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Edwin Howard Armstrong

Edwin Howard Armstrong (December 18, 1890 – February 1, 1954 ) was an American electrical engineer and inventor, who developed FM (frequency modulation) radio and the superheterodyne receiver system.

He held 42 patents and received numerous awards, including the first Medal of Honor awarded by the Institute of Radio Engineers (now IEEE), the French Legion of Honor, the 1941 Franklin Medal and the 1942 Edison Medal. He achieved the rank of major in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War I and was often referred to as "Major Armstrong" during his career. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and included in the International Telecommunication Union's roster of great inventors. He was inducted into the Wireless Hall of Fame posthumously in 2001. Armstrong attended Columbia University, and served as a professor there for most of his life.

Early life

Armstrong was born in the Chelsea district of New York City, the oldest of John and Emily (née Smith) Armstrong's three children. His father began working at a young age at the American branch of the Oxford University Press, which published bibles and standard classical works, eventually advancing to the position of vice president. His parents first met at the North Presbyterian Church, located at 31st Street and Ninth Avenue. His mother's family had strong ties to Chelsea, and an active role in church functions. When the church moved north, the Smiths and Armstrongs followed, and in 1895 the Armstrong family moved from their brownstone row house at 347 West 29th Street to a similar house at 26 West 97th Street in the Upper West Side. The family was comfortably middle class.

At the age of eight, Armstrong contracted Sydenham's chorea (then known as St. Vitus' Dance), an infrequent but serious neurological disorder precipitated by rheumatic fever. For the rest of his life, Armstrong was afflicted with a physical tic exacerbated by excitement or stress. Due to this illness, he withdrew from public school and was home-tutored for two years. To improve his health, the Armstrong family moved to a house overlooking the Hudson River, at 1032 Warburton Avenue in Yonkers. The Smith family subsequently moved next door. Armstrong's tic and the time missed from school led him to become socially withdrawn.

From an early age, Armstrong showed an interest in electrical and mechanical devices, particularly trains. He loved heights and constructed a makeshift backyard antenna tower that included a bosun's chair for hoisting himself up and down its length, to the concern of neighbors. Much of his early research was conducted in the attic of his parents' house.

In 1909, Armstrong enrolled at Columbia University in New York City, where he became a member of the Epsilon Chapter of the Theta Xi engineering fraternity, and studied under Professor Michael Pupin at the Hartley Laboratories, a separate research unit at Columbia. Another of his instructors, Professor John H. Morecroft, later remembered Armstrong as being intensely focused on the topics that interested him, but somewhat indifferent to the rest of his studies. Armstrong challenged conventional wisdom and was quick to question the opinions of both professors and peers. In one case, he recounted how he tricked a visiting professor from Cornell University that he disliked into receiving a severe electrical shock. He also stressed the practical over the theoretical, stating that progress was more likely the product of experimentation and reasoning than on mathematical calculation and the formulae of "mathematical physics".

Armstrong graduated from Columbia in 1913, earning an electrical engineering degree.

During World War I, Armstrong served in the Signal Corps as a captain and later a major.

Following college graduation, he received a $600 one-year appointment as a laboratory assistant at Columbia, after which he nominally worked as a research assistant, for a salary of $1 a year, under Professor Pupin. Unlike most engineers, Armstrong never became a corporate employee. He set up a self-financed independent research and development laboratory at Columbia, and owned his patents outright.

In 1934, he filled the vacancy left by John H. Morecroft's death, receiving an appointment as a professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia, a position he held the remainder of his life.

Regenerative circuit

Armstrong began working on his first major invention while still an undergraduate at Columbia. In late 1906, Lee de Forest had invented the three-element (triode) "grid Audion" vacuum-tube. How vacuum tubes worked was not understood at the time. De Forest's initial Audions did not have a high vacuum and developed a blue glow at modest plate voltages; De Forest improved the vacuum for Federal Telegraph. By 1912, vacuum tube operation was understood, and regenerative circuits using high-vacuum tubes were appreciated.

While growing up, Armstrong had experimented with the early temperamental, "gassy" Audions. Spurred by the later discoveries, he developed a keen interest in gaining a detailed scientific understanding of how vacuum tubes worked. In conjunction with Professor Morecroft he used an oscillograph to conduct comprehensive studies. His breakthrough discovery was determining that employing positive feedback (also known as "regeneration") produced amplification hundreds of times greater than previously attained, with the amplified signals now strong enough so that receivers could use loudspeakers instead of headphones. Further investigation revealed that when the feedback was increased beyond a certain level a vacuum-tube would go into oscillation, thus could also be used as a continuous-wave radio transmitter.

