title: History of personal computers

text: The Xerox Alto, developed at Xerox PARC in 1973, was the first computer to use a mouse, the desktop metaphor, and a graphical user interface (GUI), concepts first introduced by Douglas Engelbart while at International. It was the first example of what would today be recognized as a complete personal computer. The first machines were introduced on 1 March 1973.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 1981, Xerox Corporation introduced the Xerox Star workstation, officially known as the "8010 Star Information System". Drawing upon its predecessor, the Xerox Alto, it was the first commercial system to incorporate various technologies that today have become commonplace in personal computers, including a bit-mapped display, a windows-based graphical user interface, icons, folders, mouse, Ethernet networking, file servers, print servers and e-mail.


title: History of personal computers

text: While its use was limited to the engineers at Xerox PARC, the Alto had features years ahead of its time. Both the Xerox Alto and the Xerox Star would inspire the Apple Lisa and the Apple Macintosh.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 1972-1973 a team led by Dr. Paul Friedl at the IBM Los Gatos Scientific Center developed a portable computer prototype called SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) based on the IBM PALM processor with a Philips compact cassette drive, small CRT and full function keyboard. SCAMP emulated an IBM 1130 minicomputer in order to run APL\1130. In 1973 APL was generally available only on mainframe computers, and most desktop sized microcomputers such as the Wang 2200 or HP 9800 offered only BASIC. Because it was the first to emulate APL\1130 performance on a portable, single-user computer, "PC Magazine" in 1983 designated SCAMP a "revolutionary concept" and "the world's first personal computer". The prototype is in the Smithsonian Institution.


title: History of personal computers

text: IBM 5100 was a desktop computer introduced in September 1975, six years before the IBM PC. It was the evolution of SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) that IBM demonstrated in 1973. In January 1978 IBM announced the IBM 5110, its larger cousin. The 5100 was withdrawn in March 1982.


title: History of personal computers

text: When the PC was introduced in 1981, it was originally designated as the IBM 5150, putting it in the "5100" series, though its architecture wasn't directly descended from the IBM 5100.


title: History of personal computers

text: Development of the single-chip microprocessor was the gateway to the popularization of cheap, easy to use, and truly personal computers. It was only a matter of time before one such design was able to hit a sweet spot in terms of pricing and performance, and that machine is generally considered to be the Altair 8800, from MITS, a small company that produced electronics kits for hobbyists.


title: History of personal computers

text: The Altair was introduced in a "Popular Electronics" magazine article in the January 1975 issue. In keeping with MITS's earlier projects, the Altair was sold in kit form, although a relatively complex one consisting of four circuit boards and many parts. Priced at only $400, the Altair tapped into pent-up demand and surprised its creators when it generated thousands of orders in the first month. Unable to keep up with demand, MITS sold the design after about 10,000 kits had shipped.


title: History of personal computers

text: The introduction of the Altair spawned an entire industry based on the basic layout and internal design. New companies like Cromemco started up to supply add-on kits, while Microsoft was founded to supply a BASIC interpreter for the systems. Soon after, a number of complete "clone" designs, typified by the IMSAI 8080, appeared on the market. This led to a wide variety of systems based on the S-100 bus introduced with the Altair, machines of generally improved performance, quality and ease-of-use.


title: History of personal computers

text: The Altair, and early clones, were relatively difficult to use. The machines contained no operating system in ROM, so starting it up required a machine language program to be entered by hand via front-panel switches, one location at a time. The program was typically a small driver for an attached cassette tape reader, which would then be used to read in another "real" program. Later systems added bootstrapping code to improve this process, and the machines became almost universally associated with the CP/M operating system, loaded from floppy disk.


title: History of personal computers

text: The Altair created a new industry of microcomputers and computer kits, with many others following, such as a wave of small business computers in the late 1970s based on the Intel 8080, Zilog Z80 and Intel 8085 microprocessor chips. Most ran the CP/M-80 operating system developed by Gary Kildall at Digital Research. CP/M-80 was the first popular microcomputer operating system to be used by many different hardware vendors, and many software packages were written for it, such as WordStar and dBase II.


title: History of personal computers

text: Although the Altair spawned an entire business, another side effect it had was to demonstrate that the microprocessor had so reduced the cost and complexity of building a microcomputer that anyone with an interest could build their own. Many such hobbyists met and traded notes at the meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club (HCC) in Silicon Valley. Although the HCC was relatively short-lived, its influence on the development of the modern PC was enormous.


title: History of personal computers

text: Members of the group complained that microcomputers would never become commonplace if they still had to be built up, from parts like the original Altair, or even in terms of assembling the various add-ons that turned the machine into a useful system. What they felt was needed was an all-in-one system. Out of this desire came the Sol-20 computer, which placed an entire S-100 system – QWERTY keyboard, CPU, display card, memory and ports – into an attractive single box. The systems were packaged with a cassette tape interface for storage and a 12" monochrome monitor. Complete with a copy of BASIC, the system sold for US$2,100. About 10,000 Sol-20 systems were sold.


title: History of personal computers

text: Although the Sol-20 was the first all-in-one system that we would recognize today, the basic concept was already rippling through other members of the group, and interested external companies.


title: History of personal computers

text: Other 1977 machines that were important within the hobbyist community at the time included the Exidy Sorcerer, the NorthStar Horizon, the Cromemco Z-2, and the Heathkit H8.


title: History of personal computers

text: By 1976, there were several firms racing to introduce the first truly successful commercial personal computers. Three machines, the Apple II, PET 2001 and TRS-80 were all released in 1977, becoming the most popular by late 1978. "Byte" magazine later referred to Commodore, Apple, and Tandy as the "1977 Trinity". Also in 1977, Sord Computer Corporation released the Sord M200 Smart Home Computer in Japan.


title: History of personal computers

text: Steve Wozniak (known as "Woz"), a regular visitor to Homebrew Computer Club meetings, designed the single-board Apple I computer and first demonstrated it there. With specifications in hand and an order for 100 machines at US$500 each from the Byte Shop, Woz and his friend Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer.


title: History of personal computers

text: About 200 of the machines sold before the company announced the Apple II as a complete computer. It had color graphics, a full QWERTY keyboard, and internal slots for expansion, which were mounted in a high quality streamlined plastic case. The monitor and I/O devices were sold separately. The original Apple II operating system was only the built-in BASIC interpreter contained in ROM. Apple DOS was added to support the diskette drive; the last version was "Apple DOS 3.3".


title: History of personal computers

text: Its higher price and lack of floating point BASIC, along with a lack of retail distribution sites, caused it to lag in sales behind the other Trinity machines until 1979, when it surpassed the PET. It was again pushed into 4th place when Atari introduced its popular Atari 8-bit systems.


title: History of personal computers

text: Despite slow initial sales, the Apple II's lifetime was about eight years longer than other machines, and so accumulated the highest total sales. By 1985 2.1 million had sold and more than 4 million Apple II's were shipped by the end of its production in 1993.


title: History of personal computers

text: Chuck Peddle designed the "Commodore PET" (short for Personal Electronic Transactor) around his MOS 6502 processor. It was essentially a single-board computer with a simple TTL-based CRT driver circuit driving a small built-in monochrome monitor with 40×25 character graphics. The processor card, keyboard, monitor and cassette drive were all mounted in a single metal case. In 1982, "Byte" referred to the PET design as "the world's first personal computer".


title: History of personal computers

text: The PET shipped in two models; the 2001–4 with 4 KB of RAM, and the 2001–8 with 8 KB. The machine also included a built-in Datassette for data storage located on the front of the case, which left little room for the keyboard. The 2001 was announced in June 1977 and the first 100 units were shipped in mid October 1977. However they remained back-ordered for months, and to ease deliveries they eventually canceled the 4 KB version early the next year.


title: History of personal computers

text: Although the machine was fairly successful, there were frequent complaints about the tiny calculator-like keyboard, often referred to as a "Chiclet keyboard" due to the keys' resemblance to the popular gum candy. This was addressed in the upgraded "dash N" and "dash B" versions of the 2001, which put the cassette outside the case, and included a much larger keyboard with a full stroke non-click motion. Internally a newer and simpler motherboard was used, along with an upgrade in memory to 8, 16, or 32 KB, known as the 2001-N-8, 2001-N-16 or 2001-N-32, respectively.


title: History of personal computers

text: Tandy Corporation (Radio Shack) introduced the TRS-80, retroactively known as the Model I as the company expanded the line with more powerful models. The Model I combined motherboard and keyboard into one unit with a separate monitor and power supply. Tandy's 3000+ Radio Shack storefronts ensured the computer would have widespread distribution and support (repair, upgrade, training services) that neither Apple nor Commodore could touch.


title: History of personal computers

text: The Model I used a Zilog Z80 processor clocked at 1.77 MHz (later specimens shipped with the Z80A). The basic model originally shipped with 4 KB of RAM and Level 1 BASIC produced in-house. RAM in the first 4 KB machines was upgradeable to 16 KB and Level 2 Microsoft BASIC, which became the standard basic configuration. An Expansion Interface provided sockets for further RAM expansion to 48 KB. Its other strong features were its full stroke QWERTY keyboard with numeric keypad (lacking in the very first units but upgradeable), small size, well written Microsoft floating-point BASIC and inclusion of a 64 column monitor and tape deck—all for approximately half the cost of the Apple II. Eventually, 5.25 inch floppy drives and megabyte-capacity hard disks were made available by Tandy and third parties. The Expansion Interface provided for up to four floppy drives and hard drives to be daisy-chained, a slot for an RS-232 serial port and a parallel port for printers. With the (later) LDOS operating system double-sided 80-track floppy drives were supported, and features such as Disk Basic with support for overlays and suspended/background programs, device independent data redirection, Job Control Language (batch processing), flexible backup and file maintenance, typeahead and keyboard macros.


