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93-536: While the concept was predated by Ramtek 's Clean Sweep (1974), Breakout spawned an entire genre of clones . It was the inspiration for aspects of the Apple II computer and Taito 's Space Invaders (1978). An official sequel was released in 1978, Super Breakout , which eventually became the pack-in game for the Atari 5200 console in 1982. Super Breakout introduced multiple balls in play at once, which became

186-749: A Fortune 500 ranking of 9 in 2009. In November 2009, HP announced its acquisition of 3Com , and closed the deal on April 12, 2010. On April 28, 2010, HP announced its buyout of Palm, Inc. for $ 1.2 billion. On September 2, 2010, HP won its bidding war for 3PAR with a $ 33 a share offer ($ 2.07 billion), which Dell declined to match. On November 1, 2015, Hewlett-Packard was split into two separate companies. Its enterprise products and services business were spun-off to form Hewlett Packard Enterprise , while its personal computer and printer businesses became HP Inc. Bill Hewlett and David Packard graduated with degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1935. The company started in

279-547: A garage in Palo Alto during a fellowship they had with past professor Frederick Terman at Stanford during the Great Depression , whom they considered a mentor in forming the company. In 1938, Packard and Hewlett began part-time work in a rented garage with an initial capital investment of US$ 538 (equivalent to $ 11,645 in 2023). In 1939, Hewlett and Packard decided to formalize their partnership. They tossed

372-643: A Fortune-20 company in the Dow Jones Industrial Average . Fiorina received a larger signing offer than any of her predecessors. The same year, Fiorina articulated a set of " rules of the garage ", an attempt to capture the spirit of the company's founders. In 1997, HP started selling its products in Iran through a European subsidiary and a Dubai -based Middle Eastern distributor, despite U.S. export sanctions prohibiting such deals imposed by Bill Clinton 's 1995 executive orders . The story

465-466: A coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard (HP) or Packard-Hewlett. Hewlett and Packard's first financially successful product was a precision audio oscillator known as the HP 200A , which used a small incandescent light bulb (known as a "pilot light") as a temperature dependent resistor in a critical portion of the circuit, and a negative feedback loop to stabilize

558-516: A common feature in the genre. In 1986 the Breakout concept found new legs with Taito 's Arkanoid , which itself spawned dozens of imitators. In Japan, the genre is known as block kuzushi ("block breaker") games. Breakout begins with eight rows of bricks, with two rows each of a different color. The color order from the bottom up is yellow, green, orange and red. Using a single ball, the player must knock down as many bricks as possible by using

651-611: A definitive agreement to acquire Opsware in a cash tender deal that values the company at $ 14.25 per share, which combined Opsware software with the Oracle enterprise IT management software. In the first few years of Hurd's tenure as CEO, HP's stock price more than doubled. By the end of the 2007 fiscal year, HP reached the $ 100 billion mark for the first time. The company's annual revenue reached $ 104 billion , allowing HP to overtake competitor IBM. On May 13, 2008, HP and Electronic Data Systems (EDS) announced that they had signed

744-593: A definitive agreement under which HP would purchase EDS. On June 30, HP announced that the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 had expired. "The transaction still requires EDS stockholder approval and regulatory clearance from the European Commission and other non-U.S. jurisdictions and is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of the other closing conditions specified in

837-434: A few standalone systems such as the 6114, but they did not create any technology targeted at home users. In 1983 Ramtek was sued for allegedly falsely evaluating their stock during a public stock offering to raise capital. Ramtek predicted revenues of $ 150 million in 1984. However, they instead reported a $ 15.4 million loss for that fiscal year. In 1984, Control Data Corporation entered an agreement with Ramtek to provide it

930-522: A foreign subsidiary. HP ended its relationship with Redington Gulf after the SEC inquiry. On September 3, 2001, HP announced that an agreement had been reached with Compaq to merge the two companies. On May 3, 2002, after passing a shareholder vote, HP officially announced the merger with Compaq. Prior to this, plans had been in place to consolidate the companies' product teams and product lines. The newly-merged company would officially launch five days after

1023-427: A line of electronic test and measurement equipment. The HP Garage at 367 Addison Avenue is now designated an official California Historical Landmark, and is marked with a plaque calling it the "Birthplace of ' Silicon Valley ' ". The company won its first big contract in 1938 to provide the HP 200B , a variation of its first product, the HP 200A low-distortion frequency oscillator for Walt Disney 's production of

