Personal:
Our presentation was short, I think this helped keep peoples attention better. I dont like presenting very much and I’m glad it’s done.
Tag: Unit 2
Unit 2/3: Presentation
LINK TO PRESENTATION:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UANoauRAJOGTxFgLlpsCHmonpudB5BGwCC5tfciWhEc
Unit 2/3: Social Media Research
POSITIVES OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO ASK RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
- You can get answers instantly
- You can reach a variety of people to get a variety of answers
- Easily accessible
- Less direct than approaching people-gives them the choice to answer
- Faster than other public research methods eg surveys, focus groups
NEGATIVES OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO ASK QUESTIONS:
- Depends on your following on social media- eg if you have a large reach, if you post publicly or only to friends
- Sometimes questions like this aren’t taken seriously
- Chance of rude/inappropriate/irrelevant answers
- People can lie/be biased
RESULTS:
I got more serious responses than I thought I would
Unit 2/3: History of Videogames-1990s
The 1990s were a decade of innovation in gaming. This was when the first transition from 2D sprites to full 3D games was made. It was also the start of many genres e.g FPS and Survival Horror. Arcade games became gradually less popular in favour of home consoles.
1990:
Release of the SNES in Japan, the SNES introduced more advanced graphics and sound in comparison to other consoles released at the time. This became the best selling console of the 16-bit era. Microsoft begins bundling Windows with Solitaire.
1991:
Release of Sonic the Hedgehog- produced by Sega to rival Nintendo’s Mario.
1992:
Nintendo releases Super Mario Kart
1993:
Release of Mega Man X, Doom popularises FPS games and there is a debate in the US on videogame violence due to Mortal Kombat.
1995:
Playstation consoles released in the US and become a fierce competitor against Sega. Also the year Chrono Trigger was released.
1996:
Release of the Nintendo 64 along with Super Mario 64-the first Mario game to be released in 3D. Also the year the Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot and Pokemon series’ began.
1998:
Release of several iconic games: Spyro the Dragon, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Half-life
Fashion:
Fashion in the 90s was primarily denim. Grunge and streetwear were popular styles of clothing to wear too. A film known for influencing 90s fashion heavily was Clueless
Music:
Music from the 90s has quite a distinct sound-particularly with grunge/rock e.g Nirvana and in pop music e.g Britney Spears and The Spice Girls
Films:
Pulp Fiction-1994 (dir.Quentin Tarantino)
Jurassic Park-1993 (dir.Steven Spielberg)
The Lion King-1994 (dir. Rob Minkoff, Roger Allers)
Goodfellas-1990 (dir. Martin Scorsese)
The Silence of The Lambs-1991 (dir. Jonathan Demme)
Unit 2/3: History of Videogames-1980s
The 1980s was big for videogames and was where many iconic series began-it started with the 1980 release of Pacman by Namco. Namco two years later went onto release Ms.Pacman.
In 1981 Nintendo released the first Donkey Kong game in arcades. It became an early example for platforming games.
In 1984 a Russian mathematician, Alexey Pajitnov, created Tetris-a simple and addictive puzzle game.
1985 was when the NES was released, a remodelled version of the 1983 Famicom. The NES revived the dying US videogame industry and became the host to many classic titles.
1987 was the year Shigeru Miyamoto created the first Legend of Zelda game- LoZ went on to become one of Nintendos most beloved series and an RPG classic.
1989 introduced the Gameboy, and although it wasn’t the first to introduce the concept of interchangeable cartridges this led to the popularisation of handheld gaming.
THE VIDEOGAME CRASH OF 1983
The videogame crashed was caused by a number of factors. The market was saturated by games and consoles, there was too much being released and rushed.
Revenues peaked at around $3.2b in 1983 and had fallen to around $100m by 1985.
The amount of low quality games being mass produced led to the infamous Atari videogame burial. After the success of the Spielberg film, Atari released E.T after only 34 days of development. They ended up burying over 700,000 E.T cartridges as well as various other unsold titles in the Nevada desert. The site was excavated in 2014. Cartridges found there are now worth a huge amount of money.
