query: publication_date laser squad
supports: The (abbreviated as GBA) is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001, and in the People's Republic of China on June 8, 2004 (excluding Hong Kong). Nintendo's competitors in the handheld market at the time were the Neo Geo Pocket Color, WonderSwan, GP32, Tapwave Zodiac, and the N-Gage. Despite the competitors' best efforts, Nintendo maintained a majority market share with the Game Boy Advance.
  As of June 30, 2010, the Game Boy Advance series has sold 81.51 million units worldwide. Its successor, the Nintendo DS, was released in November 2004 and is also compatible with Game Boy Advance software. Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user. These computers were a distinct market segment that typically cost much less than business, scientific or engineering-oriented computers of the time such as the IBM PC, and were generally less powerful in terms of memory and expandability. However, a home computer often had better graphics and sound than contemporaneous business computers. Their most common uses were playing video games, but they were also regularly used for word processing, doing homework, and programming. Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972, currently by Atari Interactive, a subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA (ASA). The original Atari, Inc. founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company's products, such as "Pong" and the Atari 2600, helped define the electronic entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s. MicroProse was an American video game publisher and developer founded by "Wild" Bill Stealey and Sid Meier in 1982 as MicroProse Software Inc. It developed and published numerous games, many of which are regarded as groundbreaking, classics and cult titles, including starting the "Civilization" and "X-COM" series. Most of their internally developed titles were vehicle simulation and strategy games. The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB, but sometimes "MByte" is used. The unit prefix "mega" is a multiplier of (10) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes of information. This definition has been incorporated into the International System of Quantities. Dundee, officially the City of Dundee, is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2015 was 148,210 which gave Dundee a population density of 2,477/km or 6,420/sq mi, the second-highest in Scotland. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea. Under the name of "Dundee City", it forms one of the 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. The VIC-20 (Germany: VC-20; Japan: VIC-1001) is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PET. The VIC-20 was the first computer of any description to sell one million units. Codo Technologies was a video game developer founded by Julian Gollop and others, including brother Nick Gollop, continuing the line of sophisticated strategy war games started at their previous company Mythos Games. Gollop is especially known for his role in the creation of the "X-COM" video game series. Codo Technologies has released two games: "Laser Squad Nemesis", a PC turn-based tactics game and "", a Game Boy Advance turn-based tactical role-playing game. In late 2010, Codo Technologies closed up shop, shortly after negotiating turning control of the "Laser Squad Nemesis" servers and maintenance to the long term fans of the game. Atari Corporation was an American manufacturer of computers and video game consoles from 1984 to 1996. Atari Corp. was founded in July 1984 when Warner Communications sold the home computing and game console divisions of Atari, Inc. to Jack Tramiel. Its chief products were the Atari ST, , Atari 7800, Atari Lynx, and Atari Jaguar. The company reverse merged with JTS Inc. in 1996, becoming a small division, which itself closed when JTS liquidated the IP to Hasbro Interactive in 1998. MSX is the name of a standardized home computer architecture, first announced by Microsoft on June 16, 1983, and marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, then Vice-president at Microsoft Japan and Director at ASCII Corporation. Microsoft conceived the project as an attempt to create unified standards among various hardware makers of the period. In 1986, Kazuhiko Nishi's and Gates' paths became separate and he left Microsoft to devote himself mostly to ASCII Corporation together with NEC executive Kazuya Watanabe. ASCII was once the biggest multimedia empire on the west side of the Pacific, but after its expansion and failure, it became a subsidiary of Kadokawa Group Holdings in 2004, and merged with another Kadokawa subsidiary MediaWorks on April 1, 2008, and became ASCII Media Works. Since 1986 Nishi has written for newspapers and authored a number of books. He sat in several committees on behalf of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and he is a member of the Committee for World Economy in the 21st Century. Nishi is the president of MSX Association, a private organization originating from an assembly of people with affinity with the MSX standard, and the president of Digital do MaiN, audio engineering company. Commodore