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1116-477: A loan of $ 5 million. Under this agreement, CDC had the right to purchase a 60% share of Ramtek or buy out the company's interest in Digital Productions after two years. The Digital Productions stock and their Cray supercomputer were later sold to Omnibus Computer Graphics for $ 1.2 million in shares. Layoffs hit the company at the end of 1985 and the following year Ramtek worked out a deal with

1209-408: A mallet. If the player successfully destroys the wall in-game, their inmate escapes with others following. A precursor to Breakout was Clean Sweep , released by Ramtek in 1974. In that game, the player uses a paddle to hit a ball up towards a playfield of dots, which disappear as the ball moves through the dots; the goal is to achieve a clean sweep by erasing all the dots. Clean Sweep was one of

1302-789: A manufacturing plant was established in Böblingen and a marketing organization in Geneva . Packard handed the presidency over to Hewlett when he became chairman in 1964, but remained CEO of the company. HP is recognized as the symbolic founder of Silicon Valley , though it did not actively investigate semiconductor devices until a few years after the " traitorous eight " abandoned William Shockley to create Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957. Hewlett-Packard's HP Associates division, established around 1960, developed semiconductor devices primarily for internal use. Instruments and calculators were some of their products using semiconductor devices. During

1395-431: A maximum of 1,344 points if they are adept enough to keep the third ball in play that long. Once the third screen is eliminated, the game is over. The original arcade cabinet of Breakout featured artwork that revealed the game's plot to be that of a prison escape. According to this release, the player is actually playing as one of a prison's inmates attempting to knock a ball and chain into a wall of their prison cell with

1488-524: A profit in early 1990. The end of that year, they purchased the English company GEMS, who had an interest in satellite data. Two of Ramtek's officers - Thomas Adams and G. William Theriault - were accused of falsifying the company's revenue between September 1986 to March 1988 through fictitious purchase agreements. The two agreed to a permanent injunction by the SEC, without denial or admittance of guilt. Ramtek subsequently dissolved in 1996. As one of

1581-543: A proprietary magnetic tape for storage. HP computers were similar in capabilities to the much later IBM Personal Computer , though the limitations of available technology forced prices to be high. In 1978, Hewlett stepped down as CEO and was succeeded by John A. Young . HP expanded into South Africa in the 1980s. Activists supporting divestment from South Africa accused HP of "automating apartheid ". Sales reached $ 6.5 billion in 1985 with 85,000 employees. In 1984, HP introduced both inkjet and laser printers for

1674-459: A prototype within four days. Bushnell offered the bonus because he disliked how new Atari games required 150 to 170 chips; he knew that Jobs' friend Steve Wozniak , an employee of Hewlett-Packard , had designed a version of Pong that used about 30 chips. Jobs had little specialized knowledge of circuit board design but knew Wozniak was capable of producing designs with a small number of chips. He convinced Wozniak to work with him, promising to split

1767-479: A publicly traded company starting in 1979. In 1981, it was reported Ramtek was the top company in the field of raster graphics display terminals. Ramtek Corporation was founded on September 4, 1971 by engineers Charles McEwan (1935-2006) and John Metzler (1935-1982) as well as lawyer Jack Teeters. The two engineers were veterans of the Western Design Labs (WDL) division of Philco-Ford as well as

1860-737: A range of printers and other imaging products. The company directly marketed its products to households; small- to medium-sized businesses and enterprises, as well as via online distribution; consumer-electronics and office-supply retailers; software partners; and major technology vendors. It also offered services and a consulting business for its products and partner products. In 1999, HP spun off its electronic and bio-analytical test and measurement instruments business into Agilent Technologies ; HP retained focus on its later products, including computers and printers. It merged with Compaq in 2002, and acquired Electronic Data Systems in 2008, which led to combined revenues of $ 118.4 billion that year and

1953-546: A reputation for sturdiness and usability. HP introduced the Hewlett-Packard Interface Bus (HPIB) computer peripheral interface (later cloned by National Instruments as GPIB and standardized by the IEEE as IEEE-488 ) on their relay actuator products in 1973. HPIB was later integrated into most high end test & measurement equipment it produced from 1980 onward. As early as 1977, HP began production of

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2046-494: A significant portion of their manufacturing facilities. A collective effort by around ninety Ramtek employees and their families helped to clear the rubble of the facility, enabling them to build a temporary manufacturing plant to meet orders on their graphics display monitors. Around mid-1976, the company relocated to a new facility on 585 N Mary Ave. in Sunnyvale. In 1977, Ramtek monitors were used by Bendix in their work on

