Questions tagged [gaming-history]
Questions about the history of games, conventions, customs, traditions and gaming terms, and how they have developed over time.
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Did Game Boy emulation exist for the 486 era (MS-DOS and Windows 3.1)? [closed]
The title says it all: Did we have working emulators for the 486/MS-DOS era back then? Would a 486 be capable enough to run a Game Boy emulator? If so what were they like?
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Is Pearl the first Nintendo character to swear?
Splatoon 2's Octo Expansion has a song called "#$@%* Dudes Be #$@%* Sleepin", which was Pearl's demo before she joined Off The Hook. In it, Pearl earns a lengthy bleep to cover up some kind of ...
user149305
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Origin of the name "gaming console"
Why are they called "consoles"?
AFAIK, In computing, the name "console" for machine interface came from the fact, that initially it was a literal console table with typewriter on it. But gaming ...
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What tools were used to analyze & challenge the records for Dragster?
I was reading an article on Polygon which was talking about a longstanding record for an Atari Game called Dragster. In the article it was talking about how people challenged the record by using "...
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Where did the Waluigi myth come from?
A while ago, I heard there was a myth about unlocking Waluigi as a playable character in the DS port of Super Mario 64. I've looked around the internet for the origin but all I can find are ROM hacks....
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Is there any truth to the myth of Polybius?
There is an old urban legend about an arcade game Polybius.
An arcade machine that would have been made to be a government experiment, appeared just for a few days in a few arcades, and then some men ...
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Around what year did games go widescreen? [closed]
I am building a WinXP box to play games I have trouble with on Win10, and I am thinking of placing a 4:3 screen on it, as I didn't think games really supported widescreen until probably well after ...
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Where does the colour-coded item rarity come from?
In most new titles, especially RPGs, item rarity is colour coded in an easy to remember white-green-blue-purple-orange progression, sometimes with omissions (no green, no orange) or additions (extra ...
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What happened on September 24 1990 (or 1998) at 08:24?
I’ve just bought Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. It’s a great game! Played through the first world already.
There are retro pop culture references all over it!
Anyway, in the opening scene there is ...
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What are Typing Jet and De La Jet Set Radio?
On the tag wiki page for jet-set-radio, I noticed that one of the listed platforms was java-micro-edition, with two Japanese only releases from 2001 under the names De La Jet Set Radio and Typing Jet.
...
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What is Blast processing?
Back in the Super Nintendo era, Sega's whole Marketing campaign hinged on one thing: Blast Processing.
I don't think I've ever seen it explained. It was just "WE GOT IT AND NINTENDONT."
So, What is ...
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What was the first Mario game that featured taking down Bowser with 3 hits?
In all of the Mario games I played (which are not that many), I have to take down Bowser with three hits. I was wondering which Mario game first had that specific gameplay mechanism, since it seems to ...
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Unsold Atari videogames dumped in a desert?
I've heard about a massive amount of Atari consoles and video game cartridges (most of them were unsold copies of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) buried in a sort of dump in the middle of a desert in the ...
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How did people discover the Konami Code?
Everybody knows it, everybody's done it, the famous Konami Code has been around for as long as cheat codes have existed, and is one of the most famous and well known cheat codes in history - most well ...
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Was the Atari 2600 the first home console to have a screen saver?
The Atari 2600 had a screen saver feature, where the colors of objects in the screen were randomly changed.
Was it the first home console to have such feature, if not who holds the title?
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Where does the term "quick time event" come from?
I know what the term quick time event means and that one of the first usages of the gameplay element was in Dragon's Lair, but I don't know why they are called that. Was that the term used by Dragon's ...
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How were cheats for the GTA games on PC found?
I Googled around a lot but came across only 1 such example where some guy tried combinations (permutations?) on his PS2 controller. But that does not give me the reason how the ones on PC are found.
...
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When were achievements, especially their timestamps, introduced to Steam?
I need to know for a project centered around achievements, furthermore the date they were unlocked. I want to mitigate the fact that some achievements before a certain date had no timestamps for ...
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What is the etymology of the term "Console Wars"?
(After this discussion on Meta, the question has been undeleted.)
As we know today, there is a competition between the holy trinity of the console gaming industry (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) about ...
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Why does the original Game Boy support four shades of grey? [closed]
Why does the Game Boy specifically support four shades of grey, why not three or five? Is there something about the hardware that made four colours optimal?
Was there a precedent to using four shades ...
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How do people discover cheat codes in games?
Cheat codes are programmed into some games by developers. As an example: Have you ever played International Super Star Soccer 64? Well this game had several codes that would unlock new teams, give the ...
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What factors contributed to E.T's reputation as a bad game?
According to a documentary on Atari called Game Over it is stated that "ET" is the worst video game ever made.
Why is that?
I played the game when it was released, and although very young, I ...
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What sort of hardware was used to transfer Mew at Pokemon Red & Blue worldwide events?
Many years ago when Pokemon Red / Blue was immensely popular, I attended a Pokemon tour in Melbourne. For attending you got a showbag with a Pikachu trading card (with a gold logo stamped in the top ...
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Origin of achievements
Achievements have become pretty standard in games (and other gamified content, like Stack Exchange) these days. However, they definitely weren’t part of “classic” gaming, in the arcade/8-bit/16-bit ...
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How did the term 'buff' originate?
I was interested in learning that the term 'nerf' originated from Nerf gun toys. The opposite of nerf is buff, but I have found no information on the origin of it.
In the video game community, how ...
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What is the origin of the WASD key scheme?
My gaming memories go way back to the Atari 2600 with its single-button gamepad, and with computer gaming I started with the PC XT.
Back in the day, movement would be controlled by the arrows and ...
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Why do Electronic Arts games for Genesis (Mega Drive) have a different cartridge size?
Why do Electronic Arts games for Genesis (Mega Drive) have a different cartridge size?
Jungle Strike Cartridge:
NHL95:
The Immortal:
"Normal" USA/Europe cartridge:
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Is Ivan 'Ironman' Stewart's Super Off Road the first game to implement paid upgrades?
I went to the arcade recently and played Ivan 'Ironman' Stewart's Super Off Road (long name) for the first time. I noticed you could put tokens in the machine with the purpose of buying upgrades for ...
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First DOS videogame ever?
I wanna know the first videogame ever released for DOS (any version of it). When I was a kid I was a heavy user of DOS, and I remember playing lots of very old games which were developed way before I ...
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Who wrote the game 'The Pits'?
I'm looking for info on a game called 'The Pits', a text based adventure game which was on "The Source", a BBS computer system in the early 80s.
Who wrote this game? Was it ever ported to more modern ...
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Where did 'Soon™' originate?
I've seen coming Soon™ attached to some Valve and Blizzard products, but did it start with one of them (and if so, which)? What was the first game (or other product) that was to be launched with the ...
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How did the term 'noob' originate?
The terms 'n00b', 'nub', and 'newby' are all over gamer culture, but where did they come from? Did someone just decide we need a general word for someone who is unskilled? Is it a corruption of 'new' ...
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Did any of Metagaming Concepts' board games make it to the PC?
I loved Metagaming Concepts' board games like Ogre and WarpWar and always thought that they could have been made into PC games.
Did any of Metagaming Concepts' board games make it to the PC?
user273
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