International (or Commodore International Limited) was a North American home computer and electronics manufacturer. Commodore International (CI), along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Machines (CBM), participated in the development of the homepersonal computer industry in the 1970s and 1980s. The company developed and marketed one of the world's best-selling desktop computers, the Commodore 64 (1982) and released its Amiga computer line in July 1985. X-COM (sometimes stylized as "X-Com") is a science fiction video game franchise featuring an elite international organization tasked with countering alien invasions of Earth. The series began with the strategy video game "" created by Mythos Games and MicroProse in 1994. The original line up by MicroProse included six published and at least two cancelled games, as well as two novels. The "X-COM" series, in particular its original entry, achieved a sizable cult following and has influenced many other video games; including the creation of a number of clones, spiritual successors, and unofficial remakes. The IBM System/360 introduced byte-addressable memory with 8-bit bytes, as opposed to bit-addressable or decimal digit-addressable or word-addressable memory, although its general purpose registers were 32 bits wide, and addresses were contained in the lower 24 bits of those addresses. Different models of System/360 had different internal data path widths; the IBM System/360 Model 30 (1965) implemented the 32-bit System/360 architecture, but had an 8 bit native path width, and performed 32-bit arithmetic 8 bits at a time. The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, C-64, C= 64, or occasionally CBM 64 or VIC-64 in Sweden, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International. It is listed in the Guinness World Records as the highest-selling single computer model of all time, with independent estimates placing the number sold between 10 and 17 million units. Volume production started in early 1982, marketing in August for . Preceded by the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore PET, the C64 took its name from its of RAM. It had superior sound and graphical specifications compared to other earlier systems such as the Apple II and Atari 800, with multi-color sprites and a more advanced sound processor. The Amiga is a family of personal computers sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. Based on the Motorola 68000 family of microprocessors, the machine has a custom chipset with graphics and sound capabilities that were unprecedented for the price, and a pre-emptive multitasking operating system called AmigaOS. The Amiga provided a significant upgrade from earlier 8-bit home computers, including Commodore's own C64. Mythos Games was a British video game developer company founded by Julian Gollop in 1988 as Target Games and best known for its acclaimed 1994 strategy game "". Following the bankruptcy of Mythos Games in 2001, Gollop founded Codo Technologies. The Motorola 68000 ("'sixty-eight-thousand'"; also called the m68k or Motorola 68k, ""sixty-eight-kay"") is a 32-bit CISC microprocessor with a 16-bit external data bus, designed and marketed by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector (later Freescale Semiconductor, now NXP). Introduced in 1979 with HMOS technology as the first member of the successful 32-bit m68k family of microprocessors, it is generally software forward compatible with the rest of the line despite being limited to a 16-bit wide external bus. After 37 years in production, the 68000 architecture is still in use. AmigaOS is the proprietary native operating system of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early versions of AmigaOS required the Motorola 68000 series of 16-bit and 32-bit microprocessors. Later versions were developed by Haage & Partner (AmigaOS 3.5 and 3.9) and then Hyperion Entertainment (AmigaOS 4.0-4.1). A PowerPC microprocessor is required for the most recent release, AmigaOS 4. The Amstrad CPC (short for "Colour Personal Computer") is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and the German-speaking parts of Europe. Laser Squad is a turn - based tactics video game , originally released for the ZX Spectrum and later for the Commodore 64 , Amstrad CPC , MSX , Amiga and Atari ST and PC computers . It was designed by Julian Gollop and his team at Target Games ( later Mythos Games and Codo Technologies ) and published by Blade Software , expanding on the ideas applied in their previous Rebelstar series of games . Laser Squad originally came with five mission scenarios , with an expansion pack released for the 8 - bit versions , containing a further two scenarios . Reaction from gaming magazines was positive , gaining it high review rating and several accolades . The legacy of the game can be seen in other titles like the X-COM series , especially the acclaimed UFO : Enemy Unknown which was also created by Julian Gollop and was initially conceived as a sequel to Laser Squad . Laser Squad Nemesis ("LSN") is a 2002 multiplayer turn-based tactics video game developed by Codo Technologies for the PC. Its lead designer, Julian Gollop, previously designed the "X-COM" series and