2139-467: A simple accumulator -based design with two accumulator registers and, in the HP 1000 models, two index registers . The series was produced for 20 years in spite of several attempts to replace it, and was a forerunner of the HP 9800 and HP 250 series of desktop and business computers. At the end of 1968, Packard handed over the duties of CEO to Hewlett to become United States Deputy Secretary of Defense in

2232-510: A single player game, where the player would use a paddle to maintain a ball that depletes a wall of bricks. Bushnell was certain the game would be popular, and he and Bristow partnered to produce a concept. Al Alcorn was assigned as the Breakout project manager, and he began development with Cyan Engineering in 1975. Bushnell assigned Steve Jobs to design a prototype. Jobs was offered $ 750, with an award for every TTL ( transistor-transistor logic ) chip fewer than 50. Jobs promised to complete

2325-573: A successful public offering in 1978, Ramtek decided to cease production of coin-operated games in 1979 at the urging of their shareholders. Their amusement assets were spun off as Rainbow Games and purchased in 1980 by Meltec, a company created by Mel McEwan, brother of Ramtek co-founder Charles McEwan. Meltec took over the Commercial Street facility as well as the manufacturing and distribution of Boom Ball which became popular for amusement fairs. Meltec continued until 2003 when it

2418-503: A total of 1,650,336 units by 1983. In 1989, Computer and Video Games reviewed the Atari VCS version, giving it a 24% score. In 2021, The Guardian listed Breakout as the fourth greatest video game of the 1970s , below Galaxian , Asteroids and Space Invaders . Breakout was an influential game that had an impact on the video game and computer industries. Breakout spawned an entire genre of clones. Ten years later,

2511-567: A workstation, and software to manage them—OpenView Client Configuration Manager 2.0. In that same year, HP's share price skyrocketed due to consistent results in the last couple quarters of the year with Hurd's plan to cut back HP's workforce and lower costs. HP began its marketing campaign called "The Computer is Personal Again" in May 2006, aimed at bringing back the personal computer as a personal product. The campaign utilized viral marketing and sophisticated visuals, as well as its own website. Some of

2604-479: The Apple I computer while working at HP and offered it to them under their right of first refusal to his work. They did not take it up as the company wanted to stay in scientific, business, and industrial markets. Wozniak said that HP "turned him down five times", but that his loyalty to HP made him hesitant to start Apple with Steve Jobs . The company earned global respect for a variety of products. They introduced

2697-567: The Apple II computer. He said: "A lot of features of the Apple II went in because I had designed Breakout for Atari. I had designed it in hardware. I wanted to write it in software now". This included his design of color graphics circuitry, the addition of game paddle support and sound, and graphics commands in Integer BASIC , with which he wrote Brick Out , a software clone of his own hardware game. Wozniak said in 1984: Basically, all

2790-544: The Atari Jaguar adds a 3D playfield and additional features. A 3D Breakout -inspired game was published simply as Breakout in 2000 for the PC and PlayStation by Hasbro Interactive 's Atari Interactive subsidiary. In 2011, Atari S.A. released an updated version of Breakout as Breakout Boost . The chief difference is the addition of improved graphics, power-ups, and unique brick types. Another enhanced version of

2883-539: The HP Pavilion dv1000 series of laptops in 2004, which included the HP Pavilion dv1658 and dv1040 models. Other laptop models available around this time were the dv4000, dv5000, and the dv8000 series. In January 2005, following years of underperformance, which included HP's Compaq merger that fell short and disappointing earning reports, the board asked Fiorina to resign as chair and chief executive officer of

Breakout (video game) - Misplaced Pages Continue

2976-799: The Intel 4040 microprocessor. The machine failed to function properly and despite a closed door showing was never released. In 1975 Ramtek purchased the company Micro Machines from Larry Krummel and commercialized the MM 80, an in-circuit emulator of the Intel 8080 microprocessor for development purposes. Their first microprocessor-based video game, Trivia (1975), became the basis for an early shared hardware platform for arcade game releases. Subsequently, Ramtek started building their graphics terminals with integrated microprocessors and began an internal software group. In November 1975, Ramtek's main facility at 290 Commercial Ave. in Sunnyvale caught fire and damaged

3069-457: The Viking space program and later by UCSC professor Ralph Abraham on an advanced mathematical project. Though Ramtek remained very successful in the coin-operated video game market, with 10,000 units sold in their first year and a half of operation and 20,000 in its first three years making them one of the most successful video game companies of the time, they did not enjoy the volatility of

3162-406: The computer graphics division of Data Disc, Inc. , and founded Ramtek to create devices for displaying information from computer systems. Their major business was in medical monitors , as well as creating high-end graphical terminals for industrial and academic use. In 1973, they became one of the earliest manufacturers of video games , and manufactured coin-operated games until 1979. They became

