Hacker is a 1985 video game by Activision. It was designed by Steve Cartwright and released for the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Macintosh, DOS, MSX2, and ZX Spectrum. Plot Activision executive Jim Levy introduced Hacker to reporters by pretending that something had gone wrong during his attempt to connect on line to company headquarters to demonstrate a new game. After several attempts he logged into a mysterious non-Activision computer, before explaining, "That, ladies and gentlemen, is the game". The player assumes the role of a hacker, a person experienced in breaking into secure computer systems, who accidentally acquires access to a non-public system. The game was shipped with no information on how to play, thus building the concept that the player did hack into a system. BPL2020 The player must attempt to hack into the Magma Ltd. computer system at the beginning of the game by guessing the logon password. The password becomes obvious only after gaining access, through another means of entry, to the later stage of the game, but typing help or h in the initial command line gives a clue. Since initial attempts consist of guessing (and likely failing), access is eventually granted due to a supposed malfunction in the security system. Once the player is in, the player is asked to identify various parts of a robot unit by pointing the cursor at the relevant parts and pressing the joystick button. Most parts have exotic and technical names, such as "asynchronous data compactor" or "phlamson joint"—this again allows more room for error by initially trying to guess which part each name belongs to. Failure to identify each part correctly forces the player to take a retest until a 100 percent identification is made, at which point the player is then allowed to continue. The player gains control of the robot which can travel around the globe via secret tunnels, deep within the earth. The game's text states that the robot is powered in some manner by magma. It is evident that the player has logged into the Magma company's network and is acting as a remote user in its global subterranean transport network, with various strange messages being broadcast hinting at dangerous experiments that the company is doing. Before getting far, the player is informed that shredded portions of a secret document containing Magma Ltd.'s plans for world