title: History of personal computers

text: The Model I could not meet FCC regulations on radio interference due to its plastic case and exterior cables. Apple resolved the issue with an interior metallic foil but the solution would not work for Tandy with the Model I. The Model I also suffered from problems with its cabling between its CPU and Expansion Interface (spontaneous reboots) and keyboard bounce (keystrokes would randomly repeat), and the earliest versions of TRSDOS similarly had technical troubles. Though these issues were quickly or eventually resolved, the computer suffered in some quarters from a reputation for poor build quality. Nevertheless, all the early microcomputer manufacturers experienced similar difficulties. Since the Model II and Model III were already in production by 1981 Tandy decided to stop manufacturing the Model I. Radio Shack sold some 1.5 million Model I's. The line continued until late 1991 when the TRS-80 Model 4 was at last retired.


title: History of personal computers

text: Similarly to the American trinity, Japan has a term for their own most important machines of that era: "" (8ビット御三家, "hachi-bitto gosanke"). It consists of the (1978-09), Sharp MZ-80K (1978-12) and the NEC PC-8001 (announced 1979-05, shipped 1979-09). Each of these was the first of a series of machines from each manufacturer; NEC and Sharp continued these 8-bit lines into the late 1980s but Hitachi ended the series in 1984 as it was replaced in the "gosanke" by Fujitsu (see below).


title: History of personal computers

text: "Byte" in January 1980 announced in an editorial that "the era of off-the-shelf personal computers has arrived". The magazine stated that "a desirable contemporary personal computer has 64 K of memory, about 500 K bytes of mass storage on line, any old competently designed computer architecture, upper and lowercase video terminal, printer, and high-level languages". The author reported that when he needed to purchase such a computer quickly he did so at a local store for $6000 in cash, and cited it as an example of "what the state of the art is at present ... as a mass-produced product". By early that year Radio Shack, Commodore, and Apple manufactured the vast majority of the one half-million microcomputers that existed. As component prices continued to fall, many companies entered the computer business. This led to an explosion of low-cost machines known as home computers that sold millions of units before the market imploded in a price war in the early 1980s.


title: History of personal computers

text: Atari, Inc. was a well-known brand in the late 1970s, both due to their hit arcade games like "Pong", as well as the hugely successful Atari VCS game console. Realizing that the VCS would have a limited lifetime in the market before a technically advanced competitor came along, Atari decided they would be that competitor, and started work on a new console design that was much more advanced.


title: History of personal computers

text: While these designs were being developed, the Trinity machines hit the market with considerable fanfare. Atari's management decided to change their work to a home computer system instead. Their knowledge of the home market through the VCS resulted in machines that were almost indestructible and just as easy to use as a games machine—simply plug in a cartridge and go. The new machines were first introduced as the Atari 400 and 800 in 1978, but production problems prevented widespread sales until the next year.


title: History of personal computers

text: With a trio of custom graphics and sound co-processors and a 6502 CPU clocked ~80% faster than most competitors, the Atari machines had capabilities that no other microcomputer could match. In spite of a promising start with about 600,000 sold by 1981, they were unable to compete effectively with Commodore's introduction of the Commodore 64 in 1982, and only about 2 million machines were produced by the end of their production run. The 400 and 800 were tweaked into superficially improved models—the 1200XL, 600XL, 800XL, 65XE—as well as the 130XE with 128K of bank-switched RAM.


title: History of personal computers

text: Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Sir Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. It was incorporated in 1973 as Ablesdeal Ltd. and renamed "Westminster Mail Order Ltd" and then "Sinclair Instrument Ltd." in 1975. The company remained dormant until 1976, when it was activated with the intention of continuing Sinclair's commercial work from his earlier company Sinclair Radionics; it adopted the name Sinclair Research in 1981. In 1980, Clive Sinclair entered the home computer market with the ZX80 at £99.95, at the time the cheapest personal computer for sale in the UK. In 1982 the ZX Spectrum was released, later becoming Britain's best selling computer, competing aggressively against Commodore and British Amstrad. At the height of its success, and largely inspired by the Japanese Fifth Generation Computer programme, the company established the "MetaLab" research centre at Milton Hall (near Cambridge), in order to pursue artificial intelligence, wafer-scale integration, formal verification and other advanced projects. The combination of the failures of the Sinclair QL computer and the TV80 led to financial difficulties in 1985, and a year later Sinclair sold the rights to their computer products and brand name to Amstrad. Sinclair Research Ltd exists today as a one-man company, continuing to market Sir Clive Sinclair's newest inventions.


title: History of personal computers

text: The ZX80 home computer was launched in February 1980 at £79.95 in kit form and £99.95 ready-built. In November of the same year Science of Cambridge was renamed Sinclair Computers Ltd.


title: History of personal computers

text: The ZX81 (known as the TS 1000 in the United States) was priced at £49.95 in kit form and £69.95 ready-built, by mail order.


title: History of personal computers

text: The ZX Spectrum was launched on 23 April 1982, priced at £125 for the 16 KB RAM version and £175 for the 48 KB version.


title: History of personal computers

text: The Sinclair QL was announced in January 1984, priced at £399. Marketed as a more sophisticated 32-bit microcomputer for professional users, it used a Motorola 68008 processor. Production was delayed by several months, due to unfinished development of hardware and software at the time of the QL's launch.


title: History of personal computers

text: The ZX Spectrum 128, with RAM expanded to 128 KB, a sound chip and other enhancements, was launched in Spain in September 1985 and the UK in January 1986, priced at £179.95.


title: History of personal computers

text: Texas Instruments, at the time the world's largest chip manufacturer, decided to enter the home computer market with the TI-99/4. The first home computer designed around a 16-bit microprocessor, its specs on paper were far ahead of the competition, and Texas Instruments had enormous cash reserves and development capability.


title: History of personal computers

text: When it was released in late 1979, Texas Instruments initially focused on schools. Despite the 16-bit processor and custom video processor with sprite support, architectural restrictions meant prevented it from living up to expectations. It was updated to the TI-99/4A in 1981. A total of 2.8 million units were shipped between the two models, many at bargain basement prices resulting from a price war with Commodore in 1982-83, before the TI-99/4A was discontinued in March 1984.


title: History of personal computers

text: Realizing that the PET could not easily compete with color machines like the Apple II and Atari, Commodore introduced the VIC-20 in 1980 to address the home market. The tiny 5 KB memory and its relatively limited display in comparison to those machines was offset by a low and ever falling price. Millions of VIC-20s were sold.


title: History of personal computers

text: The best-selling personal computer of all time was released by Commodore International in 1982. The Commodore 64 sold over 17 million units. The C64 name derived from its 64 KB of RAM. It used the 6510 microprocessor, a variant of the 6502, made by MOS Technology then owned by Commodore.


title: History of personal computers

text: The BBC became interested in running a computer literacy series, and sent out a tender for a standardized small computer to be used with the show. After examining several entrants, they selected what was then known as the Acorn Proton and made a number of minor changes to produce the BBC Micro. The Micro was relatively expensive, which limited its commercial appeal, but with widespread marketing, BBC support and wide variety of programs, the system eventually sold as many as 1.5 million units. Acorn was rescued from obscurity, and went on to develop the ARM processor ("Acorn RISC Machine") to power follow-on designs. The ARM is widely used to this day, powering a wide variety of products like the iPhone. ARM processors also run the Fugaku, one of the world's fastest supercomputers. The Micro is not to be confused with the BBC Micro Bit, another BBC microcomputer released in March 2016.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 1982, the TI 99/4A and Atari 400 were both $349, Radio Shack's Color Computer sold at $379, and Commodore had reduced the price of the VIC-20 to $199 and the Commodore 64 to $499 shortly after C64 release. In the early 1970s, Texas Instruments had forced Commodore from the calculator market by dropping the price of its own-brand calculators to less than the cost of the chipsets it sold to third parties to make the same design. Commodore's CEO, Jack Tramiel, vowed that this would not happen again, and purchased MOS Technology in 1976 to ensure a supply of chips. With his supply guaranteed, and good control over the component pricing, Tramiel launched a war against Texas Instruments soon after the introduction of the Commodore 64.


title: History of personal computers

text: Vertically integrated, Commodore lowered the retail price of the C64 to $300 at the June 1983 Consumer Electronics Show, and stores sold it for as little as $199. At one point the company was selling as many computers as the rest of the industry combined. Commodore—which even discontinued list prices—could make a profit when selling the C64 for a retail price of $200 because of vertical integration. Competitors also reduced prices; the Atari 800's price in July was $165, and by the time Texas Instruments was ready in 1983 to introduce the 99/2 computer—designed to sell for $99—the TI-99/4A sold for $99 in June. The 99/4A had sold for $400 in the fall of 1982, causing a loss for Texas Instruments of hundreds of millions of dollars. A Service Merchandise executive stated, "I've been in retailing 30 years and I have never seen any category of goods get on a self-destruct pattern like this." Such low prices probably hurt home computers' reputation; one retail executive said of the 99/4A, '"When they went to $99, people started asking 'What's wrong with it?'" The founder of "Compute!" stated in 1986 that "our market dropped from 300 percent growth per year to 20 percent".


title: History of personal computers

text: While Tramiel's target was TI, all competitors in the home computer market were hurt by the process; many companies went bankrupt or exited the business. In the end, even Commodore's own finances were crippled by the demands of financing the massive building expansion needed to deliver the machines, and Tramiel was forced from the company.


title: History of personal computers

text: From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, Japan's personal computer market was largely dominated by domestic computer products. NEC became the market leader following the release of the PC-8001 in 1979, continuing with the 8-bit PC-88 and 16-bit PC-98 series in the 1980s, but had early competition from the Sharp MZ and series, and later competition from the 8-bit Fujitsu FM-7, Sharp X1, MSX and MSX2 series and 16-bit FM Towns and Sharp X68000 series. Several of these systems were also released in Europe, MSX in particular gaining some popularity there.