3255-727: The 1940 animated film Fantasia , which allowed Hewlett and Packard to formally establish the Hewlett-Packard Company on July 2, 1939. The company grew into a multinational corporation widely respected for its products. HP was the world's leading PC manufacturer from 2007 until the second quarter of 2013, when Lenovo moved ahead of HP. HP specialized in developing and manufacturing computing, data storage, and networking hardware; designing software; and delivering services. Major product lines included personal computing devices, enterprise and industry standard servers, related storage devices, networking products, software, and

3348-469: The 1960s, HP partnered with Sony and Yokogawa Electric in Japan to develop several high-quality products. The products were not a huge success, as there were high costs involved in building HP-looking products in Japan. In 1963, HP and Yokogawa formed the joint venture Yokogawa-Hewlett-Packard to market HP products in Japan. HP bought Yokogawa Electric's share of Hewlett-Packard Japan in 1999. HP spun off

3441-540: The HP856x spectrum analyzers to complement its RF power meters and sensors capable of measuring signals in excess of 20 GHz. HP also produced configurable chassis based sweep generators capable of generating signals to 20 GHz. Other T&M products of the time included lab grade multimeters, microwave frequency counters, RF amplifiers, high accuracy microwave detectors, lab grade power supplies and more. These products were succeeded by modernized versions as well as

3534-574: The John Deere engineer has demonstrated ability to run Breakout game on a competitive tractor monitor using ISO 11789-6 standard. In October 1976, the annual RePlay chart listed Breakout as the fifth highest-earning arcade video game of 1976 in the United States, below Midway Manufacturing 's Sea Wolf , Gun Fight , and Wheels , and Atari's Indy 800 . Breakout was later the third highest-earning arcade video game of 1977 in

3627-537: The Microworld is an autobiography by David Sudnow detailing his obsession with Breakout . Sudnow describes studying the game's mechanics, visiting the manufacturer in Silicon Valley , and interviewing the programmers. The first-generation iPod Classic had an Easter egg where holding down the center button for a few seconds in the "About" menu caused Breakout to appear. On the 37th anniversary of

3720-617: The Model 400A vacuum-tube voltmeter during the war. Hewlett and Packard worked on counter-radar technology and artillery shell proximity fuzes during World War II; the work exempted Packard from the draft, but Hewlett had to serve as an officer in the Army Signal Corps after being called to active duty. HP was incorporated on August 18, 1947, with Packard as president. Sales reached $ 5.5 million in 1951 with 215 employees. The company went public on November 6, 1957. In 1959,

3813-408: The SEC to establish a public offering to repay debt. After a significant restatement in 1988, Charles McEwan was moved from CEO and President to Chairman of the corporation. Former Vice President and General Counsel James Swanson took his position as President and later that year announced the company was entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They managed to escape bankruptcy protection in 1989 and posted

Breakout (video game) - Misplaced Pages Continue

3906-476: The US, below Sea Wolf and Sprint 2 , and the fifth highest-earning arcade video game of 1978 in the US. Breakout had a total arcade production run of 11,000 cabinets manufactured by Atari, estimated to have generated over $ 11 million ( $ 59 million adjusted for inflation) in sales revenue. Breakout was also a commercial success for Namco in Japan. On the first annual Game Machine arcade chart, Breakout

3999-588: The Year" in 2003, which in turn published a press release stating that "[t]he seeds of the Redington-Hewlett-Packard relationship were sowed six years ago for one market — Iran." At the time, Redington Gulf had only three employees whose sole purpose was to sell HP products to the Iran market. According to former officials who worked on sanctions, HP used a loophole by routing their sales through

4092-486: The ads featured Pharrell , Petra Nemcova , Mark Burnett , Mark Cuban , Alicia Keys , Jay-Z , Gwen Stefani , and Shaun White . This marketing campaign was also incorporated directly onto HP's product offerings, which included desktops, laptops, and other hardware and software. HP offered three new laptop models in mid-to-late 2006 with the Pavilion dv2000 , dv6000 , and dv9000 series. In July 2007, HP signed

4185-497: The amplitude of the output sinusoidal waveform. This allowed the HP 200A to be sold for $ 89.40 when competitors were selling less stable oscillators for over $ 200 . The 200 series of generators continued production until at least 1972 as the 200AB, still tube-based but improved in design through the years. One of the company's earliest customers was Bud Hawkins, chief sound engineer for Walt Disney Studios , who bought eight HP 200B audio oscillators (at $ 71.50 each) to be used in