Beginning in 1913 Armstrong prepared a series of comprehensive demonstrations and papers that carefully documented his research, and in late 1913 applied for patent protection covering the regenerative circuit. On October 6, 1914, was issued for his discovery. Although Lee de Forest initially discounted Armstrong's findings, beginning in 1915 de Forest filed a series of competing patent applications that largely copied Armstrong's claims, now stating that he had discovered regeneration first, based on a notebook entry made on August 6, 1912, while working for the Federal Telegraph company, prior to the date recognized for Armstrong of January 31, 1913. The result was an interference hearing at the patent office to determine priority. De Forest was not the only other inventor involved – the four competing claimants included Armstrong, de Forest, General Electric's Langmuir, and Alexander Meissner, who was a German national, which led to his application being seized by the Office of Alien Property Custodian during World War I.

Following the end of WWI Armstrong enlisted representation by the law firm of Pennie, Davis, Martin and Edmonds. To finance his legal expenses he began issuing non-transferable licenses for use of the regenerative patents to a select group of small radio equipment firms, and by November 1920, 17 companies had been licensed. These licensees paid 5% royalties on their sales which were restricted to only "amateurs and experimenters". Meanwhile, Armstrong explored his options for selling the commercial rights to his work. Although the obvious candidate was the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), on October 5, 1920, the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company took out an option for $335,000 for the commercial rights for both the regenerative and superheterodyne patents, with an additional $200,000 to be paid if Armstrong prevailed in the regenerative patent dispute. Westinghouse exercised this option on November 4, 1920.

Legal proceedings related to the regeneration patent became separated into two groups of court cases. An initial court action was triggered in 1919 when Armstrong sued de Forest's company in district court, alleging infringement of patent 1,113,149. This court ruled in Armstrong's favor on May 17, 1921. A second line of court cases, the result of the patent office interference hearing, had a different outcome. The interference board had also sided with Armstrong, but he was unwilling to settle with de Forest for less than what he considered full compensation. Thus pressured, de Forest continued his legal defense, and appealed the interference board decision to the District of Columbia district court. On May 8, 1924, that court ruled that it was de Forest who should be considered regeneration's inventor. Armstrong (along with much of the engineering community) was shocked by these events, and his side appealed this decision. Although the legal proceeding twice went before the US Supreme Court, in 1928 and 1934, he was unsuccessful in overturning the decision.

In response to the second Supreme Court decision upholding de Forest as the inventor of regeneration, Armstrong attempted to return his 1917 IRE Medal of Honor, which had been awarded "in recognition of his work and publications dealing with the action of the oscillating and non-oscillating audion". The organization's board refused to allow him, and issued a statement that it "strongly affirms the original award".

Superheterodyne circuit
The United States entered WWI in April 1917. Later that year Armstrong was commissioned as a captain in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and assigned to a laboratory in Paris, France to help develop radio communication for the Allied war effort. He returned to the US in the autumn of 1919, after being promoted to the rank of Major. (During both world wars, Armstrong gave the US military free use of his patents.)

During this period, Armstrong's most significant accomplishment was the development of a "supersonic heterodyne" – soon shortened to "superheterodyne" – radio receiver circuit. This circuit made radio receivers more sensitive and selective and is used extensively today. The key feature of the superheterodyne approach is the mixing of the incoming radio signal with a locally generated, different frequency signal within a radio set. That circuit is called the mixer. The result is a fixed, unchanging intermediate frequency, or I.F. signal which is easily amplified and detected by following circuit stages. In 1919, Armstrong filed an application for a US patent of the superheterodyne circuit which was issued the next year. This patent was subsequently sold to Westinghouse. The patent was challenged, triggering another patent office interference hearing. Armstrong ultimately lost this patent battle; although the outcome was less controversial than that involving the regeneration proceedings.

The challenger was Lucien Lévy of France who had worked developing Allied radio communication during WWI. He had been awarded French patents in 1917 and 1918 that covered some of the same basic ideas used in Armstrong's superheterodyne receiver. AT&T, interested in radio development at this time, primarily for point-to-point extensions of its wired telephone exchanges, purchased the US rights to Lévy's patent and contested Armstrong's grant. The subsequent court reviews continued until 1928, when the District of Columbia Court of Appeals disallowed all nine claims of Armstrong's patent, assigning priority for seven of the claims to Lévy, and one each to Ernst Alexanderson of General Electric and Burton W. Kendall of Bell Laboratories.