title: History of personal computers

text: A key difference between early Western and Japanese systems was the latter's higher display resolutions (640x200 from 1979, and 640x400 from 1985) in order to accommodate Japanese text. Japanese computers also from the early 1980s employed Yamaha FM synthesis sound boards which produce higher quality sound. Japanese computers were widely used to produce video games, though only a small portion of Japanese PC games were released outside of the country. The most successful Japanese personal computer was NEC's PC-98, which sold more than 18 million units by 1999.


title: History of personal computers

text: IBM responded to the success of the Apple II with the IBM PC, released in August 1981. Like the Apple II and S-100 systems, it was based on an open, card-based architecture, which allowed third parties to develop for it. It used the Intel 8088 CPU running at 4.77 MHz, containing 29,000 transistors. The first model used an audio cassette for external storage, though there was an expensive floppy disk option. The cassette option was never popular and was removed in the PC XT of 1983. The XT added a 10 MB hard drive in place of one of the two floppy disks and increased the number of expansion slots from 5 to 8. While the original PC design could accommodate only up to 64 KB on the main board, the architecture was able to accommodate up to 640 KB of RAM, with the rest on cards. Later revisions of the design increased the limit to 256 KB on the main board.


title: History of personal computers

text: The IBM PC typically came with PC DOS, an operating system based on Gary Kildall's CP/M-80 operating system. In 1980, IBM approached Digital Research, Kildall's company, for a version of CP/M for its upcoming IBM PC. Kildall's wife and business partner, Dorothy McEwen, met with the IBM representatives who were unable to negotiate a standard non-disclosure agreement with her. IBM turned to Bill Gates, who was already providing the ROM BASIC interpreter for the PC. Gates offered to provide 86-DOS, developed by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products. IBM rebranded it as PC DOS, while Microsoft sold variations and upgrades as MS-DOS.


title: History of personal computers

text: The impact of the Apple II and the IBM PC was fully demonstrated when "Time" named the home computer the "Machine of the Year", or Person of the Year for 1982 (3 January 1983, "The Computer Moves In"). It was the first time in the history of the magazine that an inanimate object was given this award.


title: History of personal computers

text: The original PC design was followed up in 1983 by the IBM PC XT, which was an incrementally improved design; it omitted support for the cassette, had more card slots, and was available with a 10MB hard drive. Although mandatory at first, the hard drive was later made an option and a two floppy disk XT was sold. While the architectural memory limit of 640K was the same, later versions were more readily expandable.


title: History of personal computers

text: Although the PC and XT included a version of the BASIC language in read-only memory, most were purchased with disk drives and run with an operating system; three operating systems were initially announced with the PC. One was CP/M-86 from Digital Research, the second was PC DOS from IBM, and the third was the UCSD p-System (from the University of California at San Diego). PC DOS was the IBM branded version of an operating system from Microsoft, previously best known for supplying BASIC language systems to computer hardware companies. When sold by Microsoft, PC DOS was called MS-DOS. The UCSD p-System OS was built around the Pascal programming language and was not marketed to the same niche as IBM's customers. Neither the p-System nor CP/M-86 was a commercial success.


title: History of personal computers

text: Because MS-DOS was available as a separate product, some companies attempted to make computers available which could run MS-DOS and programs. These early machines, including the ACT Apricot, the DEC Rainbow 100, the Hewlett-Packard HP-150, the Seequa Chameleon and many others were not especially successful, as they required a customized version of MS-DOS, and could not run programs designed specifically for IBM's hardware. (See List of early non-IBM-PC-compatible PCs.)


title: History of personal computers

text: Because the IBM PC was based on relatively standard integrated circuits, and the basic card-slot design was not patented, the key portion of that hardware was actually the BIOS software embedded in read-only memory. This critical element got reverse engineered, and that opened the floodgates to the market for IBM PC imitators, which were dubbed "PC clones". At the time that IBM had decided to enter the personal computer market in response to Apple's early success, IBM was the giant of the computer industry and was expected to crush Apple's market share. But because of these shortcuts that IBM took to enter the market quickly, they ended up releasing a product that was easily copied by other manufacturers using off the shelf, non-proprietary parts. So in the long run, IBM's biggest role in the evolution of the personal computer was to establish the de facto standard for hardware architecture amongst a wide range of manufacturers. IBM's pricing was undercut to the point where IBM was no longer the significant force in development, leaving only the PC standard they had established. Emerging as the dominant force from this battle amongst hardware manufacturers who were vying for market share was the "software company" Microsoft that provided the operating system and utilities to all PCs across the board, whether authentic IBM machines or the PC clones.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 1984, IBM introduced the IBM Personal Computer/AT (more often called the PC/AT or AT) built around the Intel 80286 microprocessor. This chip was much faster, and could address up to 16MB of RAM but only in a mode that largely broke compatibility with the earlier 8086 and 8088. In particular, the MS-DOS operating system was not able to take advantage of this capability.


title: History of personal computers

text: The bus in the PC/AT was given the name Industry Standard Architecture (ISA). Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) was released in 1992, and was supposed to replace ISA.


title: History of personal computers

text: VESA Local Bus (VLB) and Extended ISA were also displaced by PCI, but a majority of later (post-1992) 486-based systems were featuring a VESA Local Bus video card. VLB importantly offered a less costly high speed interface for consumer systems, as only by 1994 was PCI commonly available outside of the server market.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 1983 Apple Computer introduced the first mass-marketed microcomputer with a graphical user interface, the Lisa. The Lisa ran on a Motorola 68000 microprocessor and came equipped with 1 megabyte of RAM, a black-and-white monitor, dual 5¼-inch floppy disk drives and a 5 megabyte Profile hard drive. The Lisa's slow operating speed and high price (US$10,000), however, led to its commercial failure.


title: History of personal computers

text: Drawing upon its experience with the Lisa, Apple launched the Macintosh in 1984, with an advertisement during the Super Bowl. The Macintosh was the first successful mass-market mouse-driven computer with a graphical user interface or 'WIMP' (Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pointers). Based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, the Macintosh included many of the Lisa's features at a price of US$2,495. The Macintosh was introduced with 128 KB of RAM and later that year a 512 KB RAM model became available. To reduce costs compared the Lisa, the year-younger Macintosh had a simplified motherboard design, no internal hard drive, and a single 3.5" floppy drive. Applications that came with the Macintosh included MacPaint, a bit-mapped graphics program, and MacWrite, which demonstrated WYSIWYG word processing.


title: History of personal computers

text: While not a success upon its release, the Macintosh was a successful personal computer for years to come. This is particularly due to the introduction of desktop publishing in 1985 through Apple's partnership with Adobe. This partnership introduced the LaserWriter printer and Aldus PageMaker to users of the personal computer. During Steve Jobs' hiatus from Apple, a number of different models of Macintosh, including the Macintosh Plus and Macintosh II, were released to a great degree of success. The entire Macintosh line of computers was IBM's major competition up until the early 1990s.


title: History of personal computers

text: In the Commodore world, GEOS was available on the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128. Later, a version was available for PCs running DOS. It could be used with a mouse or a joystick as a pointing device, and came with a suite of GUI applications. Commodore's later product line, the Amiga platform, ran a GUI operating system by default. The Amiga laid the blueprint for future development of personal computers with its groundbreaking graphics and sound capabilities. "Byte" called it "the first multimedia computer... so far ahead of its time that almost nobody could fully articulate what it was all about."


title: History of personal computers

text: In 1985, the Atari ST, also based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, was introduced with the first color GUI: Digital Research's GEM.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 1987, Acorn launched the Archimedes range of high-performance home computers in Europe and Australasia. Based on their own 32-bit ARM RISC processor, the systems were shipped with a GUI OS called Arthur. In 1989, Arthur was superseded by a multi-tasking GUI-based operating system called RISC OS. By default, the mice used on these computers had three buttons.


title: History of personal computers

text: The transition from a PC-compatible market being driven by IBM to one driven primarily by a broader market began to become clear in 1986 and 1987; in 1986, the 32-bit Intel 80386 microprocessor was released, and the first '386-based PC-compatible was the Compaq Deskpro 386. IBM's response came nearly a year later with the initial release of the IBM Personal System/2 series of computers, which had a closed architecture and were a significant departure from the emerging "standard PC". These models were largely unsuccessful, and the PC Clone style machines outpaced sales of all other machines through the rest of this period. Toward the end of the 1980s PC XT clones began to take over the home computer market segment from the specialty manufacturers such as Commodore International and Atari that had previously dominated. These systems typically sold for just under the "magic" $1000 price point (typically $999) and were sold via mail order rather than a traditional dealer network. This price was achieved by using the older 8/16 bit technology, such as the 8088 CPU, instead of the 32-bits of the latest Intel CPUs. These CPUs were usually made by a third party such as Cyrix or AMD. Dell started out as one of these manufacturers, under its original name PC Limited.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 1990, the NeXTstation workstation computer went on sale, for "interpersonal" computing as Steve Jobs described it. The NeXTstation was meant to be a new computer for the 1990s, and was a cheaper version of the previous NeXT Computer. Despite its pioneering use of Object-oriented programming concepts, the NeXTstation was somewhat a commercial failure, and NeXT shut down hardware operations in 1993.


title: History of personal computers

text: In the early 1990s, the CD-ROM became an industry standard, and by the mid-1990s one was built into almost all desktop computers, and toward the end of the 1990s, in laptops as well. Although introduced in 1982, the CD ROM was mostly used for audio during the 1980s, and then for computer data such as operating systems and applications into the 1990s. Another popular use of CD ROMs in the 1990s was multimedia, as many desktop computers started to come with built-in stereo speakers capable of playing CD quality music and sounds with the Sound Blaster sound card on PCs.


