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109-423: Mega-Lo-Mania is an early real-time strategy game that predates Dune II by a year. The player takes control of one of four gods; Scarlet (red), Caesar (green), Oberon (yellow) and Madcap (blue). There are no differences between them except colour and AI behaviour when opposing. Each level takes place on an island divided into two to sixteen "sectors". The objective is to defeat up to three opposing gods and conquer

218-471: A directional antenna transmits radio waves in a beam in a particular direction, or receives waves from only one direction. Radio waves travel at the speed of light in vacuum and at slightly lower velocity in air. The other types of electromagnetic waves besides radio waves, infrared , visible light , ultraviolet , X-rays and gamma rays , can also carry information and be used for communication. The wide use of radio waves for telecommunication

327-418: A microphone , a video signal representing moving images from a video camera , or a digital signal consisting of a sequence of bits representing binary data from a computer. The modulation signal is applied to a radio transmitter . In the transmitter, an electronic oscillator generates an alternating current oscillating at a radio frequency , called the carrier wave because it serves to generate

436-492: A radar screen . Doppler radar can measure a moving object's velocity, by measuring the change in frequency of the return radio waves due to the Doppler effect . Radar sets mainly use high frequencies in the microwave bands, because these frequencies create strong reflections from objects the size of vehicles and can be focused into narrow beams with compact antennas. Parabolic (dish) antennas are widely used. In most radars

545-632: A transmitter connected to an antenna which radiates oscillating electrical energy, often characterized as a wave . They can be received by other antennas connected to a radio receiver ; this is the fundamental principle of radio communication. In addition to communication, radio is used for radar , radio navigation , remote control , remote sensing , and other applications. In radio communication , used in radio and television broadcasting , cell phones, two-way radios , wireless networking , and satellite communication , among numerous other uses, radio waves are used to carry information across space from

654-474: A " push to talk " button on their radio which switches off the receiver and switches on the transmitter. Or the radio link may be full duplex , a bidirectional link using two radio channels so both people can talk at the same time, as in a cell phone. One way, unidirectional radio transmission is called simplex . This is radio communication between a spacecraft and an Earth-based ground station, or another spacecraft. Communication with spacecraft involves

763-671: A Dynasty (titled Dune II: Battle for Arrakis in Europe and Dune: The Battle for Arrakis in North America for the Mega Drive/Genesis port, respectively) is a 1992 real-time strategy game developed by Westwood Studios and published by Virgin Games . It serves as the sequel to Dune (a more traditional adventure game), which came out earlier that same year. While not the first real-time strategy (RTS) video game, Dune II established

872-606: A Service Regulation specifying that "Radiotelegrams shall show in the preamble that the service is 'Radio ' ". The switch to radio in place of wireless took place slowly and unevenly in the English-speaking world. Lee de Forest helped popularize the new word in the United States—in early 1907, he founded the DeForest Radio Telephone Company, and his letter in the 22 June 1907 Electrical World about

981-412: A controller device control the actions of a remote device. The existence of radio waves was first proven by German physicist Heinrich Hertz on 11 November 1886. In the mid-1890s, building on techniques physicists were using to study electromagnetic waves, Italian physicist Guglielmo Marconi developed the first apparatus for long-distance radio communication, sending a wireless Morse Code message to

1090-540: A fast-moving Saboteur whose main purpose is the destruction of buildings. The AI of Dune II was one of the first used in RTS games, and while better than that of Herzog Zwei , it has various drawbacks. Examples include only attacking the side of the player's base facing its own, and general inability to perform flanking maneuvers. Research into the game's engine revealed that the AI is in fact capable of more advanced strategy, but that

1199-467: A fast-paced wargame". He also stated that, while " Herzog Zwei was a lot of fun", the "other inspiration for Dune II was the Mac software interface ", referring to the "design/interface dynamics of mouse clicking and selecting desktop items" which got him thinking: "Why not allow the same inside the game environment? Why not a context-sensitive playfield? To hell with all these hot keys, to hell with keyboard as

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1308-513: A game where the player "kept clicking on stuff and then zooming off to another part of the screen. It was very hard to keep track of what was going on as an observer. Still, everyone liked it, it had fast action, and it was a strategy game". Virgin staff, including Clarke-Willson and Seth Mendelsohn (who later worked on the Ultima series), then went to Westwood Studios to talk about making a Dune game. According to Clarke-Willson, "Westwood agreed to make

1417-421: A given bandwidth than analog modulation , by using data compression algorithms, which reduce redundancy in the data to be sent, and more efficient modulation. Other reasons for the transition is that digital modulation has greater noise immunity than analog, digital signal processing chips have more power and flexibility than analog circuits, and a wide variety of types of information can be transmitted using

1526-545: A government license, such as the general radiotelephone operator license in the US, obtained by taking a test demonstrating adequate technical and legal knowledge of safe radio operation. Exceptions to the above rules allow the unlicensed operation by the public of low power short-range transmitters in consumer products such as cell phones, cordless phones , wireless devices , walkie-talkies , citizens band radios , wireless microphones , garage door openers , and baby monitors . In

