Three Mile Island | |
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Publisher(s) | Muse Software |
Programmer(s) | Richard Orban [1] |
Platform(s) | Apple II |
Release | 1979 1980: Special Edition |
Genre(s) | Simulation |
Three Mile Island is an Apple II game written by Richard Orban and published by Muse Software in 1979. Three Mile Island: Special Edition is a 1980 update that is written in 6502 assembly language instead of Integer BASIC. [1]
The game gets its name from the Three Mile Island accident, which occurred the same year as its release. The date the game is set is December 30th, 1978 - which was also the day Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station went into commercial operation.
Three Mile Island is a simulation game set in a nuclear power plant with an impending nuclear meltdown. [2]
Bruce F. Webster reviewed Three Mile Island in The Space Gamer No. 34. Webster commented that "Three Mile Island is not a cheap piece of software, in any sense of the term. But for those of you with the interest and the money, I can recommend it to you without reservations." [2]
Gamma World is a post-apocalyptic science fantasy role-playing game in which player characters explore Earth centuries after the collapse of civilization, searching for artifacts from the time before "The Great Upheaval". The game was originally designed by James M. Ward and Gary Jaquet, and first published by TSR in 1978. It borrows heavily from Ward's earlier role-playing game, Metamorphosis Alpha.
FTL Games was the video game development division of Software Heaven Inc. FTL created several popular video games in the 1980s. Despite the company's small size, FTL products were consistently number-one sellers and received the highest critical acclaim and industry awards.
Micro Users Software Exchange, Inc., doing business as Muse Software, was an American video game developer based in Baltimore, Maryland, focusing on the development of games for the first generation of home computers. The company began with developing games for Apple II, and later expanded to the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit computers, and IBM PC compatibles. They are best known for creating the Wolfenstein series, having developed the first two installments: 1981's Castle Wolfenstein and its 1984 sequel, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. The brand name lapsed and was used by id Software.
RobotWar is a programming game written by Silas Warner. This game, along with the companion program RobotWrite, was originally developed in the TUTOR programming language on the PLATO system in the 1970s. Later the game was commercialized and adapted for the Apple II and published by Muse Software in 1981. The premise is that in the distant future of 2002, war was declared hazardous to human health, and now countries settled their differences in a battle arena full of combat robots. As the manual states, "The task set before you is: to program a robot, that no other robot can destroy!"
Computer Gaming World (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through the 1990s and became one of the largest dedicated video game magazines, reaching around 500 pages by 1997.
Creative Computing was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format than the rather technically oriented Byte.
Bruce F. Webster is an American academic and software engineer. He is a principal at Bruce F. Webster & Associates and an adjunct professor in computer science at Brigham Young University.
Rescue at Rigel is a 1980 science fiction role-playing video game written and published by Automated Simulations. It is based on a modified version of their Temple of Apshai game engine, which was used for most of their releases in this era. The game was released for the Apple II, IBM PC, TRS-80, PET, VIC-20, and Atari 8-bit computers.
Galactic Attack is a 1980 space combat simulator video game written by Robert Woodhead for the Apple II and published by the company he co-founded, Siro-Tech. It is a single-player adaptation of the game Empire from the PLATO mainframe network.
B-1 Nuclear Bomber is a flight simulator developed by Avalon Hill and Microcomputer Games and released in 1980 for the Apple II and other computers. The game is based on piloting a B-1 Lancer to its target and dropping a nuclear bomb. The USSR is one of the target countries.
Terrorist is a real-time, two-player strategy game developed by Steven Pederson of Edu-Ware Services for the Apple II and published in 1980. One player plays the government authority, while the other plays a terrorist organization in three scenarios: the capture of a building and taking of hostages, air piracy, and nuclear blackmail. Players make their moves at the same time through the use of game paddles. Winner and loser is judged by an elaborate scoring system based upon the government player's societal values and the terrorist player's goals.
The Count is a text adventure written by Scott Adams and published by Adventure International in 1979. The player character has been sent to defeat the vampire Count Dracula by the local Transylvanian villagers, and must obtain and use items from around the vampire's castle in order to defeat him.
SoftSide is a defunct computer magazine, begun in October 1978 by Roger Robitaille and published by SoftSide Publications of Milford, New Hampshire.
Quality Software is a defunct American software developer and publisher which created games, business software, and development tools for the Exidy Sorcerer, Apple II, and Atari 8-bit computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Asteroids in Space, written by programmer Bruce Wallace, was voted one of the most popular games of 1978-80 by Softalk magazine.
Global War is a 1979 video game published by Muse Software for the Apple II. It was written in Applesoft BASIC by Alan M. Boyd.
ABM is a clone of Atari, Inc.'s Missile Command arcade video game. It was programmed for the Apple II by Silas Warner and published by Muse Software in 1980, the same year as Missile Command.
Purser's Magazine was a computer magazine by Robert Elliott Purser and edited by Mary Ann Dobson.
Sorcerer of Siva is a 1981 video game published by Automated Simulations for the Apple II and TRS-80. The last standalone Dunjonquest game, Sorcerer of Siva is not as large as the major releases in the series, but also not as small as the MicroQuests.
Instant Software was a company that produced game, utility, and education software in the late 1970s and early 1980s primarily for the TRS-80 line of home computers. Instant Software was a subsidiary of Kilobaud Microcomputing, headquartered in Peterborough, New Hampshire and run by Wayne Green.
Galaxy is a 1981 video game published by Avalon Hill and developed by Microcomputer Games for the Apple II, TRS-80, Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore PET, Commodore 64, IBM PC compatibles, FM-7, and TI-99/4A. It was originally published as Galactic Empires by Powersoft in 1979.