Although most early radio receivers used regeneration Armstrong approached RCA's David Sarnoff, whom he had known since giving a demonstration of his regeneration receiver in 1913, about the corporation offering superheterodynes as a superior offering to the general public. (The ongoing patent dispute was not a hindrance, because extensive cross-licensing agreements signed in 1920 and 1921 between RCA, Westinghouse and AT&T meant that Armstrong could freely use the Lévy patent.) Superheterodyne sets were initially thought to be prohibitively complicated and expensive as the initial designs required multiple tuning knobs and used nine vacuum tubes. In conjunction with RCA engineers, Armstrong developed a simpler, less costly design. RCA introduced its superheterodyne Radiola sets in the US market in early 1924, and they were an immediate success, dramatically increasing the corporation's profits. These sets were considered so valuable that RCA would not license the superheterodyne to other US companies until 1930.

Super-regeneration circuit
The regeneration legal battle had one serendipitous outcome for Armstrong. While he was preparing apparatus to counteract a claim made by a patent attorney, he "accidentally ran into the phenomenon of super-regeneration", where, by rapidly "quenching" the vacuum-tube oscillations, he was able to achieve even greater levels of amplification. A year later, in 1922, Armstrong sold his super-regeneration patent to RCA for $200,000 plus 60,000 shares of corporation stock, which was later increased to 80,000 shares in payment for consulting services. This made Armstrong RCA's largest shareholder, and he noted that "The sale of that invention was to net me more than the sale of the regenerative circuit and the superheterodyne combined". RCA envisioned selling a line of super-regenerative receivers until superheterodyne sets could be perfected for general sales, but it turned out the circuit was not selective enough to make it practical for broadcast receivers.

Wide-band FM radio
"Static" interference – extraneous noises caused by sources such as thunderstorms and electrical equipment – bedeviled early radio communication using amplitude modulation and perplexed numerous inventors attempting to eliminate it. Many ideas for static elimination were investigated, with little success. In the mid-1920s, Armstrong began researching a solution. He initially, and unsuccessfully, attempted to resolve the problem by modifying the characteristics of AM transmissions.

One approach used frequency modulation (FM) transmissions. Instead of varying the strength of the carrier wave as with AM, the frequency of the carrier was changed to represent the audio signal. In 1922 John Renshaw Carson of AT&T, inventor of Single-sideband modulation (SSB), had published a detailed mathematical analysis which showed that FM transmissions did not provide any improvement over AM. Although the Carson bandwidth rule for FM is important today, Carson's review turned out to be incomplete, as it analyzed only (what is now known as) "narrow-band" FM.

In early 1928 Armstrong began researching the capabilities of FM. Although there were others involved in FM research at this time, he knew of an RCA project to see if FM shortwave transmissions were less susceptible to fading than AM. In 1931 the RCA engineers constructed a successful FM shortwave link transmitting the Schmeling–Stribling fight broadcast from California to Hawaii, and noted at the time that the signals seemed to be less affected by static. The project made little further progress.

Working in secret in the basement laboratory of Columbia's Philosophy Hall, Armstrong developed "wide-band" FM, in the process discovering significant advantages over the earlier "narrow-band" FM transmissions. In a "wide-band" FM system, the deviations of the carrier frequency are made to be much larger than the frequency of the audio signal which can be shown to provide better noise rejection. He was granted five US patents covering the basic features of the new system on December 26, 1933. Initially, the primary claim was that his FM system was effective at filtering out the noise produced in receivers, by vacuum tubes.

Armstrong had a standing agreement to give RCA the right of first refusal to his patents. In 1934 he presented his new system to RCA president Sarnoff. Sarnoff was somewhat taken aback by its complexity, as he had hoped it would be possible to eliminate static merely by adding a simple device to existing receivers. From May 1934 until October 1935 Armstrong conducted field tests of his FM technology from an RCA laboratory located on the 85th floor of the Empire State Building in New York City. An antenna attached to the building's spire transmitted signals for distances up to 80 mi. These tests helped demonstrate FM's static-reduction and high-fidelity capabilities. RCA, which was heavily invested in perfecting TV broadcasting, chose not to invest in FM, and instructed Armstrong to remove his equipment.

Denied the marketing and financial clout of RCA, Armstrong decided to finance his own development and form ties with smaller members of the radio industry, including Zenith and General Electric, to promote his invention. Armstrong thought that FM had the potential to replace AM stations within 5 years, which he promoted as a boost for the radio manufacturing industry, then suffering from the effects of the Great Depression. Making existing AM radio transmitters and receivers obsolete would necessitate that stations buy replacement transmitters and listeners purchase FM-capable receivers. In 1936 he published a landmark paper in the Proceedings of the IRE that documented the superior capabilities of using wide-band FM. (This paper would be reprinted in the August 1984 issue of Proceedings of the IEEE.) A year later, a paper by Murray G. Crosby (inventor of Crosby system for FM Stereo) in the same journal provided further analysis of the wide-band FM characteristics, and introduced the concept of "threshold", demonstrating that there is a superior signal-to-noise ratio when the signal is stronger than a certain level.