title: History of personal computers

text: IBM introduced its successful ThinkPad range at COMDEX 1992 using the series designators 300, 500 and 700 (allegedly analogous to the BMW car range and used to indicate market), the 300 series being the "budget", the 500 series "midrange" and the 700 series "high end". This designation continued until the late 1990s when IBM introduced the "T" series as 600/700 series replacements, and the 3, 5 and 7 series model designations were phased out for A (3&7) & X (5) series. The A series was later partially replaced by the R series.


title: History of personal computers

text: By the mid-1990s, Amiga, Commodore and Atari systems were no longer on the market, pushed out by strong IBM PC clone competition and low prices. Other previous competition such as Sinclair and Amstrad were no longer in the computer market. With less competition than ever before, Dell rose to high profits and success, introducing low cost systems targeted at consumers and business markets using a direct-sales model. Dell surpassed Compaq as the world's largest computer manufacturer, and held that position until October 2006.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 1994, Apple introduced the Power Macintosh series of high-end professional desktop computers for desktop publishing and graphic designers. These new computers made use of new Motorola PowerPC processors as part of the AIM alliance, to replace the previous Motorola 68k architecture used for the Macintosh line. During the 1990s, the Macintosh remained with a low market share, but as the primary choice for creative professionals, particularly those in the graphics and publishing industries.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 1994, Acorn Computers launched its Risc PC series of high-end desktop computers. The Risc PC (codenamed Medusa) was Acorn's next generation ARM-based RISC OS computer, which superseded the Acorn Archimedes. In 2005, the ARM Cortex-A8 was released, the first Cortex design to be adopted on a large scale for use in consumer devices. An ARM-based processor is used in the Raspberry Pi, an inexpensive single-board computer.


title: History of personal computers

text: Due to the sales growth of IBM clones in the '90s, they became the industry standard for business and home use. This growth was augmented by the introduction of Microsoft's Windows 3.0 operating environment in 1990, and followed by Windows 3.1 in 1992 and the Windows 95 operating system in 1995. The Macintosh was sent into a period of decline by these developments coupled with Apple's own inability to come up with a successor to the Macintosh operating system, and by 1996 Apple was almost bankrupt. In December 1996 Apple bought NeXT and in what has been described as a "reverse takeover", Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997. The NeXT purchase and Jobs' return brought Apple back to profitability, first with the release of Mac OS 8, a major new version of the operating system for Macintosh computers, and then with the PowerMac G3 and iMac computers for the professional and home markets. The iMac was notable for its transparent bondi blue casing in an ergonomic shape, as well as its discarding of legacy devices such as a floppy drive and serial ports in favor of Ethernet and USB connectivity. The iMac sold several million units and a subsequent model using a different form factor remains in production as of August 2017. In 2001 Mac OS X, the long-awaited "next generation" Mac OS based on the NeXT technologies was finally introduced by Apple, cementing its comeback.


title: History of personal computers

text: The ROM in CD-ROM stands for Read Only Memory. In the late 1990s CD-R and later, rewritable CD-RW drives were included instead of standard CD ROM drives. This gave the personal computer user the capability to copy and "burn" standard Audio CDs which were playable in any CD player. As computer hardware grew more powerful and the MP3 format became pervasive, "ripping" CDs into small, compressed files on a computer's hard drive became popular. peer-to-peer networks such as Napster, Kazaa and Gnutella arose to be used almost exclusively for sharing music files and became a primary computer activity for many individuals.


title: History of personal computers

text: Since the late 1990s, many more personal computers started shipping that included USB (Universal Serial Bus) ports for easy plug and play connectivity to devices such as digital cameras, video cameras, personal digital assistants, printers, scanners, USB flash drives and other peripheral devices. By the early 21st century, all shipping computers for the consumer market included at least two USB ports. Also during the late 1990s DVD players started appearing on high-end, usually more expensive, desktop and laptop computers, and eventually on consumer computers into the first decade of the 21st century.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 2002, Hewlett-Packard (HP) purchased Compaq. Compaq itself had bought Tandem Computers in 1997 (which had been started by ex-HP employees), and Digital Equipment Corporation in 1998. Following this strategy HP became a major player in desktops, laptops, and servers for many different markets. The buyout made HP the world's largest manufacturer of personal computers, until Dell later surpassed HP.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 2003, AMD shipped its 64-bit based microprocessor line for desktop computers, Opteron and Athlon 64. Also in 2003, IBM released the 64-bit based PowerPC 970 for Apple's high-end Power Mac G5 systems. Intel, in 2004, reacted to AMD's success with 64-bit based processors, releasing updated versions of their Xeon and Pentium 4 lines. 64-bit processors were first common in high end systems, servers and workstations, and then gradually replaced 32-bit processors in consumer desktop and laptop systems since about 2005.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 2004, IBM announced the proposed sale of its PC business to Chinese computer maker Lenovo Group, which is partially owned by the Chinese government, for US$650 million in cash and $600 million US in Lenovo stock. The deal was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States in March 2005, and completed in May 2005. IBM will have a 19% stake in Lenovo, which will move its headquarters to New York State and appoint an IBM executive as its chief executive officer. The company will retain the right to use certain IBM brand names for an initial period of five years. As a result of the purchase, Lenovo inherited a product line that featured the ThinkPad, a line of laptops that had been one of IBM's most successful products.


title: History of personal computers

text: In the early 21st century, Wi-Fi began to become increasingly popular as many consumers started installing their own wireless home networks. Many of today's laptops and desktop computers are sold pre-installed with wireless cards and antennas. Also in the early 21st century, LCD monitors became the most popular technology for computer monitors, with CRT production being slowed down. LCD monitors are typically sharper, brighter, and more economical than CRT monitors. The first decade of the 21st century also saw the rise of multi-core processors (see following section) and flash memory. Once limited to high-end industrial use due to expense, these technologies are now mainstream and available to consumers. In 2008 the MacBook Air and Asus Eee PC were released, laptops that dispense with an optical drive and hard drive entirely relying on flash memory for storage.


title: History of personal computers

text: The invention in the late 1970s of local area networks (LANs), notably Ethernet, allowed PCs to communicate with each other (peer-to-peer) and with shared printers.


title: History of personal computers

text: As the microcomputer revolution continued, more robust versions of the same technology were used to produce microprocessor based servers that could also be linked to the LAN. This was facilitated by the development of server operating systems to run on the Intel architecture, including several versions of both Unix and Microsoft Windows.


title: History of personal computers

text: In May 2005, Intel and AMD released their first dual-core 64-bit processors, the Pentium D and the Athlon 64 X2 respectively. Multi-core processors can be programmed and reasoned about using symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) techniques known since the 60s (see the SMP article for details).


title: History of personal computers

text: In 2013, a Xeon Phi extension card is released with 57 x86 cores, at a price of $1695, equalling circa 30 dollars per core.


title: History of personal computers

text: PCI Express is released in 2003. It becomes the most commonly used bus in PC-compatible desktop computers.


title: History of personal computers

text: The rise of cheap 3D accelerators displaced low-end products of Silicon Graphics (SGI), which went bankrupt in 2009.


title: History of personal computers

text: Silicon Graphics was a major 3D business that had grown annual revenues of $5.4 million to $3.7 billion from 1984 to 1997.


title: History of personal computers

text: The addition of 3D graphic capabilities to PCs, and the ability of clusters of Linux- and BSD-based PCs to take on many of the tasks of larger SGI servers, ate into SGI's core markets.


title: History of personal computers

text: Three former SGI employees had founded 3dfx in 1994. Their Voodoo Graphics extension card relied on PCI to provide cheap 3D graphics for PC's. Towards the end of 1996, the cost of EDO DRAM dropped significantly. A card consisted of a DAC, a frame buffer processor and a texture mapping unit, along with 4 MB of EDO DRAM. The RAM and graphics processors operated at 50 MHz. It provided only 3D acceleration and as such the computer also needed a traditional video controller for conventional 2D software.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 1993, Samsung introduced its KM48SL2000 synchronous DRAM, and by 2000, SDRAM had replaced virtually all other types of DRAM in modern computers, because of its greater performance. For more information see Synchronous dynamic random-access memory#SDRAM history.


title: History of personal computers

text: Compared to its predecessor in PC-clones, single data rate (SDR) SDRAM, the DDR SDRAM interface makes higher transfer rates possible by more strict control of the timing of the electrical data and clock signals.


title: History of personal computers

text: Released in December 1996, ACPI replaced Advanced Power Management (APM), the MultiProcessor Specification, and the Plug and Play BIOS (PnP) Specification.


title: History of personal computers

text: Internally, ACPI advertises the available components and their functions to the operating system kernel using instruction lists ("methods") provided through the system firmware (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) or BIOS), which the kernel parses. ACPI then executes the desired operations (such as the initialization of hardware components) using an embedded minimal virtual machine.


title: History of personal computers

text: First-generation ACPI hardware had issues. Windows 98 first edition disabled ACPI by default except on a whitelist of systems.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 2011, Intel announced the commercialisation of Tri-gate transistor. The Tri-Gate design is a variant of the FinFET 3D structure. FinFET was developed in the 1990s by Chenming Hu and his colleagues at UC Berkeley.


title: History of personal computers

text: Through-silicon via is used in High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), a successor of DDR-SDRAM. HBM was released in 2013.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 2016 and 2017, Intel, TSMC and Samsung begin releasing 10 nanometer chips. At the ≈10 nm scale, quantum tunneling (especially through gaps) becomes a significant phenomenon.


title: History of personal computers

text: In May 2022, Chinese officials ordered government agencies and state-backed companies to remove personal computers produced by American corporations and replace them with equipment from domestic companies. The state-mandated order is expected to result in the removal of about 50 million computers, with HP and Dell expected to lose the most future business from the mandate.