4278-472: The animated film Fantasia . HP's profit at the end of 1939, its first full year of business, was $ 1,563 (equivalent to $ 34,236 in 2023) on revenues of $ 5,369 . In 1942, they built their first building at 395 Page Mill Road and were awarded the Army-Navy "E" Award in 1943. HP employed 200 people and produced the audio oscillator, a wave analyzer, distortion analyzers, an audio-signal generator, and

4371-577: The announcement on May 7, 2002. As Compaq acquired Tandem Computers in 1997 and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1998, HP inherited both acquired companies' product lines, and offered support for the Tandem NonStop family (now owned by Hewlett Packard Enterprise) and DEC products PDP-11 , VAX and Alpha . Both the DEC PDP-11 and VAX were discontinued years before the merger, and HP supported DEC Alpha until April 2007. The merger

4464-436: The ball has broken through the red row and hit the upper wall. Ball speed increases at specific intervals: after four hits, after twelve hits, and after making contact with the orange and red rows. The highest score achievable for one player is 896; this is done by eliminating two screens of bricks worth 448 points per screen. Once the second screen of bricks is destroyed, the ball in play harmlessly bounces off empty walls until

4557-402: The business. They branched out into electro-mechanical games starting with Horoscope (1976) and continued to compete in video games. Though their non-video game output became more elaborate and advanced with games like Boom Ball (1977) and GT Roadster (1979), they fell behind in the video game market which became more competitive and technology-driven in the latter years of the 1970s. After

4650-490: The company undercapitalized. The company attempted expansion into lower scale markets with black and white visual displays and they acquired venture capital from the likes of Exxon , but found their break in the coin-operated video game industry. Friend of Charles McEwan and later Ramtek CFO Tom Adams was co-owner of Sunnyvale bar Andy Capp's Tavern, where the video game Pong was first location tested by Atari . A group of Ramtek engineers including Pete Kauffman played

4743-514: The company, and she did on February 9, 2005. After her departure, HP's stock jumped 6.9 percent. Robert Wayman, chief financial officer of HP, served as interim CEO while the board undertook a formal search for a replacement. Mark Hurd of NCR Corporation was hired to take over as CEO and president, effective April 1, 2005. Hurd was the board's top choice given the revival of NCR that took place under his leadership. In 2006, HP unveiled several new products including desktops, enhanced notebooks,

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4836-401: The concept found new legs with Taito 's 1986 Arkanoid , which itself spawned dozens of imitators. In Japan, the genre is known as block kuzushi ("block breaker") games. Breakout was also the basis and inspiration for certain aspects of the Apple II personal computer and Taito 's arcade shoot 'em up game Space Invaders (1978). Breakout directly influenced Wozniak's design for

4929-405: The deal. In 1982, they minted a deal with Digital Equipment Corporation to sell graphics systems based on their VAX line of computers. They likewise signed an OEM deal with Control Data Corporation to provide components for their workstation line. The company's focus on the high-end business market led them not to participate in the microcomputer boom of the early 1980s. They did create

5022-422: The decade, HP opened hpshopping.com as an independent subsidiary to sell online, direct to consumers; in 2005, the store was renamed "HP Home & Home Office Store". From 1995 to 1999, Hewlett-Packard were sponsors of the English football team Tottenham Hotspur . In 1999, all of the businesses not related to computers, storage, and imaging were spun off from HP to form Agilent Technologies . Agilent's spin-off

5115-404: The desktop. Along with its scanner product line, the printers have later been developed into successful multifunction products, the most significant being single-unit printer/scanner/copier/fax machines. The print mechanisms in HP's LaserJet line of laser printers depend almost entirely on Canon Inc. 's components (print engines), which in turn use technology developed by Xerox . HP developed

5208-404: The earliest companies involved in video games, Ramtek were important pioneers in shaping the technology of the video game industry. Among their influential games include Clean Sweep (1974) which presaged Atari's Breakout (1976), Knockout (1974) that started the ball-and-paddle pinball craze, Baseball (1974) one of the earliest video games with articulated human characters, and Trivia (1975)

5301-414: The fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Wozniak had no sketches and instead interpreted the game from its description. To save parts, he had "tricky little designs". Near the end of development, Wozniak considered moving the high score to the screen's top, but Jobs claimed Bushnell wanted it at the bottom; Wozniak was unaware of any truth to his claims. The original deadline

5394-436: The first bit mapped graphics displays that, when combined with the HP 2100 21MX F-Series microcoded Scientific Instruction Set, enabled the first commercial WYSIWYG presentation program , BRUNO , that later became the program HP-Draw on the HP 3000. Although scoffed at in the formative days of computing, HP surpassed IBM as the world's largest technology vendor in terms of sales. HP was identified by Wired magazine as