the original "Laser Squad". The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 and manufactured until 1992. All of the machines in the family are technically similar, and differ primarily in packaging. They are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU running at 1.79 MHz, and were the first home computers designed with custom co-processor chips. This architecture allowed the Atari designs to offer graphics and sound capabilities that were more advanced than contemporary machines like the Apple II or Commodore PET, and gaming on the platform was a major draw. "Star Raiders" is widely considered the platform's killer app. Julian Gollop is a British designer of strategy games and strategy video games, and the founder of now-defunct game studios Mythos Games (Target Games) and Codo Technologies. Gollop has designed many video games for numerous systems since the early 1980s. His most popular work to date is the "X-COM" series of science fiction games, in particular the first and third games in the series, on which he worked together with his brother, Nick, for MicroProse. Microsoft Corporation (commonly referred to as Microsoft or MS) is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington, that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, Microsoft Office office suite, and Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface tablet lineup. As of 2016, it was the world's largest software maker by revenue, and one of the world's most valuable companies. The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) is a line of home/personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A top-seller in the Canadian and United States educational markets, it was Commodore's first full-featured computer, and formed the basis for their entire 8-bit product line, including the Commodore 64. The first model, which was named the PET 2001, was the third personal computer ever made available to retail consumers, after the Apple II and TRS-80. The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd. It was manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, in the now closed Timex factory. The Atari ST is a line of home computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial ST model, the 520ST, saw limited release in the spring of 1985 and was widely available in July. The Atari ST is the first personal computer to come with a bit-mapped color GUI, using a version of Digital Research's GEM released in February 1985. The 1040ST, released in 1986, is the first personal computer to ship with a megabyte of RAM in the base configuration and also the first with a cost-per-kilobyte of less than US$1. History.
  19771990: Founding and first projects.
  ASCII was founded in 1977 by Kazuhiko Nishi and Keiichiro Tsukamoto. Originally a publisher of a magazine with the same name "ASCII", talks between Bill Gates and Nishi led to a creation of Microsoft's first overseas sales office, ASCII Microsoft, in 1979. Nishi was also known for being the creator of the MSX in 1983, an 8-bit standard computer well known in the former USSR and Japan. In 1984, ASCII engaged itself in semiconductor business, followed by a further expansion into commercial online service in 1985 under the brand of ASCII-NET. As the popularity of home video game systems soared in the 1980s, ASCII became active in the development and publishing of software and peripherals for popular consoles such as the Family Computer and Mega Drive. After Microsoft's public stock offering in 1986, ASCII Microsoft was dissolved. At around the same time, the company was also obliged to reform itself as a result of its aggressive diversification in the first half of the 1980s. The company went public in 1989. Motorola, Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company was divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011. Motorola Solutions is generally considered to be the direct successor to Motorola, Inc., as the reorganization was structured with Motorola Mobility being spun off. Motorola Mobility was acquired by Lenovo in 2014. Guinness World Records, known from its inception in 1955 until 1998 as The Guinness Book of Records and in previous U.S. editions as The Guinness Book of World Records, is a reference book published annually, listing world records and national records, both of human achievements and the extremes of the natural world. The book itself holds a world record, as the best-selling copyrighted book of all time. As of the 2017 edition, it is now in its 63rd year of publication, published in 100 countries and 23 languages.
  The international franchise has extended beyond print to include television series and museums. The popularity of the franchise has resulted in "Guinness World Records" becoming the primary international authority on the cataloguing and verification of a huge number of world records; the organisation employs official record adjudicators authorised to verify the authenticity of the setting and breaking of records.
candidates: 10 1000 11 16 1955 1972 1977 1979 1980 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2 20 2001 2002 2004 2010 2011 2015 2016 2017 21 22 24 2600 3 4 6 7800 8 july 1984 july 1985
answer: 1988