title: History of personal computers

text: In 2001, 125 million personal computers were shipped in comparison to 48,000 in 1977. More than 500 million PCs were in use in 2002 and one billion personal computers had been sold worldwide since mid-1970s till this time. Of the latter figure, 75 percent were professional or work related, while the rest sold for personal or home use. About 81.5 percent of PCs shipped had been desktop computers, 16.4 percent laptops and 2.1 percent servers. United States had received 38.8 percent (394 million) of the computers shipped, Europe 25 percent and 11.7 percent had gone to Asia-Pacific region, the fastest-growing market as of 2002. Almost half of all the households in Western Europe had a personal computer and a computer could be found in 40 percent of homes in United Kingdom, compared with only 13 percent in 1985. The third quarter of 2008 marked the first time laptops outsold desktop PCs in the United States.


title: History of personal computers

text: As of June 2008, the number of personal computers worldwide in use hit one billion. Mature markets like the United States, Western Europe and Japan accounted for 58 percent of the worldwide installed PCs. About 180 million PCs (16 percent of the existing installed base) were expected to be replaced and 35 million to be dumped into landfill in 2008. The whole installed base grew 12 percent annually.


title: Jane Horrocks

text: Barbara Jane Horrocks (born 18 January 1964) is a British actress. She portrayed the roles of Bubble and Katy Grin in the BBC sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous". She was nominated for the 1993 Olivier Award for Best Actress for the title role in the stage play "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice", and received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for the role in the film version of "Little Voice".


title: Jane Horrocks

text: Horrocks was born in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, the daughter of Barbara (née Ashworth), a hospital worker, and John Horrocks, a sales representative. She was the youngest of three children.


title: Jane Horrocks

text: She attended Balladen County Primary School (Fearns county secondary school). She trained at Oldham College, and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art with Imogen Stubbs and Ralph Fiennes, and began her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company.


title: Jane Horrocks

text: Horrocks has appeared on stage in "Ask for the Moon" (Hampstead, 1986), "A Collier's Friday Night" (Greenwich, 1987), "Valued Friends" (Hampstead, 1989), and "The Debutante Ball" (Hampstead, 1989). She appeared in Catherine Cookson's "The Fifteen Streets", alongside Sean Bean and Owen Teale in 1989; "Our Own Kind" (Bush, 1991); "Deadly Advice" (Fletcher, 1993); "Cabaret" (Donmar Warehouse 1994); "Macbeth" (Greenwich Theatre, 1995); and "Absurd Person Singular" (Garrick Theatre, 2007).


title: Jane Horrocks

text: While working on "Road", a play directed by Jim Cartwright, Horrocks warmed up by doing singing impressions of Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey and Ethel Merman. Cartwright was so impressed with her mimicry he wrote "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice" for her. She was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1992 West End production, directed by her then-boyfriend Sam Mendes.


title: Jane Horrocks

text: Her last West End appearance was in "Sweet Panic", the 2003 Stephen Poliakoff drama in which she portrayed a neurotic mother locked in a battle of wills with her disturbed son's psychologist. She starred in Richard Jones's critically acclaimed production of "The Good Soul of Szechuan" at the Young Vic in 2008. She was reunited with Jones in a new musical production of "Annie Get Your Gun", which opened at the Young Vic in October 2009. At London's Young Vic, in 2016's "If You Kiss Me, Kiss Me", Horrocks revisited the songs of her youth to sing versions of tracks by the likes of Joy Division, The Smiths, Buzzcocks, and The Human League.


title: Jane Horrocks

text: In October 2014, Horrocks played Ella Khan in the London revival of "East Is East" at Trafalgar Studios as part of Jamie Lloyd's Trafalgar Transformed season.


title: Jane Horrocks

text: She drew critical notice for her performance in the film "Life Is Sweet" (1991), followed by her award-winning performance in the West End play "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice" in which she sang all the songs. Horrocks became well known on screen for her role as Bubble & Katy Grin in the sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous" (1992–2016).


title: Jane Horrocks

text: She reprised her stage role in the 1998 screen adaptation, "Little Voice", which earned nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role - Motion Picture, and the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress.


title: Jane Horrocks

text: For 10 years, Horrocks appeared with Prunella Scales in commercials for the UK supermarket chain Tesco. She narrated BBC Two's television series "The Speaker" in April 2009.


title: Jane Horrocks

text: In 2009, Horrocks took the lead in the BBC TV production "Gracie!", a drama portraying the life of Gracie Fields during World War II and her relationship with the Italian-born director Monty Banks (played by Tom Hollander).


title: Jane Horrocks

text: Other television credits include "Absolutely Fabulous", "Victoria Wood" - "We'd Quite Like to Apologise", "Bad Girl", "Boon", "Heartland", "Hunting Venus", "La Nonna", "Leaving Home", "Never Mind the Horrocks", "Nightlife", "Wyrd Sisters", "Foxbusters", "Jericho", "Red Dwarf", "Some Kind of Life", "Suffer the Little Children", "The Storyteller", "The Garden", "Fifi & the Flowertots", "Little Princess" (the voice of the princess) and "Welcome to the Times".


title: Jane Horrocks

text: She was the subject of an episode of the genealogy series "Who Do You Think You Are?" in 2006. That year, she played the title role in "The Amazing Mrs Pritchard", a drama about a woman elected prime minister.


title: Jane Horrocks

text: On Tuesday 14 January 2014, Horrocks appeared as a contestant on "The Great Sport Relief Bake Off" on BBC Two— the celebrity version of "The Great British Bake Off"—hosted by Jo Brand and broadcast to help raise money for the charity Sport Relief. The other contestants were TV and radio presenter Kirsty Young, choreographer Jason Gardiner, and Olympic athlete Greg Rutherford.


title: Jane Horrocks

text: In 2015, she supplied the voice of the Tubby Phone in the reboot of the popular British children's television series "Teletubbies". In 2021, she began starring in the Sky comedy series "Bloods".


title: Jane Horrocks

text: Horrocks' voiceovers have been used on the films "Chicken Run", "", "Corpse Bride", "", and "Tinker Bell". She also did the voiceover of Fenchurch on radio and in the audio adaptation of Douglas Adams' science fiction series "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" for BBC Radio 4. She has voiced Donner in all three Robbie the Reindeer films in aid of Comic Relief.


title: Jane Horrocks

text: In 2000, Horrocks made the CD "Further Adventures of Little Voice", again singing in the style of favourite divas. The recording includes duets with Ewan McGregor, Robbie Williams and Dean Martin. Horrocks collaborated once more with Robbie Williams the following year, for a cover of the Bobby Darin song "Things" on Williams's album "Swing When You're Winning".