1635-572: A large economic cost, but it can also be life-threatening (for example, in the case of interference with emergency communications or air traffic control ). To prevent interference between different users, the emission of radio waves is strictly regulated by national laws, coordinated by an international body, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which allocates bands in the radio spectrum for different uses. Radio transmitters must be licensed by governments, under

1744-465: A large part of these capabilities is unused due to consistently repeated errors in all of the game's mission scripts. According to Virgin Interactive vice president Stephen Clarke-Willson in 1998, the development of Dune II began when Virgin Interactive planned to cancel the production of Cryo Interactive 's adventure game Dune , after which he was given the task of figuring out what to do with

1853-595: A metal conductor called an antenna . As they travel farther from the transmitting antenna, radio waves spread out so their signal strength ( intensity in watts per square meter) decreases (see Inverse-square law ), so radio transmissions can only be received within a limited range of the transmitter, the distance depending on the transmitter power, the antenna radiation pattern , receiver sensitivity, background noise level, and presence of obstructions between transmitter and receiver . An omnidirectional antenna transmits or receives radio waves in all directions, while

1962-427: A more limited information-carrying capacity and so work best with audio signals (speech and music), and the sound quality can be degraded by radio noise from natural and artificial sources. The shortwave bands have a greater potential range but are more subject to interference by distant stations and varying atmospheric conditions that affect reception. In the very high frequency band, greater than 30 megahertz,

2071-470: A primitive spark-gap transmitter . Experiments by Hertz and physicists Jagadish Chandra Bose , Oliver Lodge , Lord Rayleigh , and Augusto Righi , among others, showed that radio waves like light demonstrated reflection, refraction , diffraction , polarization , standing waves , and traveled at the same speed as light, confirming that both light and radio waves were electromagnetic waves, differing only in frequency. In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi developed

2180-420: A public audience. Analog audio is the earliest form of radio broadcast. AM broadcasting began around 1920. FM broadcasting was introduced in the late 1930s with improved fidelity . A broadcast radio receiver is called a radio . Most radios can receive both AM and FM. Television broadcasting is the transmission of moving images by radio, which consist of sequences of still images, which are displayed on

2289-459: A radio signal is usually concentrated in narrow frequency bands called sidebands ( SB ) just above and below the carrier frequency. The width in hertz of the frequency range that the radio signal occupies, the highest frequency minus the lowest frequency, is called its bandwidth ( BW ). For any given signal-to-noise ratio , an amount of bandwidth can carry the same amount of information ( data rate in bits per second) regardless of where in

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2398-489: A receiver that is typically colocated with the transmitter. In radio navigation systems such as GPS and VOR , a mobile navigation instrument receives radio signals from multiple navigational radio beacons whose position is known, and by precisely measuring the arrival time of the radio waves the receiver can calculate its position on Earth. In wireless radio remote control devices like drones , garage door openers , and keyless entry systems , radio signals transmitted from

2507-521: A recipient over a kilometer away in 1895, and the first transatlantic signal on 12 December 1901. The first commercial radio broadcast was transmitted on 2 November 1920, when the live returns of the Harding-Cox presidential election were broadcast by Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in Pittsburgh, under the call sign KDKA . The emission of radio waves is regulated by law, coordinated by

2616-644: A reference to the radiotelegraph and radiotelegraphy . The use of radio as a standalone word dates back to at least 30 December 1904, when instructions issued by the British Post Office for transmitting telegrams specified that "The word 'Radio'... is sent in the Service Instructions." This practice was universally adopted, and the word "radio" introduced internationally, by the 1906 Berlin Radiotelegraphic Convention, which included

2725-469: A resource strategy game based on Dune , and agreed to look at Herzog Zwei for design ideas". It later turned out that Cryo's game of the same name was not cancelled, and Westwood's real-time strategy game was called Dune II as a result. Westwood Studios co-founder and Dune II producer Brett Sperry said in 2008 that conceptualization for the game began when Virgin president Martin Alper approached him with

2834-446: A screen on a television receiver (a "television" or TV) along with a synchronized audio (sound) channel. Television ( video ) signals occupy a wider bandwidth than broadcast radio ( audio ) signals. Analog television , the original television technology, required 6 MHz, so the television frequency bands are divided into 6 MHz channels, now called "RF channels". The current television standard, introduced beginning in 2006,

2943-585: A semi- remake for Windows in 1998 as Dune 2000 , along with a PlayStation port in the same year. Westwood subsequently released Emperor: Battle for Dune in 2001 . There are also fan-made game engine recreations , like Dune Legacy , which aims for improved usability and controls while not changing the gameplay. Radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves . Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3  hertz (Hz) and 300  gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called

