disks, networking components, and real-time clocks . There were plug-in expansion cards – such as the Z-80 SoftCard – that permitted the Apple to use the Z80 processor and run
13260-440: The stigma of pinball. The transition from mechanical arcade games to EM games dates back to around the time of World War II , with different types of arcade games gradually making the transition during the post-war period between the 1940s and 1960s. Some early electro-mechanical games were designed not for commercial purposes but to demonstrate the state of technology at public expositions, such as Nimatron in 1940 or Bertie
13390-446: The strength and condition of the claw and the stacking of the prize are sufficiently unknown parameters to make whether the player will be successful a matter of luck. The Dominant Factor Test is typically used to designate when arcade games are games of chance and thus subject to gambling laws, but for many redemption games, its application is a grey area. Nearly all arcade video games tend to be treated as games of skill, challenging
13520-462: The team assigned to launch the Apple II consisted of Rob Janoff , art director, Chip Schafer, copywriter and Bill Kelley, account executive. Janoff came up with the Apple logo with a bite out of it. The design was originally an olive green with matching company logotype all in lowercase. Steve Jobs insisted on promoting the color capability of the Apple II by putting rainbow stripes on the Apple logo. In its letterhead and business card implementation,
13650-517: The treasure will appear at the player's starting point. The Tower of Druaga was designed by Masanobu Endō , who had joined Namco in April 1982. After releasing Xevious a year later, an overwhelming success in Japan, Endō took a business trip to North America, where he bought a copy of Dungeons & Dragons . Intrigued by its gameplay and setting, Endō — a fan of the Apple II game Wizardry — had set out to make his next game an action role-playing title. After returning to Japan, he designed
13780-494: The turn of the 20th century, the name taken from the common use of a single penny to operate the machine. Penny arcades started to gain a negative reputation as the most popular attraction in them tended to be mutoscopes featuring risqué and softcore pornography while drawing audiences of young men. Further, the birth of the film industry in the 1910s and 1920s drew audiences away from the penny arcade. New interactive coin-operated machines were created to bring back patrons to
13910-455: The young and the old and were arguably emblematic of the generation gap found in America at the time. Some elders feared what the youth were doing and considered pinball machines to be "tools of the devil." This led to even more bans. These bans were slowly lifted in the 1960s and 1970s; New York City's ban, placed in 1942, lasted until 1976, while Chicago's was lifted in 1977. Where pinball
14040-416: Was allowed, pinball manufacturers carefully distanced their games from gambling, adding "For Amusement Only" among the game's labeling, eliminating any redemption features, and asserting these were games of skill at every opportunity. By the early 1970s, pinball machines thus occupied select arcades at amusement parks, at bars and lounges, and with solitary machines at various stores. Pinball machines beyond
14170-509: Was also slow and unreliable. The Apple II's lack of a disk drive was "a glaring weakness" in what was otherwise intended to be a polished, professional product. Recognizing that the II needed a disk drive to be taken seriously, Apple set out to develop a disk drive and a DOS to run it. Wozniak spent the 1977 Christmas holidays designing a disk controller that reduced the number of chips used by a factor of 10 compared to existing controllers. Still lacking
14300-586: Was an overwhelming critical and commercial success, attracting millions of fans with its use of puzzle-solving and action-oriented gameplay. It was Japan's second top-grossing table arcade cabinet of August 1984, after Karate Champ . The Famicom port was also a major hit. It has been cited as an important landmark of the role-playing genre and helped lay the foundations for future titles. Druaga has been cited as influential to many other Japanese role-playing games, including Ys , Hydlide , Dragon Slayer and The Legend of Zelda . Druaga also helped inspire
14430-508: Was available, after some user-specific voice training it would recognize simple commands (Hit, stand). Bob Bishop's "Music Kaleidoscope" was a simple program that monitored the cassette input port and based on zero-crossings created color patterns on the screen, a predecessor to current audio visualization plug-ins for media players. Music Kaleidoscope was especially popular on projection TV sets in dance halls. Apple and many third-party developers made software available on tape at first, but after
14560-431: Was configured as if it were a 48 KB Apple II Plus with a language card. The machine had no slot 0, but instead had an auxiliary slot that could accept a 1 KB memory card to enable the 80-column display. This card contained only RAM; the hardware and firmware for the 80-column display was built into the Apple IIe. An "extended 80-column card" with more memory increased the machine's RAM to 128 KB. The Apple IIe
14690-491: Was entitled "Simplicity" and the copy in both the ad and brochure pioneered "demystifying" language intended to make the new idea of a home computer more "personal." The Apple II introduction ad was later run in the September 1977 issue of Scientific American . Apple later aired eight television commercials for the Apple II GS , emphasizing its benefits to education and students, along with some print ads. The Apple II
14820-527: Was frequently cloned, both in the United States and abroad, in a similar way to the IBM PC. According to some sources (see below), more than 190 different models of Apple II clones were manufactured. Most could not be legally imported into the United States. Apple sued and sought criminal charges against clone makers in more than a dozen countries. Originally the Apple II used Compact Cassette tapes for program and data storage. A dedicated tape recorder along
14950-527: Was ported to the PlayStation as part of Namco Museum Vol. 4 . A Famicom prequel game, The Quest of Ki , was released in 1988 — controlling Ki, the player was to make it to the top of Druaga's tower in search of the Blue Crystal rod, leading up to the events of the first game. A Super Famicom follow-up was released in 1994, The Blue Crystal Rod , also known as The Destiny of Gilgamesh . Gameplay