title: Jane Horrocks

text: Horrocks has a son, Dylan, and a daughter, Molly, with her partner, playwright Nick Vivian. She has previously had relationships with director Sam Mendes and singer Ian Dury.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: Metro: Last Light is a post-apocalyptic-themed, first-person shooter video game with stealth and survival horror elements. It was developed by Ukrainian studio 4A Games and published by Deep Silver for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in May 2013. A sequel to the video game "Metro 2033", its story follows Artyom, a young soldier living in the Moscow Metro after a devastating nuclear war. Tasked with finding the mysterious Dark Ones, Artyom must venture to different parts of the metro system, and the surface filled with radiated gases, and fight against different factions and mutated monsters. The game improves on various gameplay mechanics of "2033", and introduces elements such as weapon customization.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: Developed by a team of about 80 people, "Last Light" is a direct sequel to "2033", with franchise creator Dmitry Glukhovsky writing the game's dialogue and main story outline. Multiplayer modes were planned but were eventually scrapped in order to focus on single-player, which the developers hoped would "rekindle memories of "Half-Life 2"". The game was originally set to be published by THQ, which provided a very limited budget for the game's development, causing the team to work under extremely difficult conditions. Koch Media acquired the rights to the franchise following THQ's bankruptcy. A planned Wii U version was ultimately canceled.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: The game received generally positive reviews from critics. Praise was focused largely on its atmosphere, world design, tone, graphics, and gameplay, while criticism was directed particularly at the artificial intelligence and technical issues. The pre-order bonus Ranger mode, marketed as the definitive way of playing the game, triggered controversy. The game was a commercial success, with its first-week retail sales in the United States surpassing the lifetime retail sales of "2033". The game's novelization written by Glukhovsky was published as "Metro 2035" in 2015. A remastered version of the game was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in August 2014 as "Metro: Last Light Redux" within the "Metro Redux" package. A sequel, "Metro Exodus", was released in 2019.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: Like its predecessor "Metro 2033", "Metro: Last Light" is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above ground. Combat alternates between the player fighting mutants and hostile humans. Areas are larger in "Last Light" compared to "2033", and the game encourages exploration by having multiple routes. The game offers more freedom to players, allowing them to utilize different tactics to combat enemies. It features destructible environments, in which certain objects, such as pillars, collapse after being shot. Numerous diary entries, written by Artyom, providing additional insight regarding the game's story, are scattered throughout environments for players to collect.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: As a first-person shooter, "Metro: Last Light" features a variety of firearms, some fictional and some based on real weapons, which the player uses in combat. The game's protagonist, Artyom, also has the ability to kill an enemy directly with his melee weapon. Artyom has three weapons slots. Players can put any weapon into these slots without restriction. Players have access to four different secondary weapons, including throwing knives, incendiary grenades, and hand grenades. Mutants do not possess weapons and tend to physically attack the player in swarms, while humans fight with the same firearms available to the player. The player can knock out or kill most human enemies instead of shooting them, using stealth to avoid detection. As enemies are inefficient in spotting the player character in darkness, players can turn off oil lamps and light bulbs to gain an advantage over their opponents.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: In the post-apocalyptic environment, ammunition is a rare and essential commodity. Pre-apocalypse, military-grade ammunition is used as currency. Players can avoid consuming all the valuable currency by using lower quality bullets made within the Metros. Due to the scarcity of ammunition, a crucial aspect of gameplay is scavenging. The player can loot corpses and the environment for spare ammunition, as well as weapons and other items. The military-grade ammunition can be used to purchase other ammunition, weapons, and items within most of the Metro stations. Weapon attachments, such as scopes and silencers, which improve weapon efficiency, can be purchased with these bullets.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: The game's locations reflect the dark atmosphere of real metro tunnels, with added survival horror elements. Paranormal phenomena, such as shadow figures, hallucinations, and unexplained noises are present, and, for the most part, the player has to rely on their lighter and rechargeable flashlight to navigate the darkness. Locations' layout is often intricate, and the game lacks any form of map or objective marker, leaving the player to try finding their objectives with only a compass. The surface is more lethal than the metro system. Featuring a day-night cycle, and a dynamic weather system, these sections are severely irradiated and a gas mask must be worn at all times because of the toxic air. The player must collect air filters for the gas mask. These last several minutes each, and are automatically replaced provided the player has more in reserve. Players also need to wipe off the dirt and blood splatter that collects on the gas mask. There is no head up display indicator to tell how long the player has until the gas mask's filters begin to fail — rather, a timer on the character's wristwatch shows how long until the current filter expires. The watch also serves to indicate to a player if they have been exposed to enemy attention. With every weapon, the bullets are (partly) visible, informing the player that their weapon is about to run out of ammunition and they have to reload. Instead of head up display the game makes use of audio and visual cues to present information to players.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: There are certain subtle moral choices in the game that provide karma. Good karma can be acquired by good actions, such as rescuing people from enemy characters, listening to conversations between NPCs, or sparing enemy soldiers. Bad karma can be acquired from evil actions, such as killing people randomly or stealing things. Karma affects the ending that the player experiences.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: "Metro: Last Light" takes place in 2034, one year after the events of "Metro 2033", following the ending of the original novel in which Artyom's missile strike against the Dark Ones — mysterious beings that seemingly threatened the survivors of a nuclear war living in the Moscow Metro — occurred. The Rangers, a neutral peacekeeping force that operates throughout the system, have since occupied the D6 military facility Artyom visited during the first game. This is a huge, and not fully explored pre-war bunker, and Artyom, now a Ranger himself, remains unsure whether killing the Dark Ones was the correct decision. Rumors of D6's discovery and its great riches have spread around the Metro; rival factions, such as the Soviet Red Line and Nazi Fourth Reich, hope to seize the bunker and its contents.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: Khan, a wandering mystic, informs Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike. Khan believes that it is the key to humanity's future, and wants to communicate with it; Colonel Miller, the Ranger's leader, wants to eliminate it as a potential threat. Miller sends Artyom to the surface, accompanied by Miller's daughter Anna, the Rangers' best sniper, to kill the Dark One.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: Artyom finds the Dark One, a child, but is captured by soldiers of the Fourth Reich. Pavel Morozov, a captured Red Line soldier, and Artyom escape through the Metro tunnels and across the devastated surface. When they reach the Red Line, however, Pavel is revealed to be a high-ranking officer; he detains Artyom to learn more about the Rangers and the Dark One. Artyom escapes and races Pavel's forces to locate the Dark One and Anna, who has been kidnapped by Lesnitsky, an ex-Ranger and Red Line spy. En route, he finds a contingent of Red Line forces massacring the inhabitants of a station, supposedly to contain a mysterious epidemic. It was the Red Line that introduced the virus to the station – weaponized Ebola acquired from the D6 vault by Lesnitsky. Artyom finds Anna and frees her but they are exposed to the virus and are quarantined after the rescue. Afraid that she will die, Anna seduces Artyom.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: After they test negative for the virus, Artyom again encounters Khan. They locate the young Dark One, and in a series of hallucinatory flashbacks, Artyom recalls that he was saved by a Dark One as a child; he was psychically linked to the Dark Ones, intended to form a bridge between their species and his. Artyom vows to make amends by protecting the little Dark One, and the two travel to Polis, the Metro's central area, where a peace conference regarding D6 between the Rangers, Red Line, the Reich, and neutral Hansa is taking place. Artyom defeats Lesnitsky and Pavel during the trip. Along the way, the little Dark One senses that there is a group of hibernating Dark Ones in D6. After arriving at Polis, the little Dark One uses his telepathic abilities to make the Red Line leader, Chairman Moskvin, publicly confess that the peace conference is a diversion to enable General Korbut to seize D6. Artyom and the rest of the Rangers rush to the bunker to make a final stand against Korbut's army but are incapacitated by an armored train ramming into their station. Red Line soldiers surround and prepare to execute Artyom and Miller.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: The karma the player has acquired determines the ending. In the "bad" ending, Artyom destroys D6 to prevent Korbut from using the facility to wipe out the remnants of the other factions and possibly humanity, resulting in the deaths of himself, the surviving Rangers, and the Red Line forces. Later, Anna is shown telling their son of Artyom's bravery. In the "good" ending, later revealed as the canonical ending, Artyom prepares to destroy the bunker but is stopped by the little Dark One, who, along with the awakened Dark Ones, defeats Korbut's army. Artyom calls the little Dark One humanity's "last light of hope". In both endings, the young Dark One leaves with the surviving Dark Ones to find safety, while promising that they will come back in the future to help rebuild the world.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: The Ukraine-based lead developer 4A Games made the game with a team of more than 80 people. A sequel to "Metro 2033" written by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky, "Last Light", is not related to his next book "Metro 2034". Instead, it serves as a direct sequel to the first game, with the majority of the ideas created by 4A Games. According to Huw Beynon, head of communications for of THQ, the team chose not to make a video game adaption of "2034" as they thought "2034"s tone was drastically different from its predecessor. He described it as an "art-house thriller", and believed that, unlike the first game, it could not be converted successfully into a video game. However, Glukhovsky offered creative input to the project and wrote a brief outline of the game's story, as well as the game's dialogue, which used 3,000 spreadsheet cells in Excel. The team chose the bad ending of "2033", as they believed that it offered an interesting beginning for "Last Light", and is consistent with the novel's dark and depressing tone. Glukhovsky claimed that the story would explore the theme of redemption, people repeating their mistakes, and the idea of having a "second chance". The Artyom character also shifted to become more mature and experienced. However, he remained a silent character as the team thought that having him speak would not contribute to his character development and would interfere with the atmosphere and morality system.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: One of the key goals of 4A Games was to improve and refine numerous aspects of "2033" which THQ described as a "flawed masterpiece". The strong focus on atmosphere was retained, but the team overhauled numerous gameplay mechanics. The game's shooting mechanics were improved, and the firearms featured in the game were no longer underpowered. The animation system was reworked and more visual effects were added. The game's artificial intelligence was also refined to become more responsive to players' actions. After hearing from players about "2033"s bullet-based economic system, the team decided to keep the feature in "Last Light" but improve the explanation about how it worked so that players would not be confused by it. In addition, the team revealed that they would not westernize the franchise to attract a larger audience. Instead, they would overhaul the game's controls to make it more accessible. The team also drastically improved the game's stealth sections. The core philosophy in designing these sections was "fun"; players would not be punished too harshly if they made any mistakes. As a result, the alertness of the artificial intelligence features several different levels, making the game more realistic. A competitive multiplayer mode was originally planned that was said to be unique to the "Metro" series, and would not simply include typical multiplayer modes like team deathmatch or Capture the Flag. However, it was eventually cancelled.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: Another of the team's goals was to make players feel unsettled after playing the game, and present gameplay moments that would make them worry and feel vulnerable. The team incorporated survival horror elements into the game, which were also used in the first game. The game was described by THQ as their own "bid to combat shooter fatigue" using its heavy single-player story focus. According to Beynon the game's philosophy is the complete opposite of the "Call of Duty" franchise, which was described as short, linear, and filled with "filler content" that would only be a tutorial for the multiplayer content. The team hoped to have most moments featured in the game "narrative-driven", and that all the enemy encounters in the game are designed to be different from each other. They hoped that by offering a unique experience with each encounter, they would be remembered by players. They hoped that the game would "rekindle memories of "Half-Life 2"".