3052-404: A short diversion into strategic whimsy before degenerating into an also-ran". MegaTech magazine said that it was "very easy to get into (but) there are only nine levels". In 2017, Gamesradar ranked the game 46th on its "Best Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games of all time". A sequel was being planned and had started development, but was never released. Dune II Dune II: The Building of

3161-441: A smaller bandwidth than the old analog channels, saving scarce radio spectrum space. Therefore, each of the 6 MHz analog RF channels now carries up to 7 DTV channels – these are called "virtual channels". Digital television receivers have different behavior in the presence of poor reception or noise than analog television, called the " digital cliff " effect. Unlike analog television, in which increasingly poor reception causes

3270-452: A specially formatted disk. Two years later, it was also brought to the Archimedes and Risc PC range of RISC OS computers. The Mega Drive/Genesis port has fairly different building and unit graphics, a full-screen menu-less user interface suited for gamepad control, and no save game support, relying on access codes for accessing each level. Other additions include a music test option and

3379-416: A television (video) signal has a greater data rate than an audio signal . The radio spectrum , the total range of radio frequencies that can be used for communication in a given area, is a limited resource. Each radio transmission occupies a portion of the total bandwidth available. Radio bandwidth is regarded as an economic good which has a monetary cost and is in increasing demand. In some parts of

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3488-400: A transmitter to a receiver, by modulating the radio signal (impressing an information signal on the radio wave by varying some aspect of the wave) in the transmitter. In radar, used to locate and track objects like aircraft, ships, spacecraft and missiles, a beam of radio waves emitted by a radar transmitter reflects off the target object, and the reflected waves reveal the object's location to

3597-652: A transmitter to control the actions of a device at a remote location. Remote control systems may also include telemetry channels in the other direction, used to transmit real-time information on the state of the device back to the control station. Uncrewed spacecraft are an example of remote-controlled machines, controlled by commands transmitted by satellite ground stations . Most handheld remote controls used to control consumer electronics products like televisions or DVD players actually operate by infrared light rather than radio waves, so are not examples of radio remote control. A security concern with remote control systems

3706-501: A tutorial that replaces the mentat screen. Several ideas from this version, including the music track listing and the replacement of sidebar command buttons by a context-sensitive cursor, were used in Westwood's next strategy game, Command & Conquer . The game was ported to Android in 2013; also a fan-made port for Pandora became available based on the reverse engineered game engine . According to Westwood Studios, Dune II

3815-420: A unit runs over them (the unit is destroyed in the ensuing "spice blow"). A map of the planet Arrakis is shown before most missions, where the player can choose the next territory to play in among two or three. This affects primarily the enemy house fought in the next mission, as all missions except the first two require the destruction of the enemy. Nine territories must be fought, irrespective of house, to reach

3924-435: A variety of license classes depending on use, and are restricted to certain frequencies and power levels. In some classes, such as radio and television broadcasting stations, the transmitter is given a unique identifier consisting of a string of letters and numbers called a call sign , which must be used in all transmissions. In order to adjust, maintain, or internally repair radiotelephone transmitters, individuals must hold

4033-413: Is amplified in the transmitter and applied to a transmitting antenna which radiates the energy as radio waves. The radio waves carry the information to the receiver location. At the receiver, the radio wave induces a tiny oscillating voltage in the receiving antenna which is a weaker replica of the current in the transmitting antenna. This voltage is applied to the radio receiver , which amplifies

4142-703: Is spoofing , in which an unauthorized person transmits an imitation of the control signal to take control of the device. Examples of radio remote control: Radio jamming is the deliberate radiation of radio signals designed to interfere with the reception of other radio signals. Jamming devices are called "signal suppressors" or "interference generators" or just jammers. During wartime, militaries use jamming to interfere with enemies' tactical radio communication. Since radio waves can pass beyond national borders, some totalitarian countries which practice censorship use jamming to prevent their citizens from listening to broadcasts from radio stations in other countries. Jamming

4251-445: Is a digital format called high-definition television (HDTV), which transmits pictures at higher resolution, typically 1080 pixels high by 1920 pixels wide, at a rate of 25 or 30 frames per second. Digital television (DTV) transmission systems, which replaced older analog television in a transition beginning in 2006, use image compression and high-efficiency digital modulation such as OFDM and 8VSB to transmit HDTV video within

4360-422: Is a military commander from a House of their choice. In the first few missions, the objectives are to successfully establish a base on an unoccupied territory of Arrakis, while harvesting spice and defending the base from enemy incursions. Later, as the three Houses begin moving against each other territories, missions will increasingly focus on destroying or capturing enemy bases. When the player dominates Arrakis on

4469-433: Is an audio transceiver , a receiver and transmitter in the same device, used for bidirectional person-to-person voice communication with other users with similar radios. An older term for this mode of communication is radiotelephony . The radio link may be half-duplex , as in a walkie-talkie , using a single radio channel in which only one radio can transmit at a time, so different users take turns talking, pressing