5487-494: The first video game quiz machine . Several employees from Ramtek went on to join Exidy , one of the most consequential early game developers of the 1970s. Ramtek's RM-3300 terminal appeared in the television show Buck Rogers in the 25th Century . Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company , commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( / ˈ h juː l ɪ t ˈ p æ k ər d / HEW -lit PAK -ərd ) or HP ,

5580-768: The game at this location and were convinced that it would be lucrative to create electronic games for the coin-operated market. Charles McEwan also later claimed to have known Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell who approved of the competition. John Metzler headed the development of Ramtek's first game, Volly , a variant of Pong released in the first wave of commercial video games in March 1973. Ramtek contacted local coin-op distributors in California and found an enthusiastic partner in Rowe International who ordered 2,500 Volly cabinets. With two subsequent games in

5673-554: The game features were put in just so I could show off the game I was familiar with— Breakout —at the Homebrew Computer Club . It was the most satisfying day of my life [when] I demonstrated Breakout —totally written in BASIC. It seemed like a huge step to me. After designing hardware arcade games, I knew that being able to program them in BASIC was going to change the world. Tomohiro Nishikado cited Breakout as

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5766-549: The game has been announced for release exclusively on the Intellivision Amico . A revamped version of the game titled, Breakout: Recharged , was released on February 10, 2022, for Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 , PlayStation 5 , Xbox One , Xbox Series X/S , Microsoft Windows and Atari VCS as part of the Atari Recharged series. It was developed by Adamvision Studios and SneakyBox. Pilgrim in

5859-533: The game's release, Google released a secret version of Breakout accessible by typing "atari breakout" in Google Images . The image thumbnails form the breakout bricks, turn different colors, and after a ball and paddle appear the game begins. Ramtek (company) Ramtek Corporation was a California-based manufacturer of computer display terminals founded in 1971. Co-founders Charles E. McEwan and John W. Metzler had previously worked together at

5952-408: The gameplay to be the same as his original creation and could not find any differences. The arcade cabinet uses a black and white monitor , but the monitor has strips of colored cellophane placed over it so that the bricks appear to be in color. A software version of Breakout was written for the Atari 2600 by Brad Stewart. The game was published in 1978, but with only six rows of bricks, and

6045-426: The growing production line as the weight of the circuit boards caused the supports inside to break. Once the game was licensed to Midway Mfg. and retooled as Ball Park (1975), it became a hit for the company. Starting in 1974, Ramtek began to seriously explore the potential of microprocessor devices. An internal team assisted by consultant Ray Holt created a prototype pinball machine called Lucky Dice based on

6138-664: The hardware, firmware, and software to convert data into dots for printing. On March 3, 1986, HP registered the HP.com domain name, making it the ninth Internet .com domain to be registered. In 1987, the Palo Alto garage where Hewlett and Packard started their business was designated as a California Historical Landmark . In the 1990s, HP expanded their computer product line, which initially had been targeted at university, research, and business users, to reach consumers. HP also grew through acquisitions: it bought Apollo Computer in 1989 and Convex Computer in 1995. In 1992, Young

6231-546: The incoming Nixon administration. He resumed the chairmanship in 1972 and served until 1993, but Hewlett remained the CEO. The HP 3000 was an advanced stack-based design for a business computing server, later redesigned with RISC technology. The HP 2640 series of smart and intelligent terminals introduced forms-based interfaces to ASCII terminals, and also introduced screen labeled function keys , now commonly used on gas pumps and bank ATMs. The HP 2640 series included one of

6324-471: The introduction of the scalar and vector network analyzer product lines prior to the business being spun off into Agilent Technologies . The HP 9800 series of technical desktop computers started in 1971 with the 9810A. The HP Series 80 started in 1979 with the 85. Some of these machines used a version of the BASIC programming language , which was available immediately after they were switched on, and used

6417-444: The medical field due to the interest of Johns Hopkins University , creating a medical diagnostic device which utilized scintillation cameras to provide medical imaging. Despite the growth of the computer graphics market in the early 1970s, Ramtek initially found it difficult to survive off of contracts from high-end corporations. Payment for high-end graphic terminals was frequently on terms of 90 or 120 days until payment, leaving

6510-457: The merger agreement." The agreement was finalized on August 26, 2008, at $ 13 billion, and it was publicly announced that EDS would be re-branded. The first targeted layoff of 24,600 former EDS workers was announced on September 15, 2008. (The company's 2008 annual report gave the number as 24,700, to be completed by end of 2009. ) This round was factored into purchase price as a $ 19.5 billion liability against goodwill. As of September 23, 2009, EDS