title: Metro: Last Light

text: The world is created to be believable. Glukhovsky included numerous side stories in the game, and different kinds of dramas surrounding the game's four factions. He hoped that through this approach, the game would have more depth than typical first-person shooters, and make the game feel genuinely realistic. Moral choices return in the game. According to 4A, these choices are very subtle, so that they would not "gamify" the concept. It is a method carried out by 4A to create a sense of verisimilitude to the world, which will then make the decision more "genuine". Also, Andrey Prokhorov, the game's creative director, intentionally removed most aspects of a typical head up display as they considered it a barrier preventing players from immersing themselves into the world, and that having it would destroy the game's atmosphere. Prokhorov noted that adding numerous graphical and audio cues required additional time and effort, but added that the time may remove the HUD altogether if they have sufficient time.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: "Last Light" is powered by 4A Games' own in-house engine, 4A Engine. The team also worked to improve the game's lighting and destruction system and introduced a larger variety of color palette. The game was originally set to be released for Nintendo's Wii U, and the title was included in the Wii U show-reel, though THQ has since stated that the game may not be released for that platform. Regarding the possibility of the game coming to the Wii U, 4A Games chief technical officer Oles Shishkovtsov said the Wii U has a "horrible, slow CPU". Beynon, reiterated the sentiment, saying that there would not be a Wii U version of the game, because the studio "couldn't justify the effort required" and they "just figured it wasn't worth pursuing at this time". 4A experimented with the Wii U development kit, but later gave up this version of the game during its early stages of development.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: THQ was the publisher of the first game, but the studio put little effort into helping the game's development, leading to numerous technical issues and a lack of polish. However, the game's sales surprised THQ, and as a result, the publisher considered the first game a missed opportunity, and began to treat "Metro" as a franchise. Danny Bilson, then CEO of THQ, promised that the company would offer 4A more support and dedicate more resources in both the game's actual development and its marketing. Former THQ President Jason Rubin offered details of extremely difficult working conditions and demands put on the 4A Games team while completing the game. Their office was freezing due to frequent power failures, and the team was forced to smuggle computer equipment into the offices to avoid corrupt customs officials. Rubin added that the publisher offered an unreasonably small budget to the development team, accounting for only 10% of its competitor's budget and that their workspace was so crowded and small that he compared it to "a packed grade school cafeteria", and an "[underutilized] gym at EA Los Angeles". Rubin praised the team for producing a game that successfully achieved high critical praise in spite of the harsh working conditions. According to Andrew Prokhorov, Rubin was the only THQ president to visit the studio. He noted that the team "deserve the ratings [they] get" and "need no indulgence" from consumers who do not care about their working conditions.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: "Last Light" title was first leaked as "Metro 2034", a name used by 4A Games internally. THQ officially revealed the actual title in May 2011. In November 2012, THQ announced that it had delayed the game's release until March 2013 in order to give the development team more time to polish the game further. In December 2012, the game's original publisher, THQ, entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy. "Metro: Last Light", along with other THQ properties and studios, went to auction on 22 January 2013. GameStop temporarily removed the game from its store to prevent customers from being misled by the game's uncertain release. The auction did not affect the progress of the game's development significantly. Clearlake and Koch Media, the latter of which was originally set to distribute the title in Italy and Spain, participated in the auction. Koch Media eventually acquired the rights to the "Metro" franchise for $5.9 million. Koch was interested in the title as the game was already playable at the time and they were familiar with the development team, whose members worked on "", a game published by Koch Media's label Deep Silver.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: After the auction, Deep Silver announced that the title would be released on 14 May 2013 in North America, 16 May 2013 in Australia and New Zealand, and 17 May 2013 in Europe for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. It was released for OS X on 10 September 2013, Linux on 5 November 2013, and the title was bundled with Valve's prototype of Steam Machine. The PlayStation 3 version of the game was available for free for PlayStation Plus subscribers for one month in February 2014.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: Players who purchased the game via Steam got a free digital copy of the novel "Metro 2033". A digital graphic novel titled "The Gospel According to Artyom", which tells the events that take place between "2033" and "Last Light", was published by Dark Horse Comics and was a pre-order exclusive. A novelization of the game, written by Glukhovsky, was published as "Metro 2035" in 2015.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: Those who pre-ordered the game received a limited edition of "Metro: Last Light" that featured a code for the downloadable content (DLC) Ranger Mode, a setting for greater game difficulty, as well as a unique gun and in-game currency. Ranger Mode encompasses the same campaign, but with the lack of a HUD or cross hairs, while the plethora of ammunition and resources has been reduced severely, making the player feel fully immersed in the game's world. It was marketed as "the way [the game] was meant to be played". The game's implementation of Ranger Mode caused negative reactions in the gaming community. Deep Silver responded by saying that they were required by retailers to provide pre-order exclusive game content, and that Ranger Mode was the best choice as only the most loyal fans would likely pre-order the game.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: Additionally, four DLC packs were released. The first pack, the "Faction Pack", was to be available in June 2013, however the release date was pushed back to July 2013. This pack contains three bonus single-player missions, with the player playing as a Red Line Sniper, a Fourth Reich 'Heavy' soldier, and a Polis Ranger in training, with new weapons not found in the main storyline. The other three packs were released within 60 days of releasing the "Faction Pack". The second pack, the "Tower Pack", gives single-player challenge missions that have online leaderboards. The third pack, the "Developer Pack", features a shooting gallery, a combat simulator, an in-game museum, and a single-player mission titled "The Spiders' Nest". Finally, the fourth pack, the "Chronicles Pack", features three additional single-player missions that contain three characters from the main storyline, Khan, Pavel, and Anna, adding in extra background story information about the world. Players can buy a season pass, which gives them all four DLCs at a discounted price. It also contains a limited edition, in-game automatic shotgun called the Abzats, and a light machine gun that was previously only available via pre-order from select retailers, the RPK.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: A new version of the game for the eighth generation consoles was not originally planned. However, on 22 May 2014, a remastered version of the game was announced. It was released on 26 August 2014 in North America, 29 August 2014 in Europe, and 4 September 2014 in Australia for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. "Redux" adds all the DLC and graphical improvements. The compilation package, titled "Metro Redux", included both the remastered versions of "2033" and "Last Light". A demo of the "Redux" version, which allows players to play through the first third of the game, was released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on 2 June 2015. "Last Light Redux" was released as a DRM-free game on GOG.com in May 2015. It was also released on the Nintendo Switch on 28 February 2020 and on Stadia on 23 June 2020.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: "Metro: Last Light" received positive reviews from critics, with most complimenting the graphics and world design, but criticizing the linear sequences. The game was nominated for Best Shooter for Spike's 2013 VGX game awards, and Xbox 360 Game of the Year by GameSpot.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: The gameplay was generally well received. Critics praised 4A Games for fixing the apparent gameplay missteps featured in its predecessors, and noted that the combat was improved, satisfying and riveting. Jeff Marchiafava noted that the gameplay is on par with its competitors. However, some noted that the game lacked innovation and was generally too conservative. Many applauded the game for allowing both stealth and a more aggressive approach towards missions, and that stealth and gunplay were described as tense and challenging respectively. The game's more accessible nature received mixed reviews. Some thought that it removed the frustration featured in the first game, while some criticized it for being too simple. Rich Stanton in particular criticized the game for compromising in order to attract a wider audience, though Patrick Klepek from Giant Bomb thought that the charm of the first game remained undiminished in "Last Light". Many critics considered stealth the definitive way to play the game as it matches the overall tone. The bullet economy system was praised for being "unique". Some journalists also noted several technical problems with the game, singling out the Windows version, and many criticized the artificial intelligence for being unrefined. The boss battles were also criticized for being frustrating. The monster characters attracted criticism for not being threatening in terms of their appearance, and too difficult to defeat, with Rich Stanton from "Eurogamer" describing them as creatures from "a poor man's "Doom"". Some critics criticized the presence of invisible walls and inaccessible paths, which led to frustration and annoyance. The game's audio was also praised for being coherent with its graphics, gameplay, and atmosphere.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: The story received mixed critical reviews. Some critics believed that the story was excellently-written, with interesting characters, and meaningful character interactions, which added additional depth to the game's world. According to Phillip Kollar from "Polygon", the game successfully allows players to have "real sympathy" towards its characters, but Artyom was described as an "empty shell" by "PC Gamer"s Marsh Davies. Some felt that the story was intricate, compelling, engaging, and interesting, with some genuinely touching moments, while others criticized it for being predictable and uneven. The ambient dialogue was described as the game's "best stories" by Stanton, though he noted that they are easily missed. The voice-acting received mixed reviews. Some critics called it "top-notch", while some called it "bad".


title: Metro: Last Light

text: The game's world design and atmosphere received great critical reviews. Many critics agreed that the game had successfully built up tension through the game's conversations between characters and the resource management mechanics, which enables players to feel threatened by the state of the world. The world was thought to be more "alive" than its predecessor, and critics praised the development team for creating distinct locations, and turning typical gritty colors featured in many games into something refreshing and stunning. The depiction of the world and 4A's vision of an apocalypse was applauded for delivering a sense of sadness and desperation. The game's attention to detail was widely praised, and the surface area, in particular, was applauded. Critics thought that these sequences offered visual variety, and some "genuine terror" moments. Jim Sterling from "Destructoid" singled out the game's multiple flashback scenes, which he described as "harrowing".


title: Metro: Last Light

text: The "Redux" version received positive reviews from critics. They praised the game's overall atmosphere and gameplay, but criticized the graphical update, which was considered insignificant. According to Mikel Reparaz, the game's visual update was disappointing as it did not look better than the original PC version. Nevertheless, it was described as the "definitive version" of "Last Light" to play because of the inclusion of all of the previously-released downloadable content.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: "Metro: Last Light" was the best-selling retail video game in the UK in its week of release, but it failed to outpace the week one sales of "2033". The first-week retail sales of the game in the US surpassed the lifetime retail sales of "2033". It was the sixth best-selling retail game in the US in its month of release according to NPD Group. While the exact sales of the game have not been revealed, Deep Silver announced that the "Metro Redux" collection sold more than 1.5 million copies.


title: Metro: Last Light

text: "Metro Exodus" is a direct sequel to the good ending of "Last Light". The game released for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on 15 February 2019.


title: Home run

text: In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run is usually achieved by hitting the ball over the outfield fence between the foul poles (or hitting either foul pole) without the ball touching the field. Far less common is the "inside-the-park" home run where the batter reaches home safely while the baseball is in play on the field.


title: Home run

text: When a home run is scored, the batter is credited with a hit and a run scored, and a run batted in (RBI) for each runner that scores, including himself. Likewise, the pitcher is recorded as having given up a hit and a run, with additional runs charged for each runner that scores other than the batter.


title: Home run

text: Home runs are among the most popular aspects of baseball and, as a result, prolific home run hitters are usually the most popular among fans and consequently the highest paid by teams—hence the old saying, "Home run hitters drive Cadillacs, and singles hitters drive Fords" (coined, circa 1948, by veteran pitcher Fritz Ostermueller, by way of mentoring his young teammate, Ralph Kiner).