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4578-410: Is called "tuning". The oscillating radio signal from the desired station causes the tuned circuit to resonate , oscillate in sympathy, and it passes the signal on to the rest of the receiver. Radio signals at other frequencies are blocked by the tuned circuit and not passed on. A modulated radio wave, carrying an information signal, occupies a range of frequencies . The information ( modulation ) in

4687-427: Is called an uplink , while a link that transmits data from the spacecraft to the ground is called a downlink. Radar is a radiolocation method used to locate and track aircraft, spacecraft, missiles, ships, vehicles, and also to map weather patterns and terrain. A radar set consists of a transmitter and receiver. The transmitter emits a narrow beam of radio waves which is swept around the surrounding space. When

4796-461: Is desperate for the harvesting of the valuable drug melange (also known as "the spice"), found only on the planet Arrakis , to pay off all of his debt incurred on internecine wars with family members. To achieve this, he offers the sole governorship of Arrakis to whichever of the three Houses ( Atreides , Harkonnen , and the non-canon Ordos) delivers the most spice for him. War begins as deputations from all three Houses arrive on Arrakis. The player

4905-553: Is in radio clocks and watches, which include an automated receiver that periodically (usually weekly) receives and decodes the time signal and resets the watch's internal quartz clock to the correct time, thus allowing a small watch or desk clock to have the same accuracy as an atomic clock. Government time stations are declining in number because GPS satellites and the Internet Network Time Protocol (NTP) provide equally accurate time standards. A two-way radio

5014-414: Is lifted forever with initial exploration; it does not become dark once more when units leave the area. In addition to enemy incursions, there are other dangers such as the marauding, gigantic sandworm , capable of swallowing vehicles and infantry whole but blocked by rocky terrain. The player can only build on rocky terrain and must build concrete foundations to avoid deterioration of the structures due to

5123-417: Is mainly due to their desirable propagation properties stemming from their longer wavelength. In radio communication systems, information is carried across space using radio waves. At the sending end, the information to be sent is converted by some type of transducer to a time-varying electrical signal called the modulation signal. The modulation signal may be an audio signal representing sound from

5232-412: Is that we had the advantage of a mouse and keyboard. This greatly facilitated precise player control, which enabled the player to give orders to individual units. The mouse, and the direct control it allowed, was critical in making the RTS genre possible". Originally released for MS-DOS in 1992, Dune II was one of the first games to support the recently introduced General MIDI standard. The game audio

5341-524: Is the one-way transmission of information from a transmitter to receivers belonging to a public audience. Since the radio waves become weaker with distance, a broadcasting station can only be received within a limited distance of its transmitter. Systems that broadcast from satellites can generally be received over an entire country or continent. Older terrestrial radio and television are paid for by commercial advertising or governments. In subscription systems like satellite television and satellite radio

5450-638: The Dune license. After reading the original Dune novel, he decided that "from a gaming point-of-view the real stress was the battle to control the spice", so a resource-based strategy video game would be a good idea. It was around this time that employee Graeme Devine (who later founded Trilobyte ) introduced to everyone at the Virgin office a real-time strategy game on the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive console called Herzog Zwei (1989). Clarke-Willson described it as

5559-591: The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which allocates frequency bands in the radio spectrum for various uses. The word radio is derived from the Latin word radius , meaning "spoke of a wheel, beam of light, ray". It was first applied to communications in 1881 when, at the suggestion of French scientist Ernest Mercadier  [ fr ] , Alexander Graham Bell adopted radiophone (meaning "radiated sound") as an alternate name for his photophone optical transmission system. Following Hertz's discovery of

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5668-647: The Roland Sound Canvas ), because users could not play the game with both digital sound effects (which MIDI synthesisers lacked) and high-quality MIDI score. Westwood later published a revised setup utility to enable users select a different soundcard for each type of game audio: digital speech, music, and sound effects. Ports to the Amiga and Mega Drive/Genesis were released in 1993 and 1994 respectively. The Amiga floppy disk version has less detailed graphics and requires frequent disk swapping. Save games are stored on

5777-497: The ionosphere without refraction , and at microwave frequencies the high-gain antennas needed to focus the radio energy into a narrow beam pointed at the receiver are small and take up a minimum of space in a satellite. Portions of the UHF , L , C , S , k u and k a band are allocated for space communication. A radio link that transmits data from the Earth's surface to a spacecraft

5886-400: The radio spectrum into 12 bands, each beginning at a wavelength which is a power of ten (10 ) metres, with corresponding frequency of 3 times a power of ten, and each covering a decade of frequency or wavelength. Each of these bands has a traditional name: It can be seen that the bandwidth , the range of frequencies, contained in each band is not equal but increases exponentially as

5995-565: The 100 greatest video games of all time. In 1994, PC Gamer US named Dune II the 49th best computer game ever. That same year, PC Gamer UK named it the 21st best computer game of all time, calling it "a wargame for those who don't like wargames". In 1996, GamesMaster listed the Mega Drive version 8th in its "The Gamesmaster Mega Drive Top 10". In the same issue, they also ranked the PC version 21st on their "Top 100 Games of All Time". Dune II