In June 1936, Armstrong gave a formal presentation of his new system at the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) headquarters. For comparison, he played a jazz record using a conventional AM radio, then switched to an FM transmission. A United Press correspondent was present, and recounted in a wire service report that: "if the audience of 500 engineers had shut their eyes they would have believed the jazz band was in the same room. There were no extraneous sounds." Moreover, "Several engineers said after the demonstration that they consider Dr. Armstrong's invention one of the most important radio developments since the first earphone crystal sets were introduced." Armstrong was quoted as saying he could "visualize a time not far distant when the use of ultra-high frequency wave bands will play the leading role in all broadcasting", although the article noted that "A switchover to the ultra-high frequency system would mean the junking of present broadcasting equipment and present receivers in homes, eventually causing the expenditure of billions of dollars."

In the late 1930s, as technical advances made it possible to transmit on higher frequencies, the FCC investigated options for increasing the number of broadcasting stations, in addition to ideas for better audio quality, known as "high-fidelity". In 1937 it introduced what became known as the Apex band, consisting of 75 broadcasting frequencies from 41.02 to 43.98 MHz. As on the standard broadcast band, these were AM stations but with higher quality audio – in one example, a frequency response from 20 Hz to 17,000 Hz +/- 1 dB – because station separations were 40 kHz instead of the 10 kHz spacings used on the original AM band. Armstrong worked to convince the FCC that a band of FM broadcasting stations would be a superior approach. That year he financed the construction of the first FM radio station, W2XMN (later KE2XCC) at Alpine, New Jersey. FCC engineers had believed that transmissions using high frequencies would travel little farther than line-of-sight distances, limited by the horizon. When operating with 40 kilowatts on 42.8 MHz, the station could be clearly heard 100 mi away, matching the daytime coverage of a full power 50-kilowatt AM station.

FCC studies comparing the Apex station transmissions with Armstrong's FM system concluded that his approach was superior. In early 1940, the FCC held hearings on whether to establish a commercial FM service. Following this review, the FCC announced the establishment of an FM band effective January 1, 1941, consisting of forty 200 kHz-wide channels on a band from 42 to 50 MHz, with the first five channels reserved for educational stations. Existing Apex stations were notified that they would not be allowed to operate after January 1, 1941, unless they converted to FM.

Although there was interest in the new FM band by station owners, construction restrictions that went into place during WWII limited the growth of the new service. Following the end of WWII, the FCC moved to standardize its frequency allocations. One area of concern was the effects of tropospheric and Sporadic E propagation, which at times reflected station signals over great distances, causing mutual interference. A particularly controversial proposal, spearheaded by RCA, was that the FM band needed to be shifted to higher frequencies to avoid this problem. This reassignment was fiercely opposed as unneeded by Armstrong, but he lost. The FCC made its decision final on June 27, 1945. It allocated 100 FM channels from 88 to 108 MHz, and assigned the former FM band to 'non government fixed and mobile' (42–44 MHz), and television channel 1 (44–50 MHz), now sidestepping the interference concerns. A period of allowing existing FM stations to broadcast on both low and high bands ended at midnight on January 8, 1949, at which time any low band transmitters were shut down, making obsolete 395,000 receivers that had already been purchased by the public for the original band. Although converters allowing low band FM sets to receive high band were manufactured, they ultimately proved to be complicated to install, and often as (or more) expensive than buying a new high band set outright.

Armstrong felt the FM band reassignment had been inspired primarily by a desire to cause a disruption that would limit FM's ability to challenge the existing radio industry, including RCA's AM radio properties that included the NBC radio network, plus the other major networks including CBS, ABC and Mutual. The change was thought to have been favored by AT&T, as the elimination of FM relaying stations would require radio stations to lease wired links from that company. Particularly galling was the FCC assignment of TV channel 1 to the 44–50 MHz segment of the old FM band. Channel 1 was later deleted, since periodic radio propagation would make local TV signals unviewable.

Although the FM band shift was an economic setback, there was reason for optimism. A book published in 1946 by Charles A. Siepmann heralded FM stations as "Radio's Second Chance". In late 1945, Armstrong contracted with John Orr Young, founding member of the public relations firm Young & Rubicam, to conduct a national campaign promoting FM broadcasting, especially by educational institutions. Article placements promoting both Armstrong personally and FM were made with general circulation publications including The Nation, Fortune, The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, and The Saturday Evening Post.