6603-549: The original inspiration behind his hit Space Invaders (1978). He wanted to adapt the same sense of achievement and tension from destroying targets one at a time for a shooting game . The success of the game resulted in Super Breakout ' s release in 1978. It contains three separate game modes. The home ports include Breakout as a fourth mode, using the Super Breakout visual style. Breakout 2000 for

6696-595: The player is given five turns to clear two walls instead of three. In the Breakthru variant, the ball does not bounce off of the bricks but continues through them until it hits the wall. Atari had this term trademarked and used it in addition to Breakout to describe gameplay, especially in look-alike games and remakes. Atari's 1977 dedicated Video Pinball console includes a Breakout game. On March 16, 2005, during ISOBus plugfest in Lincoln Nebraska,

6789-403: The player restarts the game, as no additional screens are provided. However, a secret way to score beyond the 896 maximum is to play the game in two-player mode. If "Player One" completes the first screen on their third and last ball, then immediately and deliberately allows the ball to "drain", Player One's second screen is transferred to "Player Two" as a third screen, allowing Player Two to score

6882-488: The producer of the world's first device to be called a personal computer: the Hewlett-Packard 9100A , introduced in 1968. HP called it a desktop calculator because, as Hewlett said: "If we had called it a computer, it would have been rejected by our customers' computer gurus because it didn't look like an IBM . We therefore decided to call it a calculator, and all such nonsense disappeared." An engineering triumph at

6975-696: The same vein, Hockey and Soccer , the company firmly established itself in the nascent market for video games. While maintaining their graphics terminal business, the company threw its weight behind the coin-operated industry including a partnership in Canada. The company's success with video games brought several changes. Pete Kauffman left the company in late 1973 to start his own video game manufacturer, Exidy Inc. , who later recruited many former Ramtek engineers including co-founder John Metzler and Howell Ivy, who created games such as Clean Sweep (1974) and Baseball (1974). Baseball initially caused problems for

7068-468: The significance of the alliance and also key letters from the two companies H ewlett- P ackard and Compa q (the latter company being famous for incorporating the letter "Q" on its logo for all of their products). HP then went on to become a major producer in desktop computers , laptops, and servers for many different markets. Mscape was a mobile media gaming platform that could be used to create location-based games originating in 2002. HP released

7161-566: The small company Dynac to specialize in digital equipment. The name was picked so that the HP logo could be turned upside down to be a reflected image of the logo of the new company. Dynac was eventually renamed Dymec and folded back into HP in 1959. HP experimented with using Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) minicomputers with its instruments, but entered the computer market in 1966 with the HP 2100 / HP 1000 series of minicomputers after it decided that it would be easier to build another small design team than deal with DEC. The minicomputers had

7254-489: The time, the logic circuit was produced without any integrated circuits , and the CPU assembly was entirely executed in discrete components. With CRT display, magnetic-card storage, and printer, the price was around $ 5,000. The machine's keyboard was a cross between the keyboard of a scientific calculator and the keyboard of an adding machine. There was no alphabetic keyboard. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak originally designed

7347-516: The top ten best-selling arcade video games of 1974 and sold a total of 3,500 arcade cabinets . Breakout , a discrete logic (non- microprocessor ) game, was designed by Nolan Bushnell, Steve Jobs, and Steve Bristow, all three of whom were involved with Atari and its Kee Games subsidiary. Atari produced innovative video games using the Pong hardware as a means of competition against companies making " Pong clones". Bushnell wanted to turn Pong into

7440-603: The video terminal division of Data Disc, Inc. Seeking to capitalize on the growing market for digital CRT displays, they established Ramtek at 1000 Elwell Court in Palo Alto , California. The company recruited other members of the Data Disc terminal business to join them as well as Charles' brother Melvin McEwan. They introduced their first two commercial products, the GX-100 and GX-200 raster terminals in early 1972. They entered

7533-425: The walls and/or the paddle below to hit the ball against the bricks and eliminate them. If the player's paddle misses the ball's rebound, they will lose a turn. The player has three turns to try to clear two screens of bricks. Yellow bricks earn one point each, green bricks earn three points, orange bricks earn five points and the top-level red bricks score seven points each. The paddle shrinks to one-half its size after