6104-531: The 1920s with the introduction of broadcasting. Electromagnetic waves were predicted by James Clerk Maxwell in his 1873 theory of electromagnetism , now called Maxwell's equations , who proposed that a coupled oscillating electric field and magnetic field could travel through space as a wave, and proposed that light consisted of electromagnetic waves of short wavelength . On 11 November 1886, German physicist Heinrich Hertz , attempting to confirm Maxwell's theory, first observed radio waves he generated using

6213-606: The Amiga version of Dune II was released in 1993, it was met with positive reviews. CU Amiga magazine rated the game highly with 85%, praising the smooth gameplay and controls. Dune II received Amiga User International 's Game of the Month award when it was reviewed in September 1993. GamePro rated the Genesis version 17 out of 20, dubbing it "one of the best war strategy carts for

6322-576: The Deviator - a specialized tank firing a nerve gas that switches the allegiance of targeted units to Ordos for a limited period of time. The three Houses also are restricted in their production capabilities—House Ordos cannot build Atreides-style trikes, instead making the faster "Raider" trikes, while House Harkonnen eschews trikes completely, building only the heavier, more expensive "Quad" light attack vehicle. A player can gain access to other Houses' special units by capturing an enemy Factory and manufacturing

6431-474: The Earth's atmosphere has less of an effect on the range of signals, and line-of-sight propagation becomes the principal mode. These higher frequencies permit the great bandwidth required for television broadcasting. Since natural and artificial noise sources are less present at these frequencies, high-quality audio transmission is possible, using frequency modulation . Radio broadcasting means transmission of audio (sound) to radio receivers belonging to

6540-399: The Genesis" while praising the controls, digitized speech, music, and fun gameplay. Electronic Gaming Monthly scored the Genesis version 32 out of 40, commenting that the gameplay is not only addictive, but easy to learn, which they stated is highly unusual for a strategy game. Game Informer rated it 8.25 out of 10. In 1993, Computer Gaming World named Dune II Strategy Game of

6649-506: The Spring of 1991 for the Amiga and Atari ST; a DOS version wasn't planned at this stage in development. In a January 1991 issue of British gaming magazine The One , The One interviewed team members from Sensible Software for information regarding Mega-Lo-Mania's development in a pre-release interview. Mega-Lo-Mania was originally conceived under the title Alien Empire and later My Little Warhead , but these names were scrapped in lieu of

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6758-580: The US, these fall under Part 15 of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations. Many of these devices use the ISM bands , a series of frequency bands throughout the radio spectrum reserved for unlicensed use. Although they can be operated without a license, like all radio equipment these devices generally must be type-approved before the sale. Below are some of the most important uses of radio, organized by function. Broadcasting

6867-535: The Year. The game was ranked the 11th best game of all time by Amiga Power in 1996. In 1996, Computer Gaming World declared Dune 2 the 70th-best computer game ever released. In 2004, this "legendary" game entered the GameSpy Hall of Fame. In Poland, it was included in the retrospective lists of the best Amiga games by Wirtualna Polska (ranked eight) and CHIP (ranked fourth). In 2012, Time named it one of

6976-405: The air simultaneously without interfering with each other because each transmitter's radio waves oscillate at a different rate, in other words, each transmitter has a different frequency , measured in hertz (Hz), kilohertz (kHz), megahertz (MHz) or gigahertz (GHz). The receiving antenna typically picks up the radio signals of many transmitters. The receiver uses tuned circuits to select

7085-414: The beam strikes a target object, radio waves are reflected back to the receiver. The direction of the beam reveals the object's location. Since radio waves travel at a constant speed close to the speed of light , by measuring the brief time delay between the outgoing pulse and the received "echo", the range to the target can be calculated. The targets are often displayed graphically on a map display called

7194-515: The building of the House Palace from where superweapons may be unleashed on opponents in the final closing chapters of the game. The House Harkonnen superweapon is a long-range powerful but inaccurate finger of missiles called the Death Hand, whereas House Atreides may call upon the local Fremen infantry warriors, over which the player has no control, to engage enemy targets. House Ordos may unleash

7303-668: The continuous waves which were needed for audio modulation , so radio was used for person-to-person commercial, diplomatic and military text messaging. Starting around 1908 industrial countries built worldwide networks of powerful transoceanic transmitters to exchange telegram traffic between continents and communicate with their colonies and naval fleets. During World War I the development of continuous wave radio transmitters, rectifying electrolytic, and crystal radio receiver detectors enabled amplitude modulation (AM) radiotelephony to be achieved by Reginald Fessenden and others, allowing audio to be transmitted. On 2 November 1920,

