Today those who want to play the games designed for the 2600 do not have to try to find the original console and cartridge as many of the games have been recreated in video game emulators. One such emulator, Stella, will function on most any operating system. After downloading this emulator users can download games from other websites and use this program to play them.
In 1986, a cheaper version of the Atari 2600 was released. Some people called this the Atari 2600 Junior. It was smaller than the original version. This system cost $50.
Master System
The is a video game console made in 1986. It was not very popular in North America and Japan but was very popular in Brazil. One of the most popular game of the Sega Master System was "Sonic the Hedgehog".
, the Master System was still in production in Brazil by Tectoy. This would make it the world's longest-lived console.
In October 1985, the Sega Mark III was released in Japan for ¥15,000.
The console was redesigned as the "Master System", and it was released in North America in 1986 at a price of $200 (). It included a multicart of the games "Hang-On" and "Safari Hunt". By the end of 1986, 125,000 Master System consoles had been sold. This was more than the Atari 7800's 100,000, but it was less than the NES's 1.1 million.
The console was re-released as the Master System in Japan in October 1987 for ¥16,800. It still sold poorly as did the Mark III. Neither model posed a serious challenge to Nintendo in Japan.
Sega released the Mega Drive, a 16-bit video game console, in Japan on October 29, 1988. The last game released for the Mark III/Master System in Japan was "Bomber Raid" in 1989.
By early 1992, Master System production stopped in North America. By that time, between 1.5 million and 2 million units had been sold in the United States.
The Master System was eventually a success in Europe. In Europe, it sold more than the NES by a lot. As late as 1993, the Master System's active installed user base in Europe was 6.25 million units. That was larger than that of the Mega Drive's 5.73 million base that year. Combined with the Mega Drive, Sega had the majority of the console user base in Europe that year.
The Master System has had continued success in Brazil. In Brazil, new versions have continued to be released. Tectoy has been manufacturing Master Systems since 1989. These versions include the Master System Compact and the Master System 3. In 2015, it was reported that the Master System sells around 150,000 units per year in Brazil. By 2016, the Master System had sold 8 million units in Brazil. Because Tectoy continued to produce the Master System years for so long, the Master System is considered the longest-lived in the history of video game consoles.
It is estimated that 13 million Master Systems were sold. This does not include recent Brazil sales.
Remote control
A remote control is a device used to issue commands (controlling it) from a distance to televisions, DVD players, doorbells and so on.
A remote controller does not have a wire and can be held by hand. It has buttons for volume, changing television channels and more.
Infrared or radio signals are used to communicate with the devices. Batteries make remote controls and controllers work. Mostly AAA, AA or coin battery size batteries are used.
Spacewar!
Spacewar! is one of the first known video games. It was released in 1962. It was made by Steve Russell and others. In this game, the player has to shoot the other spaceships while flying around a star. The ships shoot missiles (rockets) which were unaffected (nothing happened) by the gravity. Each ship had only a few missiles and only a little bit of fuel.explode.
Giotto di Bondone
Giotto di Bondone (c.1267–January 8 1337), usually known as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence. He is generally thought of as the first in a line of great artists of the Italian Renaissance.
Giovanni Villani, who lived at the same time as Giotto, wrote that he was the king of painters, who drew all his figures as if they were alive. Villani says that, because he was so clever, the city of Florence gave him a salary.
In the 16th century, the biographer Giorgio Vasari says that Giotto changed painting from the Byzantine style of other artists of his day, and brought to life the great art of painting as it was made by the later Renaissance painters like Leonardo da Vinci. This was because Giotto drew his figures from life, rather than copying the style them from old well-known pictures in the way that the Byzantine artists like Cimabue and Duccio did.
Giotto's greatest work is the decoration of the "Scrovegni Chapel" in Padua, finished around 1305. The building is sometimes called the "Arena Chapel" because it is on the site of an Ancient Roman arena. This fresco series shows the life of the Virgin and the life of Christ. It is thought of as one of the greatest masterpieces of the Early Renaissance.
Although Vasari wrote about Giotto's life, it is not known how many of the stories are true, because Vasari was writing more than 200 years after Giotto died. Only two things are known for certain. It is known that in 1334 Giotto was chosen by the "commune" (town council) of Florence to design the bell tower next to Florence Cathedral which was being built at that time. It is also known for certain that Giotto painted the "Arena Chapel". But no-one can be certain where he was born, who his teacher was, what he looked like, whether he really painted the famous frescos at Assisi or where he was buried when he died.
Giotto was probably born in a hilltop farmhouse, perhaps at Colle di Romagnano or Romignano. He was the son of a well-respected man named Bondone. His name Giotto might have been a nickname from Ambrogiotto (little Ambrose) or Angelotto (little Angelo).
The year of his death is 1337, but the year of his birth (1267) is based on a poem by Antonio Pucci, the town crier of Florence, who said that Giotto was seventy when he died. Some people think that Pucci just used seventy because it fitted the rhyme of his poem, and that perhaps Giotto was a quite different age when he died.
In his "Lives of the Artists", Giorgio Vasari tells the story of how Giotto was a shepherd boy, a merry and intelligent child who was loved by all who knew him. One day the great Florentine painter Cimabue passed by and saw him drawing pictures of his sheep on a rock. They were so lifelike that Cimabue asked Bondone if he could take the boy as an apprentice. Many art historians think this story is just a legend. They think that Giotto's family was quite rich, and they moved to Florence where Giotto was sent to Cimabue's workshop as an apprentice.
Vasari tells several stories to show how clever Giotto was, and what a sense of humour he had. Vasari writes that when Cimabue was away from the workshop, Giotto painted a fly on the face of the painting that his master was working on. When Cimabue came back, he tried several times to brush the fly off.
Vasari also tells the story that the Pope wanted to see if Giotto would be a good artists to paint some important pictures. The Pope sent a messenger asking Giotto to send him back a small picture. Instead of doing a painting, which would take many days, Giotto drew, in red paint, a circle that was so perfect that it seemed as though it was drawn using a pair of compasses. Giotto told the messenger to give that to the Pope.