15080-473: Was possible for software developers to create a DOS 3.2 disk which would also boot on a system with DOS 3.3 firmware. Later, double-sided drives, with heads to read both sides of the disk, became available from third-party companies. (Apple only produced double-sided 5.25-inch disks for the Lisa 1 computer). On a DOS 3.x disk, tracks 0, 1, and most of track 2 were reserved to store the operating system. (It
15210-420: Was possible, with a special utility, to reclaim most of this space for data if a disk did not need to be bootable.) A short ROM program on the disk controller had the ability to seek to track zero – which it did without regard for the read/write head's current position, resulting in the characteristic "chattering" sound of a Disk II boot, which was the read/write head hitting the rubber stop block at
15340-502: Was previously available as an upgrade, supported floating-point arithmetic, and became the standard BASIC dialect on the Apple II series (though it ran at a noticeably slower speed than Steve Wozniak's Integer BASIC). Except for improved graphics and disk-booting support in the ROM, and the removal of the 2k 6502 assembler to make room for the floating point BASIC, the II+ was otherwise identical to
15470-414: Was released by TOGO in 1975. In the late 1970s, arcade centers in Japan began to be flooded with "mole buster" games. Mogura Taiji was introduced to North America in 1976, which inspired Bob's Space Racers to produce their own version of the game called "Whac-A-Mole" in 1977. Sega released an EM game similar to air hockey in 1968, MotoPolo , where two players moved around motorbikes to knock balls into
15600-417: Was released in 1978, a new operating system, Apple DOS , was commissioned from Shepardson Microsystems and developed by Paul Laughton, adding support for the disk drive. The final and most popular version of this software was Apple DOS 3.3. Apple DOS was superseded by ProDOS , which supported a hierarchical file-system and larger storage devices. With an optional third-party Z80 -based expansion card ,
15730-477: Was released in 2000. In 2004, Namco partnered with Arika to develop The Nightmare of Druaga: Fushigi no Dungeon for the PlayStation 2, one of the few Babylonian Castle Saga games to be localized outside Japan. Part of the Mystery Dungeon series, the game is notorious for its extreme difficulty, where death would revoke all of the player's items and half of their money. An online-based arcade game
15860-474: Was released in 2005, Druaga Online: The Story of Aon , which was followed by a similar PC game in 2009, The Tower of Druaga: The Recovery of Babylim . A spin-off game, The Labyrinth of Druaga , was released for Japanese mobile phones on January 12, 2011. In 1990, Namco produced a theme park attraction based on The Tower of Druaga for Expo '90 in Osaka, alongside Galaxian 3 . After the show's conclusion, it
15990-533: Was released onto the 3DS Virtual Console in December 2012, which was exclusive to Japan. Druaga would be included in several Namco Museum compilations, including Namco Museum Vol. 3 (1996), Namco Museum Battle Collection (2005), Namco Museum Virtual Arcade (2009) and Namco Museum Switch (2017). The game was re-released for the Nintendo Switch under Hamster 's Arcade Archives label in June 2022. Upon release in Japan, The Tower of Druaga
16120-477: Was released. Essentially a miniaturized Apple IIe computer on a card (using the Mega II chip from the Apple II GS ), it allowed the Macintosh to run 8-bit Apple IIe software through hardware emulation , with an option to run at roughly double the speed of the original IIe (about 1.8 MHz). However, the video output was emulated in software, and, depending on how much of the screen the currently running program
16250-491: Was the Apple IIc Plus introduced in 1988. It was the same size and shape as the IIc that came before it, but the 5.25-inch floppy drive had been replaced with a 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch drive, the power supply was moved inside the case, and the processor was a fast 4 MHz 65C02 processor that actually ran 8-bit Apple II software faster than the II GS . The IIc Plus also featured a new keyboard layout that matched
16380-486: Was the most popular machine in the Apple II series. It has the distinction of being the longest-lived Apple computer of all time—it was manufactured and sold with only minor changes for nearly 11 years. The IIe was the last Apple II model to be sold, and was discontinued in November 1993. During its lifespan two variations were introduced: the Apple IIe Enhanced (four replacement chips to give it some of
16510-575: Was then moved to Namco's Wonder Eggs amusement park in Tokyo in 1992, remaining there until the park's closing on December 31, 2000. A sugoroku medal game was released for arcades in 2000, Sugoroku Adventure: The Tower of Druaga , which also featured characters from Namco's Valkyrie series. Gilgamesh's red-striped shield and the Blue Crystal Rod appear as Sophita's alternative weapons in Soul Edge . The GameCube game Mr. Driller: Drill Land features
16640-524: Was trying to update in a single frame, performance could be much slower compared to a real IIe. This is due to the fact that writes from the 65C02 on the IIe Card to video memory were caught by the additional hardware on the card, so the video emulation software running on the Macintosh side could process that write and update the video display. But, while the Macintosh was processing video updates, execution of Apple II code would be temporarily halted. With
16770-470: Was user-installable as two PROMs on older controllers.) After the release of DOS 3.3, the user community discontinued use of DOS 3.2 except for running legacy software. Programs that required DOS 3.2 were fairly rare; however, as DOS 3.3 was not a major architectural change aside from the number of sectors per track, a program called MUFFIN was provided with DOS 3.3 to allow users to copy files from DOS 3.2 disks to DOS 3.3 disks. It
16900-497: Was very different from earlier games, instead being a graphical adventure game with characters from the series. In 1996, two altered versions of the original game, Another Tower and Darkness Tower , were included as hidden extras in Namco Museum Vol. 3 . They were made to be much harder than the original game and altered the requirements for finding the treasure. A Game Boy Color spin-off, Seme COM Dungeon: Drururuaga ,
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