In 1940, RCA offered Armstrong $1,000,000 for a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use his FM patents. He refused this offer, because he felt this would be unfair to the other licensed companies, which had to pay 2% royalties on their sales. Over time this impasse with RCA dominated Armstrong's life. RCA countered by conducting its own FM research, eventually developing what it claimed was a non-infringing FM system. The corporation encouraged other companies to stop paying royalties to Armstrong. Outraged by this, in 1948 Armstrong filed suit against RCA and the National Broadcasting Company, accusing them of patent infringement and that they had "deliberately set out to oppose and impair the value" of his invention, for which he requested treble damages. Although he was confident that this suit would be successful and result in a major monetary award, the protracted legal maneuvering that followed eventually began to impair his finances, especially after his primary patents expired in late 1950.

FM radar
During World War II, Armstrong turned his attention to investigations of continuous-wave FM radar funded by government contracts. Armstrong hoped that the interference fighting characteristic of wide-band FM and a narrow receiver bandwidth to reduce noise would increase range. Primary development took place at Armstrong's Alpine, NJ laboratory. A duplicate set of equipment was sent to the U.S. Army's Evans Signal Laboratory. The results of his investigations were inconclusive, the war ended, and the project was dropped by the Army.

Under the name Project Diana, the Evans staff took up the possibility of bouncing radar signals off the moon. Calculations showed that standard pulsed radar like the stock SCR-271 would not do the job; higher average power, much wider transmitter pulses, and very narrow receiver bandwidth would be required. They realized that the Armstrong equipment could be modified to accomplish the task. The FM modulator of the transmitter was disabled and the transmitter keyed to produce quarter-second CW pulses. The narrow-band (57 Hz) receiver, which tracked the transmitter frequency, got an incremental tuning control to compensate for the possible 300 Hz Doppler shift on the lunar echoes. They achieved success on 10 January 1946.

Death
Bitter and overtaxed by years of litigation and mounting financial problems, Armstrong lashed out at his wife one day with a fireplace poker, striking her on the arm. She left their apartment to stay with her sister.

Sometime during the night of January 31 – February 1, 1954, Armstrong jumped to his death from a window in his 12-room apartment on the 13th floor of River House in Manhattan, New York City. The New York Times described the contents of his two-page suicide note to his wife: "he was heartbroken at being unable to see her once again, and expressing deep regret at having hurt her, the dearest thing in his life." The note concluded, "God keep you and Lord have mercy on my Soul." David Sarnoff disclaimed any responsibility, telling Carl Dreher directly that "I did not kill Armstrong." After his death, a friend of Armstrong estimated that 90 percent of his time was spent on litigation against RCA. U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) reported that Armstrong had recently met with one of his investigators, and had been "mortally afraid" that secret radar discoveries by him and other scientists "were being fed to the Communists as fast as they could be developed".

Legacy
Following her husband's death, Marion Armstrong took charge of pursuing his estate's legal cases. In late December 1954, it was announced that through arbitration a settlement of "approximately $1,000,000" had been made with RCA. Dana Raymond of Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York served as counsel in that litigation. Marion Armstrong was able to formally establish Armstrong as the inventor of FM following protracted court proceedings over five of his basic FM patents, with a series of successful suits, which lasted until 1967, against other companies that were found guilty of infringement.

It was not until the 1960s that FM stations in the United States started to challenge the popularity of the AM band, helped by the development of FM stereo by General Electric, followed by the FCC's FM Non-Duplication Rule, which limited large-city broadcasters with AM and FM licenses to simulcasting on those two frequencies for only half of their broadcast hours. Armstrong's FM system was also used for communications between NASA and the Apollo program astronauts.

A US Postage Stamp was released in his honor in 1983 in a series commemorating American Inventors.

Armstrong has been called "the most prolific and influential inventor in radio history". The superheterodyne process is still extensively used by radio equipment. Eighty years after its invention, FM technology has started to be supplemented, and in some cases replaced, by more efficient digital technologies. The introduction of digital television eliminated the FM audio channel that had been used by analog television, HD Radio has added digital sub-channels to FM band stations, and, in Europe and Pacific Asia, Digital Audio Broadcasting bands have been created that will, in some cases, eliminate existing FM stations altogether. However, FM broadcasting is still used internationally, and remains the dominant system employed for audio broadcasting services.

Personal life

In 1923, combining his love for high places with courtship rituals, Armstrong climbed the WJZ (now WABC) antenna located atop a 20-story building in New York City, where he reportedly did a handstand, and when a witness asked him what motivated him to "do these damnfool things", Armstrong replied "I do it because the spirit moves me." Armstrong had arranged to have photographs taken, which he had delivered to David Sarnoff's secretary, Marion MacInnis. Armstrong and MacInnis married later that year. Armstrong bought a Hispano-Suiza motor car before the wedding, which he kept until his death, and which he drove to Palm Beach, Florida for their honeymoon. A publicity photograph was made of him presenting Marion with the world's first portable superheterodyne radio as a wedding gift.