7626-523: The work was copyrightable. Atari was unable to use Wozniak's design. By designing the board with as few chips as possible, he made the design difficult to manufacture; it was too compact and complicated to be feasible with Atari's manufacturing methods. However, Wozniak claims Atari could not understand the design and speculates "maybe some engineer there was trying to make some kind of modification to it". Atari ended up designing their own version for production, which contained about 100 TTL chips. Wozniak found

7719-609: The world's first handheld scientific electronic calculator in 1972 (the HP-35 ), the first handheld programmable in 1974 (the HP-65 ), the first alphanumeric, programmable, expandable in 1979 (the HP-41 C), and the first symbolic and graphing calculator, the HP-28C . Like their scientific and business calculators, HP oscilloscopes , logic analyzers , and other measurement instruments had

7812-489: Was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California . HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components, as well as software and related services to consumers, small and medium-sized businesses ( SMBs ), and fairly large companies, including customers in government, health, and education sectors. The company was founded in a one-car garage in Palo Alto by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939, and initially produced

7905-484: Was initially reported by The Boston Globe , and it triggered an inquiry by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). HP responded that products worth US$ 120 million were sold in fiscal year 2008 for distribution via Redington Gulf, a company based in the Netherlands, and that as these sales took place through a foreign subsidiary, HP had not violated sanctions. HP named Redington Gulf "Wholesaler of

7998-441: Was known as HP Enterprise Services (now known as DXC Technology ). On November 11, 2009, 3Com and Hewlett-Packard announced that the latter would be acquiring 3Com for $ 2.7 billion in cash. The acquisition was one of the biggest in size among a series of takeovers and acquisitions by technology giants to push their way to become one-stop shops. Since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007, tech giants have constantly felt

8091-437: Was met after Wozniak worked at Atari four nights straight, doing some additional designs while at his day job at Hewlett-Packard. This equated to a bonus of $ 5,000, which Jobs kept secret from Wozniak. Wozniak has stated he only received payment of $ 350; he believed for years that Atari had promised $ 700 for a design using fewer than 50 chips, and $ 1000 for fewer than 40, stating in 1984 that "we only got 700 bucks for it". Wozniak

8184-424: Was preceded by a proxy fight in 2001 with numerous large HP shareholders as well as the sons of the co-founders, with Bill Hewlett's son Walter objecting to the merger, only approving it reluctantly. HP's pre-merger ticker symbol was "HWP". After the merger with Compaq, the new ticker symbol became "HPQ", which was announced on May 6, 2002. "HPQ" is a combination of the two previous symbols, "HWP" and "CPQ", to show

8277-496: Was sold to Bay Tek Games. Once publicly traded, Ramtek devoted itself entirely to its high-end computer graphics market. In 1980 the company switched its primary mode of graphics display from vector to raster. It purchased assets from Omtron Electronics Inc. revolving around display terminals for $ 1.6 million in 1979. In 1980 it signed a deal with Ikegami Tsushinki to sell Ramtek products in Japan. Loral Corp. announced intentions to acquire Ramtek in 1981, but ultimately called off

8370-406: Was succeeded by Lewis E. Platt , and in 1993 and Hewlett and Packard stepped down from the board with Platt succeeding Packard as chairman. In 1993, HP acquired Advanced Design System from Pathwave. The ADS suite of RF simulation tools was spun off into Agilent in 1999 along with related T&M business units, all of which were carried forward into the spinoff of Agilent into Keysight. Later in

8463-559: Was the engineer, and Jobs was the breadboarder and tester. Wozniak's original design used 42 chips; the final, working breadboard he and Jobs delivered to Atari used 44, but Wozniak said: "We were so tired we couldn't cut it down". The simplicity of the game created a problem when the copyright filing was denied because it "did not contain at least a minimum amount of original pictorial or graphic authorship, or authorship in sounds" and Atari appealed. In Atari Games Corp. v. Oman , then Court of Appeals Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg found that

8556-521: Was the fourth highest-grossing arcade video game of 1976 in Japan, below Taito's Ball Park ( Tornado Baseball ) and Speed Race DX and Sega 's Heavyweight Champ . The following year, Breakout was Japan's third highest-grossing arcade game of 1977, below only two racing games , Namco's electro-mechanical game F-1 and Taito's video game Speed Race DX . In total, Breakout sold 15,000 arcade units worldwide by 1981. The Atari 2600 version sold 256,265 units in 1980. Breakout went on to sell

8649-410: Was the largest initial public offering in the history of Silicon Valley , and it created an $ 8 billion company with about 30,000 employees, manufacturing scientific instruments , semiconductors , optical networking devices, and electronic test equipment for telecom and wireless, research and development , and production. In July 1999, HP appointed Carly Fiorina as the first female CEO of

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