Unit 2/3: History of Videogames-1970s
In the 1970s coin operated arcade games such as Pong, Maze War, Space Invaders, and Pacman were released.
Pong was the first commercially successful videogame released in 1972
In 1972 Atari was founded-Atari paved the way for the commercial videogame industry
70s Culture:
- Hippies
- Punk
- Youth Culture-Fame/Celebrities, The Jackson 5, Disco
Film:
A Clockwork Orange-Dir. Stanley Kubrick (1972)
A sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn’t go as planned.
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest-Dir Milos Forman (1975)
One flew over the Cuckoos Nest is about a criminal pleading insanity to get his way into an institution, followed by him rebelling.
Jaws- Dir. Steven Spielberg (1975)
Jaws is a 1975 thriller film based off of a man-eating great white shark attacking the coast of New England and a police chief and marine biologist hunting it down.
Unit 2/3: History of Videogames -1960s
Spacewar! released in 1962 was a computer game developed by Steve Russell that was designed for the DEC PDP-1 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Film Research:
Jason and the Argonauts-1963-Don Chaffey
Jason and the Argonauts is a film about Jason leading a team of adventurers to obtain the Golden Fleece. It features arguably one of the most iconic stop motion scenes in film- the skeleton fight.
A newer version was released in the form of a miniseries in 2000.
Dr Strangelove-1964- Dir. Stanley Kubrick
Dr Strangelove is a satirical black comedy about the fears of nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War.
Kes-1969- Dir. Ken Loach
Kes is a drama focused on a child who gets abused both at home and at school. His life is miserable until he takes up falconry and starts training a Kestrel. His situation proves to be a hardship for him and his bird.
Unit 2/3: History of Videogames -1940s/50s
ENIAC:
The first electronic, large scale, general purpose computer was called ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) it was built 69 years ago, it took up 167 square meters of space, weighed 30 tons, consumed 150 kilowatts of power and costed around 6 million dollars to build.
It was built by Mauchly and Eckert and activated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946
The ENIAC was reprogrammable and it was used to perform military and scientific tasks such as the initial calculations for the H-Bomb.
Since then computers have advanced immensely, my computer came to around £1000, it’s a fraction of the size and weighs much less.
ALAN TURING:
Alan Turing and his colleagues at Bletchley Park helped to crack what was at the time considered to be an unbreakable secret code for intercepted German messages for the Enigma machine.
In 1936 Turing published a paper that is now recognised as the foundation of computer science. He invented the idea of a “Universal Machine” that code decode and perform any set of instructions, ten years later he turned this idea into a plan to create an electronic computer.
COLOSSUS:
Just like the ENIAC, work on the Colossus also began at Bletchley Park in 1943. This machine was created for the specific purpose of breaking the Lorenz machine ciphers.
The Colossus helped defeat Nazi Germany through reading Hitlers messages.
KONRAD ZUSE:
Konrad Zuse was similar to Turing, however unlike how the British allied with Turing, the German government declined Zuse’s help.
Zuse worked to produce the Z1, Z2, and Z3.
1938- Z1 was completed, this was a mechanical programmable digital computer however it was a test model and so lacked in functionality.
1940- The Z2, the first fully functioning electro-mechanical computer, was completed
1941- Development of the Z3.
1945/46- Development of Plankalkuel, possibly the worlds first programming language
BEGINNINGS OF GAMING:
Experimentation with creating games goes back to 1947, when the earliest known interactive electronic game was created using a cathode ray tube connected to an oscilloscope with a set of knobs and switches. This was never manufactured and marketed to the public and although it had an electronic display is not considered a videogame, as it didn’t run on a computing device.
In 1952, OXO was developed by A S Douglas, it simulated a game of noughts and crosses and was another project that was never released to the public as it was developed for a one of a kind prototype computer at Oxford University, the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator.
In 1958, William Higginbotham created the first interactive entertainment experience on a computer- It was a pong game with two lines and a bouncing ball known as “Tennis for Two”
BLETCHLEY PARK PUZZLES:
SIDE TASK:
It is rumoured that the apple logo was designed in reference to the death of Alan Turing, who was poisoned through a bite from a cyanide laced apple.
Danielle Cummings 