He was an avid tennis player until an injury in 1940, and drank an Old Fashioned with dinner. Politically, he was described by one of his associates as "a revolutionist only in technology – in politics he was one of the most conservative of men."

In 1955, Marion Armstrong founded the Armstrong Memorial Research Foundation, and participated in its work until her death in 1979 at the age of 81. She was survived by two nephews and a niece.

Among Armstrong's living relatives are Steven McGrath, of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, formerly energy advisor to Maine's Governor, and Adam Brecht, a media executive in New York City, whose paternal great-grandfather, John Frank MacInnis, was the brother of Marion Armstrong. Edwin Howard Armstrong's niece, Jeanne Hammond, who represented the family in the Ken Burns documentary "Empire of the Air", died on May 1, 2019, in Scarborough, Maine. Ms. Hammond worked in her uncle's radio laboratory at Columbia University for several years following her graduation from Wellesley College in 1943.

Honors
In 1917, Armstrong was the first recipient of the IRE's (now IEEE) Medal of Honor.

For his wartime work on radio, the French government gave him the Legion of Honor in 1919. He was awarded the 1941 Franklin Medal, and in 1942 received the AIEEs Edison Medal "for distinguished contributions to the art of electric communication, notably the regenerative circuit, the superheterodyne, and frequency modulation." The ITU added him to its roster of great inventors of electricity in 1955.

He later received two honorary doctorates, from Columbia in 1929, and Muhlenberg College in 1941.

In 1980, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and appeared on a U.S. postage stamp in 1983. The Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame inducted him in 2000, "in recognition of his contributions and pioneering spirit that have laid the foundation for consumer electronics." He was posthumously inducted into the Wireless Hall of Fame in 2001. Columbia University established the Edwin Howard Armstrong Professorship in the School of Engineering and Applied Science in his memory.

Philosophy Hall, the Columbia building where Armstrong developed FM, was declared a National Historic Landmark. Armstrong's boyhood home in Yonkers, New York was recognized by the National Historic Landmark program and the National Register of Historic Places, although this was withdrawn when the house was demolished.

Armstrong Hall at Columbia was named in his honor. The hall, located at the northeast corner of Broadway and 112th Street, was originally an apartment house but was converted to research space after being purchased by the university. It is currently home to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a research institute dedicated to atmospheric and climate science that is jointly operated by Columbia and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A storefront in a corner of the building houses Tom's Restaurant, a longtime neighborhood fixture that inspired Susanne Vega's song "Tom's Diner" and was used for establishing shots for the fictional "Monk's diner" in the "Seinfeld" television series.

A second Armstrong Hall, also named for the inventor, is located at the United States Army Communications and Electronics Life Cycle Management Command (CECOM-LCMC) Headquarters at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.

Patents
E. H. Armstrong patents:

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Database Search
 * : "Frequency Modulation Multiplex System"
 * : "Radio Signaling"
 * : "Frequency-Modulated Carrier Signal Receiver"
 * : "Frequency Modulation Signaling System"
 * : "Means for Receiving Radio Signals"
 * : "Method and Means for Transmitting Frequency Modulated Signals"
 * : "Current Limiting Device"
 * : "Frequency Modulation System"
 * : "Radio Rebroadcasting System"
 * : "Means and Method for Relaying Frequency Modulated Signals"
 * : "Means and Method for Relaying Frequency Modulated Signals"
 * : "Frequency Modulation Signaling System"
 * : "Radio Transmitting System"
 * : "Radio Transmitting System"
 * : "Radio Transmitting System"
 * : "Frequency Changing System"
 * : "Radio Receiving System"
 * : "Radio Receiving System"
 * : "Multiplex Radio Signaling System"
 * : "Radio Signaling System"
 * : "Radio Transmitting System"
 * : "Phase Control System"
 * : "Radio Signaling System"
 * : "Radio Transmitting System"
 * : "Radio Signaling System"
 * : "Radio Telephone Signaling"
 * : "Radiosignaling"
 * : "Radiosignaling"
 * : "Radio Broadcasting and Receiving System"
 * : "Radio Signaling System"
 * : "Wave Signaling System"
 * : "Wave Signaling System"
 * : "Wireless Receiving System for Continuous Wave"
 * : "Wave Signaling System"
 * : "Wave Signaling System"
 * : "Wave Signaling System"
 * : "Wave Signaling System"
 * : "Wave Signaling System"
 * : "Signaling System"
 * : "Radioreceiving System Having High Selectivity"
 * : "Selectively Opposing Impedance to Received Electrical Oscillations"
 * : "Multiple Antenna for Electrical Wave Transmission"
 * : "Method of Receiving High Frequency Oscillation"
 * : "Antenna with Distributed Positive Resistance"
 * : "Electric Wave Transmission" (Note: Co-patentee with Mihajlo Pupin)
 * : "Wireless Receiving System"