7412-412: The course of development, there was a bug that caused the game to freeze when sounds were loaded, which was later fixed. Mega-Lo-Mania is considered to be the first real time strategy game to also incorporate a technology tree and was met with universal acclaim on its original release. Amiga Power was impressed by the game, and considered it as one of the best games for Amiga. Mega placed

7521-466: The customer pays a monthly fee. In these systems, the radio signal is encrypted and can only be decrypted by the receiver, which is controlled by the company and can be deactivated if the customer does not pay. Broadcasting uses several parts of the radio spectrum, depending on the type of signals transmitted and the desired target audience. Longwave and medium wave signals can give reliable coverage of areas several hundred kilometers across, but have

7630-399: The desired units at the captured Factory. Buildings may only be built in rocky zones and connected to another existing building. To protect them from constant wear, the player must first place concrete slabs in the construction areas. Production buildings can be upgraded at a cost several times, allowing the production of more advanced units or buildings. The final prize for the commander is

7739-510: The endgame. Some key elements that first appeared in Dune II and later appear in many other RTS games include: Completing higher missions gives authorization to use improved technology and higher-order weaponry unique to each House, ensuring varied game play. For example, House Harkonnen may be able to construct their Devastator tanks with heavy armor and ordnance but cannot build the similarly impressive Atreides Sonic Tank. The Ordos have access to

7848-404: The excitement and intensity of a war game, but with action-packed gameplay". Other influences cited by Joseph Bostic (also known as Joe Bostic), the co-designer and lead programmer, and Mike Legg, one of the game's programmers, include the turn-based strategy games Military Madness (1989) and Civilization (1991), along with Herzog Zwei . According to Bostic, a "benefit over Herzog Zwei

7957-570: The existence of radio waves in 1886, the term Hertzian waves was initially used for this radiation. The first practical radio communication systems, developed by Marconi in 1894–1895, transmitted telegraph signals by radio waves, so radio communication was first called wireless telegraphy . Up until about 1910 the term wireless telegraphy also included a variety of other experimental systems for transmitting telegraph signals without wires, including electrostatic induction , electromagnetic induction and aquatic and earth conduction , so there

8066-409: The factory before use. Building a mine gives access to more elements and the laboratory improves design tasks. If the sector's tower gets destroyed, the player loses control of that sector. If the player has no sectors or men left, the level must be restarted. The player has the option to form an alliance with an opponent if there are two or three present on the map. An allied opponent will not attack

8175-444: The final title of Mega-Lo-Mania . The game's original concept had the player taking the role of an operator of a spaceship who needed to combat robots located on an island, with the island being split into 16 sections. The goal of this original design concept was to combine scrolling arcade action gameplay with real-time strategy; this concept is vastly different from the final product due to lack of publisher interest, as they considered

8284-413: The first commercial radio broadcast was transmitted by Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in Pittsburgh, under the call sign KDKA featuring live coverage of the Harding-Cox presidential election . Radio waves are radiated by electric charges undergoing acceleration . They are generated artificially by time-varying electric currents , consisting of electrons flowing back and forth in

8393-580: The first radio communication system, using a spark-gap transmitter to send Morse code over long distances. By December 1901, he had transmitted across the Atlantic Ocean. Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics "for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy". During radio's first two decades, called the radiotelegraphy era, the primitive radio transmitters could only transmit pulses of radio waves, not

8502-405: The format that would be followed for years to come. As such, Dune II is the archetypal real-time strategy game. Striking a balance between complexity and innovation, it was a huge success and laid the foundation for Age of Empires , Warcraft , Westwood Studios' subsequent strategy game Command & Conquer , and many other RTS games that followed. Emperor Frederick IV of House Corrino

8611-615: The frequency increases; each band contains ten times the bandwidth of the preceding band. The term "tremendously low frequency" (TLF) has been used for wavelengths from 1–3 Hz (300,000–100,000 km), though the term has not been defined by the ITU. The airwaves are a resource shared by many users. Two radio transmitters in the same area that attempt to transmit on the same frequency will interfere with each other, causing garbled reception, so neither transmission may be received clearly. Interference with radio transmissions can not only have

8720-475: The game at #34 in their Top Mega Drive Games of All Time. Conversions to other platforms sometimes received less praise. Computer Gaming World cited many bugs and flaws, and stated that even if they were fixed "not enough attention has been paid to gameplay". A 1994 survey of strategic space games set in the year 2000 and later gave the game two-plus stars out of five, stating that the Populous "clone ... offers

8829-403: The game differs from Populous , Hare stated that the gameplay concept of human evolution isn't unique to Populous as "the earth thought of it first". Richard Joseph, Mega-Lo-Mania's composer and sound designer, hired radio voice actors to perform the game's sampled speech; Mega-Lo-Mania has over 50 speech samples, and due to their size, the sounds are on a floppy disk of their own. Over