title: Home run

text: Nicknames for a home run include "homer", "round tripper", "four-bagger", "big fly", "dinger", "long ball", "jack", "shot"/"moon shot", "bomb", and "blast", while a player hitting a home run may be said to have "gone deep" or "gone yard".


title: Home run

text: In modern times a home run is most often scored when the ball is hit over the outfield wall between the foul poles (in fair territory) before it touches the ground (in flight), and without being caught or deflected back onto the field by a fielder. A batted ball is also a home run if it touches either a foul pole or its attached screen before touching the ground, as the foul poles are by definition in fair territory. Additionally, many major-league ballparks have ground rules stating that a batted ball in flight that strikes a specified location or fixed object is a home run; this usually applies to objects that are beyond the outfield wall but are located such that it may be difficult for the umpire to judge.


title: Home run

text: In professional baseball, a batted ball that goes over the outfield wall "after" touching the ground (i.e. a ball that bounces over the outfield wall) becomes an automatic double. This is colloquially referred to as a "ground rule double" even though it is uniform across all of Major League Baseball, per MLB rules 5.05(a)(6) through 5.05(a)(9).


title: Home run

text: A fielder is allowed to reach over the wall to try to catch the ball as long as his feet are on or over the field during the attempt, and if the fielder successfully catches the ball while it is in flight the batter is out, even if the ball had already passed the vertical plane of the wall. However, since the fielder is not part of the field, a ball that bounces off a fielder (including his glove) and over the wall without touching the ground is still a home run. A fielder may not deliberately throw his glove, cap, or any other equipment or apparel to stop or deflect a fair ball, and an umpire may award a home run to the batter if a fielder does so on a ball that, in the umpire's judgment, would have otherwise been a home run (this is rare in modern professional baseball).


title: Home run

text: A home run accomplished in any of the above manners is an automatic home run. The ball is dead, even if it rebounds back onto the field (e.g., from striking a foul pole), and the batter and any preceding runners cannot be put out at any time while running the bases. However, if one or more runners fail to touch a base or one runner passes another before reaching home plate, that runner or runners can be called out on appeal, though in the case of not touching a base a runner can go back and touch it if doing so will not cause them to be passed by another preceding runner and they have not yet touched the next base (or home plate in the case of missing third base). This stipulation is in Approved Ruling (2) of Rule 7.10(b).


title: Home run

text: An inside-the-park home run occurs when a batter hits the ball into play and is able to circle the bases before the fielders can put him out. Unlike with an outside-the-park home run, the batter-runner and all preceding runners are liable to be put out by the defensive team at any time while running the bases. This can only happen if the ball does not leave the ballfield.


title: Home run

text: In the early days of baseball, outfields were much more spacious, reducing the likelihood of an over-the-fence home run, while increasing the likelihood of an inside-the-park home run, as a ball getting past an outfielder had more distance that it could roll before a fielder could track it down.


title: Home run

text: Modern outfields are much less spacious and more uniformly designed than in the game's early days. Therefore, inside-the-park home runs are now rare. They usually occur when a fast runner hits the ball deep into the outfield and the ball bounces in an unexpected direction away from the nearest outfielder (e.g., off a divot in the field or off the outfield wall), the nearest outfielder is injured on the play and cannot get to the ball, or an outfielder misjudges the flight of the ball in a way that he cannot quickly recover from the mistake (e.g., by diving and missing). The speed of the runner is crucial as even triples are relatively rare in most modern ballparks.


title: Home run

text: If any defensive play on an inside-the-park home run is labeled an error by the official scorer, a home run is not scored. Instead, it is scored as a single, double, or triple, and the batter-runner and any applicable preceding runners are said to have taken all additional bases on error. All runs scored on such a play, however, still count.


title: Home run

text: An example of an unexpected bounce occurred during the 2007 Major League Baseball All-Star Game at AT&T Park in San Francisco on July 10, 2007. Ichiro Suzuki of the American League team hit a fly ball that caromed off the right-center field wall in the opposite direction from where National League right fielder Ken Griffey Jr. was expecting it to go. By the time the ball was relayed, Ichiro had already crossed the plate standing up. This was the first inside-the-park home run in All-Star Game history, and led to Suzuki being named the game's Most Valuable Player.


title: Home run

text: Home runs are often characterized by the number of runners on base at the time. A home run hit with the bases empty is seldom called a "one-run homer", but rather a solo home run, solo homer, or "solo shot". With one runner on base, two runs are scored (the baserunner and the batter) and thus the home run is often called a two-run homer or two-run shot. Similarly, a home run with two runners on base is a three-run homer or three-run shot.


title: Home run

text: The term "four-run homer" is seldom used; instead, it is nearly always called a "grand slam". Hitting a grand slam is the best possible result for the batter's turn at bat and the worst possible result for the pitcher and his team.


title: Home run

text: A grand slam occurs when the bases are "loaded" (that is, there are base runners standing at first, second, and third base) and the batter hits a home run. According to "The Dickson Baseball Dictionary", the term originated in the card game of contract bridge. An inside-the-park grand slam is a grand slam that is also an inside-the-park home run, a home run without the ball leaving the field, and it is very rare, due to the relative rarity of loading the bases along with the significant rarity (nowadays) of inside-the-park home runs.


title: Home run

text: On July 25, 1956, Roberto Clemente became the only MLB player to have ever scored a walk-off inside-the-park grand slam in a 9–8 Pittsburgh Pirates win over the Chicago Cubs, at Forbes Field.


title: Home run

text: On April 23, 1999, Fernando Tatís made history by hitting two grand slams in one inning, both against Chan Ho Park of the Los Angeles Dodgers. With this feat, Tatís also set a Major League record with 8 RBI in one inning.


title: Home run

text: On July 29, 2003, against the Texas Rangers, Bill Mueller of the Boston Red Sox became the only player in major league history to hit two grand slams in one game from opposite sides of the plate; he hit three home runs in that game, and his two grand slams were in consecutive at-bats.


title: Home run

text: On August 25, 2011, the New York Yankees became the first team to hit three grand slams in one game vs the Oakland A's. The Yankees eventually won the game 22–9, after trailing 7–1.


title: Home run

text: These types of home runs are characterized by the specific game situation in which they occur, and can theoretically occur on either an outside-the-park or inside-the-park home run.


title: Home run

text: A walk-off home run is a home run hit by the home team in the bottom of the ninth inning, any extra inning, or other scheduled final inning, which gives the home team the lead and thereby ends the game. The term is attributed to Hall of Fame relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley, so named because after the run is scored, the losing team has to "walk off" the field.


title: Home run

text: Two World Series have ended via the "walk-off" home run. The first was the 1960 World Series when Bill Mazeroski of the Pittsburgh Pirates hit a ninth inning solo home run in the seventh game of the series off New York Yankees pitcher Ralph Terry to give the Pirates the World Championship. The second time was the 1993 World Series when Joe Carter of the Toronto Blue Jays hit a ninth inning three-run home run off Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Mitch Williams in Game 6 of the series, to help the Toronto Blue Jays capture their second World Series Championship in a row.


title: Home run

text: Such a home run can also be called a "sudden death" or "sudden victory" home run. That usage has lessened as "walk-off home run" has gained favor. Along with Mazeroski's 1960 shot, the most famous walk-off or sudden-death home run would most likely be the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" hit by Bobby Thomson to win the 1951 National League pennant for the New York Giants, along with many other game-ending home runs that famously ended some of the most important and suspenseful baseball games.


title: Home run

text: A walk-off home run over the fence is an exception to baseball's one-run rule. Normally if the home team is tied or behind in the ninth or extra innings, the game ends as soon as the home team scores enough run to achieve a lead. If the home team has two outs in the inning, and the game is tied, the game will officially end either the moment the batter successfully reaches first base or the moment the runner touches home plate—whichever happens last. However, this is superseded by the "ground rule", which provides automatic doubles (when a ball-in-play hits the ground first then leaves the playing field) and home runs (when a ball-in-play leaves the playing field without ever touching the ground). In the latter case, all base runners including the batter are allowed to cross the plate.


title: Home run

text: A leadoff home run is a home run hit by the first batter of a team, the leadoff hitter of the first inning of the game. In MLB, Rickey Henderson holds the career record with 81 lead-off home runs.


title: Home run

text: In 1996, Brady Anderson set a Major League record by hitting a lead-off home run in four consecutive games.


title: Home run

text: When two consecutive batters each hit a home run, this is described as back-to-back home runs. It is still considered back-to-back even if both batters hit their home runs off different pitchers. A third batter hitting a home run is commonly referred to as back-to-back-to-back.


title: Home run

text: Four home runs in a row by consecutive batters has only occurred eleven times in the history of Major League Baseball. Following convention, this is called back-to-back-to-back-to-back. The most recent occurrence was on July 2, 2022, when the St. Louis Cardinals hit four in a row against the Philadelphia Phillies. Nolan Arenado, Nolan Gorman, Juan Yepez, and Dylan Carlson hit consecutive home runs during the first inning off starting pitcher Kyle Gibson.


title: Home run

text: On June 9, 2019, the Washington Nationals hit four in a row against the San Diego Padres in Petco Park as Howie Kendrick, Trea Turner, Adam Eaton and Anthony Rendon homered off pitcher Craig Stammen. Stammen became the fifth pitcher to surrender back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs, following Paul Foytack on July 31, 1963, Chase Wright on April 22, 2007, Dave Bush on August 10, 2010, and Michael Blazek on July 27, 2017.


title: Home run

text: On August 14, 2008, the Chicago White Sox defeated the Kansas City Royals 9–2. In this game, Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, Alexei Ramírez, and Juan Uribe hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs in that order. Thome, Konerko, and Ramirez blasted their homers off Joel Peralta, while Uribe did it off Rob Tejeda. The next batter, veteran backstop Toby Hall, tried aimlessly to hit the ball as far as possible, but his effort resulted in a strike out.