The following patents were issued to Armstrong's estate after his death:
 * : "Radio detection and ranging systems" 1956
 * : "Multiplex frequency modulation transmitter" 1956
 * : "Linear detector for subcarrier frequency modulated waves" 1958
 * : "Noise reduction in phase shift modulation" 1959
 * : "Stabilized multiple frequency modulation receiver" 1959

title: Edwin Howard Armstrong


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EverQuest

EverQuest is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) originally developed by Verant Interactive and 989 Studios for Windows PCs. It was released by Sony Online Entertainment in March 1999 in North America, and by Ubisoft in Europe in April 2000. A dedicated version for Mac OS X was released in June 2003, which operated for ten years before being shut down in November 2013. In June 2000, Verant Interactive was absorbed into Sony Online Entertainment, who took over full development and publishing duties of the title. Later, in February 2015, SOE's parent corporation, Sony Computer Entertainment, sold the studio to investment company Columbus Nova and it was rebranded as Daybreak Game Company, which continues to develop and publish EverQuest.

It was the first commercially successful MMORPG to employ a 3D game engine, and its success was on an unprecedented scale. EverQuest has had a wide influence on subsequent releases within the market, and holds an important position in the history of massively multiplayer online games.

The game surpassed early subscription expectations and increased in popularity for many years after its release. It is now considered one of the greatest video games ever made. It has received numerous awards, including the 1999 GameSpot Game of the Year and a 2007 Technology & Engineering Emmy Award. While dozens of similar games have come and gone over the years, EverQuest still endures as a viable commercial enterprise with new expansions still being released on a regular basis, over twenty years after its initial launch. It has spawned a number of spin-off media, including books and video games, as well as a sequel, EverQuest II, which launched in 2004.

Gameplay
Many of the elements in EverQuest have been drawn from text-based MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) games, particularly DikuMUDs, which in turn were inspired by traditional role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons. In EverQuest, players create a character (also known as an avatar, or colloquially as a char or toon) by selecting one of twelve races in the game, which were humans, high-elves, wood-elves, half-elves, dark-elves, erudites, barbarians, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, ogres, and trolls. In the first expansion, lizard-people (Iksar) were introduced. Cat-people (Vah Shir), frog-people (Froglok), and dragon-people (Drakkin) were all introduced in later expansions. At creation, players select each character's adventuring occupation (such as a wizard, ranger, or cleric — called a class — see below for particulars), a patron deity, and starting city. Customization of the character facial appearance is available at creation (hair, hair color, face style, facial hair, facial hair color, eye color, etc.).

Players move their character throughout the medieval fantasy world of Norrath, often fighting monsters and enemies for treasure and experience points, and optionally mastering trade skills. As they progress, players advance in level, gaining power, prestige, spells, and abilities through valorous deeds such as entering overrun castles and keeps, defeating worthy opponents found within, and looting their remains. Experience and prestigious equipment can also be obtained by completing quests given out by non-player characters found throughout the land.

EverQuest allows players to interact with other people through role-play, joining player guilds, and dueling other players (in restricted situations – EverQuest only allows player versus player (PVP) combat on the PvP-specific server, specified arena zones and through agreed upon dueling).

The game-world of EverQuest consists of over five hundred zones.

Multiple instances of the world exist on various servers. In the past, game server populations were visible during log-in, and showed peaks of more than 3000 players per server. The design of EverQuest, like other massively multiplayer online role-playing games, makes it highly amenable to cooperative play, with each player having a specific role within a given group.

Classes
EverQuest featured fourteen playable character classes upon release in 1999, with two others - Beastlord and Berzerker - added in the Shadows of Luclin (2001) and Gates of Discord (2004) expansions, respectively. Each class falls within one of four general categories based on playstyle and the type of abilities they use, with certain classes being restricted to particular races.

Melee classes are those which fight at close quarters and often use direct physical attacks as opposed to magic. These include the Warrior, a tank-based character which wears heavy armor and is designed to take damage for its group using a taunt ability; the Monk, a character which uses a combination of martial arts and barehanded fighting techniques; the Rogue, a combination of thief and assassin classes which can sneak and hide in the shadows as well as steal from enemies; and the Berserker, a strong fighter who specialize in two-handed weapons such as axes and are able to enter a state of increased fury and power.

Priest classes are primarily healers who learn magic that can heal their allies or themselves. The Priest classes are made up of the Cleric, a heavily specialized support class that wears heavy armor and is adept at healing and strengthening their allies; the Druid, a magic-user who draws power from nature which can restore the vitality and magic power of their teammates; and the Shaman, tribal warriors who draw upon the spirit realm to heal, empower those around them, and weaken their enemies.