8938-413: The game to 'not fit into any specific category'. Jonathan Hare, Mega-Lo-Mania's graphic artist and one of its designers, expressed that the game was changed from its original concept to make it more marketable to publishers; he stated that the ultimatum became that the team needed to "drop the scrolling or drop the strategy", with the team deciding to scrap the game's arcade scrolling aspect. Upon scrapping

9047-415: The game's original concept of robots, the team considered a fantasy theme, but decided against it. Upon being asked about Mega-Lo-Mania's similarity to Populous , Hare expressed that while it looks "a little" similar, it differs significantly in its gameplay, particularly in its combat, stating that he thinks that Mega-Lo-Mania doesn't play "like Populous at all". Further expressing his belief in how

9156-405: The harsh weather conditions. Structures will still gradually decay over time regardless of the presence of those concrete slabs, but they save repair costs in the long run. Spice fields are indicated by orange coloration on the sand, darker orange indicating high concentration. Some spice may be concealed as bumps on the terrain (a "spice bloom") that become spice fields when they are shot at, or when

9265-447: The island. Before a level begins, the player decides which sector to place their first tower in, and how many men to deploy. The men can perform various tasks such as designing weapons and shields, mining elements, building structures, manufacturing weapons and forming an army. The number of men assigned to a single task determines how fast or effective it will be. Men that are left idle will procreate and gradually increase in number. At

9374-402: The longest transmission distances of any radio links, up to billions of kilometers for interplanetary spacecraft . In order to receive the weak signals from distant spacecraft, satellite ground stations use large parabolic "dish" antennas up to 25 metres (82 ft) in diameter and extremely sensitive receivers. High frequencies in the microwave band are used, since microwaves pass through

9483-466: The need for legal restrictions warned that "Radio chaos will certainly be the result until such stringent regulation is enforced." The United States Navy would also play a role. Although its translation of the 1906 Berlin Convention used the terms wireless telegraph and wireless telegram , by 1912 it began to promote the use of radio instead. The term started to become preferred by the general public in

9592-468: The offer of using their Dune license to produce a game, with the understanding that Cryo's Dune had been cancelled. In terms of video game design , Sperry said: "The inspiration for Dune II was partly from Populous , partly from my work on Eye Of The Beholder and the final and perhaps most crucial part came from an argument I once had with Chuck Kroegel , then vice president of Strategic Simulations Inc  ... The crux of my argument with Chuck

9701-505: The picture quality to gradually degrade, in digital television picture quality is not affected by poor reception until, at a certain point, the receiver stops working and the screen goes black. Government standard frequency and time signal services operate time radio stations which continuously broadcast extremely accurate time signals produced by atomic clocks , as a reference to synchronize other clocks. Examples are BPC , DCF77 , JJY , MSF , RTZ , TDF , WWV , and YVTO . One use

9810-438: The player but neither of them can expand their territory whilst allied. Alliances cannot be made if only one opponent is remaining. There are twenty-eight islands in the game, which are named in alphabetical order (except the last two) and grouped into ten epochs. Each epoch contains three islands and represents a different era in time (starting at 9500 BC and ending at 2001 AD); conquering the three islands in any order will allow

9919-496: The player to proceed to the next epoch. The player receives one-hundred men in each epoch. Any unused are carried over to the next epoch. The only exception is the tenth epoch, which contains only one eponymous island and does not grant extra men to the player. The Amiga and Atari ST versions of Mega-Lo-Mania , as developed by Sensible Software and published by Image Works , began development in November 1989, and were released in

10028-411: The primary means of manipulating the game!" During production, he found out that Cryo rushed to finish their game first, leading to Virgin publishing their game as Dune and Westwood's game as Dune II , despite Sperry protesting against this decision. Louis Castle said in 1998 that the game's influence on the real-time strategy genre was unplanned, and that the team's goal was simply "to include all of

10137-451: The radio frequency spectrum it is located, so bandwidth is a measure of information-carrying capacity . The bandwidth required by a radio transmission depends on the data rate of the information (modulation signal) being sent, and the spectral efficiency of the modulation method used; how much data it can transmit in each kilohertz of bandwidth. Different types of information signals carried by radio have different data rates. For example,

10246-409: The radio signal desired out of all the signals picked up by the antenna and reject the others. A tuned circuit (also called resonant circuit or tank circuit) acts like a resonator , similar to a tuning fork . It has a natural resonant frequency at which it oscillates. The resonant frequency of the receiver's tuned circuit is adjusted by the user to the frequency of the desired radio station; this

10355-451: The radio spectrum, the right to use a frequency band or even a single radio channel is bought and sold for millions of dollars. So there is an incentive to employ technology to minimize the bandwidth used by radio services. A slow transition from analog to digital radio transmission technologies began in the late 1990s. Part of the reason for this is that digital modulation can often transmit more information (a greater data rate) in

10464-456: The radio waves that carry the information through the air. The modulation signal is used to modulate the carrier, varying some aspect of the carrier wave, impressing the information in the modulation signal onto the carrier. Different radio systems use different modulation methods: Many other types of modulation are also used. In some types, a carrier wave is not transmitted but just one or both modulation sidebands . The modulated carrier

10573-577: The role of the commander of one of the three interplanetary houses, the Atreides, the Harkonnen or the Ordos, with the objective of wresting control of Arrakis from the other two houses. House Ordos is not featured in the Dune novels and is mentioned only in the non- canon The Dune Encyclopedia . The basic strategy in the game is to harvest spice from the treacherous sand dunes using a harvester vehicle, convert

10682-481: The same digital modulation. Because it is a fixed resource which is in demand by an increasing number of users, the radio spectrum has become increasingly congested in recent decades, and the need to use it more effectively is driving many additional radio innovations such as trunked radio systems , spread spectrum (ultra-wideband) transmission, frequency reuse , dynamic spectrum management , frequency pooling, and cognitive radio . The ITU arbitrarily divides

10791-399: The spice into credits via a refinery, and to build military units with these acquired credits in order to fend off and destroy the enemy. The game map initially starts with a fog of war covering all area which is not covered by the player's units range of view. As the units explore the map, the darkness is removed. Unlike later games such as Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness , the fog of war

10900-558: The start of a level the player only has unarmed men available. To gain more powerful weaponry, the player must assign men to design technology. When enough designs are made, the sector will advance a tech-level; making more research and buildings available. Armies can be used to either invade enemy sectors, or build a tower in an empty sector; expanding the player's territory. Shields are used to repair damaged buildings. Weapons and shields can only be made if enough elements have been gathered. Higher-tech weapons and shields must be manufactured in

11009-431: The transmitting antenna also serves as the receiving antenna; this is called a monostatic radar . A radar which uses separate transmitting and receiving antennas is called a bistatic radar . Radiolocation is a generic term covering a variety of techniques that use radio waves to find the location of objects, or for navigation. Radio remote control is the use of electronic control signals sent by radio waves from

11118-510: The weak radio signal so it is stronger, then demodulates it, extracting the original modulation signal from the modulated carrier wave. The modulation signal is converted by a transducer back to a human-usable form: an audio signal is converted to sound waves by a loudspeaker or earphones, a video signal is converted to images by a display , while a digital signal is applied to a computer or microprocessor, which interacts with human users. The radio waves from many transmitters pass through

11227-562: The world map, the two other enemy factions form a temporary alliance with the remnants of their armies. The final showdown is the battle between the player's House against both rival Houses, joined by the Emperor's Sardaukar (an unplayable elite force whose heavy infantry are particularly powerful). The introductory mission briefing and endgame cutscenes are different for each House, in keeping with their very disparate world views. The weaponry and units also vary from house to house. The player takes

11336-452: Was a commercial success, with global sales in excess of 250,000 units by November 1996. Computer Gaming World in 1993 stated that the PC version of Dune II "easily outshines its predecessor in terms of game play ... a real gem", with "arguably the most outstanding sound and graphics ever to appear in a strategy game of its kind". A February 1994 survey of space war games gave it a grade of B+, stating that without online play, there

11445-536: Was a need for a more precise term referring exclusively to electromagnetic radiation. The French physicist Édouard Branly , who in 1890 developed the radio wave detecting coherer , called it in French a radio-conducteur . The radio- prefix was later used to form additional descriptive compound and hyphenated words, especially in Europe. For example, in early 1898 the British publication The Practical Engineer included

11554-417: Was little replayability once each House conquered the planet, but a May 1994 survey of strategic space games set in the year 2000 and later gave the game five stars out of five, describing it as "a wargame par excellance ; superb graphics and sound make an enjoyable gaming experience". The magazine hoped that Command & Conquer would be its sequel. Electronic Games gave the game a 92% score. When

11663-703: Was one of the most influential games in the real-time strategy genre , particularly in Westwood 's own Command & Conquer series. Though not every feature was unique, its specific combination of a fog of war , mouse-based military micromanagement, and an economic model of resource-gathering and base-building became the hallmark of the RTS genre. It served as the template for subsequent real-time strategy games. Chris Taylor has stated that Dune II and Command & Conquer were great inspirations, driving him to leave Electronic Arts to create Total Annihilation . Dune II also led to direct sequels: Westwood released

11772-481: Was programmed with the middleware Miles audio library which handled the dynamic conversion of the game's MIDI musical score, originally composed on the Roland MT-32 , to the selected soundcard. At initial release, the game's setup utility lacked the means to support separate output devices for the musical score and speech/sound-effects. This limitation was frustrating to owners of high-quality MIDI synthesisers (such as

11881-449: Was that wargames sucked because of a lack of innovation and poor design. Chuck felt the category was in a long, slow decline, because the players were moving to more exciting genres ... I felt that the genre had a lot of potential – the surface was barely scratched as far as I was concerned, especially from a design standpoint. So I took it as a personal challenge and figured how to harness realtime dynamics with great game controls into

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