Casters are magic-users and sorcerers which wear light armor but command powerful spells. Those among them include the Wizard, a specialized damage-dealing class which uses the power of fire, ice, and pure magic energy for devastating effect as well as teleportation abilities; the Magician, a summoner who is able to call upon elemental servants which aid them in dealing damage; the Necromancer, a dark caster who uses the power of disease and poison to wither away their opponents while commanding undead allies to aid them; and the Enchanter, an illusionist who can take on many forms, support allies with strengthening spells, and pacify enemies with mesmerizing abilities.

Hybrid classes are those which can perform multiple roles or have abilities of various types. These include Paladins, knights who possess the ability to take damage or heal with magic or laying on of hands; Shadowknights, dark warriors who use a combination of melee attacks and disease/poison abilities to damage foes as well as take damage for the party; the Bard, a minstrel who is able to use magical songs for a number of effects - including damaging enemies, strengthening allies, and improving the movement speed of themselves and others; Rangers, protectors of nature who learn healing and support magic in addition to being able to damage enemies in close combat or at a distance with bows and arrows; and Beastlords, primal fighters who are constantly joined by their animal wards which help them deal damage, and can assist their teammates with healing and support skills.

Deities
There are several deities in EverQuest who each have a certain area of responsibility and play a role in the backstory of the game setting. A wide array of armor and weapons are tied to certain deities, making it only possible for those who worship that specific deity to wear/equip them. Additionally, deities determine, to some extent, where characters may and may not go without being attacked on sight by the deity's minions and devoted followers.

Zones
The EverQuest universe is divided into more than five hundred zones. These zones represent a wide variety of geographical features, including plains, oceans, cities, deserts, and other planes of existence. One of the most popular zones in the game is the Plane of Knowledge, one of the few zones in which all races and classes can coexist harmoniously without interference. The Plane of Knowledge is also home to portals to many other zones, including portals to other planes and to the outskirts of nearly every starting city.

Development
EverQuest began as a concept by John Smedley in 1996. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost. It was developed by Sony's 989 Studios and its early-1999 spin-off Verant Interactive, and published by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). Since its acquisition of Verant in late 1999, EverQuest was developed by Sony Online Entertainment.

The design and concept of EverQuest is heavily indebted to text-based MUDs, in particular DikuMUD, and as such EverQuest is considered a 3D evolution of the text MUD genre like some of the MMOs that preceded it, such as Meridian 59 and The Realm Online. John Smedley, Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover and Bill Trost, who jointly are credited with creating the world of EverQuest, have repeatedly pointed to their shared experiences playing MUDs such as Sojourn and TorilMUD as the inspiration for the game. Famed book cover illustrator Keith Parkinson created the box covers for earlier installments of EverQuest.

Development of EverQuest began in 1996 when Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA) executive John Smedley secured funding for a 3D game like text-based MUDs following the successful launch of Meridian 59 the previous year. To implement the design, Smedley hired programmers Brad McQuaid and Steve Clover, who had come to Smedley's attention through their work on the single player RPG Warwizard. McQuaid soon rose through the ranks to become executive producer for the EverQuest franchise and emerged during development of EverQuest as a popular figure among the fan community through his in-game avatar, Aradune. Other key members of the development team included Bill Trost, who created the history, lore and major characters of Norrath (including EverQuest protagonist Firiona Vie), Geoffrey "GZ" Zatkin, who implemented the spell system, and artist Milo D. Cooper, who did the original character modeling in the game.

The start of beta testing was announced by Brad McQuaid in November 1997.

Release
EverQuest launched with modest expectations from Sony on 16 March 1999 under its Verant Interactive brand and quickly became successful. By the end of the year, it had surpassed competitor Ultima Online in number of subscriptions. Numbers continued rising rapidly until mid-2001 when growth slowed. The game initially launched with volunteer "Guides" who would act as basic customer service/support via 'petitions'. Issues could be forwarded to the Game Master assigned to the server or resolved by the volunteer. Other guides would serve in administrative functions within the program or assisting the Quest Troupe with dynamic and persistent live events throughout the individual servers. Volunteers were compensated with free subscription and expansions to the game. In 2003 the program changed for the volunteer guides taking them away from the customer service focus and placing them into their current roles as roving 'persistent characters' role-playing with the players.

In anticipation of PlayStation's launch, Sony Interactive Studios America made the decision to focus primarily on console titles under the banner 989 Studios, while spinning off its sole computer title, EverQuest, which was ready to launch, to a new computer game division named Redeye (renamed Verant Interactive). Executives initially had low expectations for EverQuest, but in 2000, following the surprising continued success and unparalleled profits of EverQuest, Sony reorganized Verant Interactive into Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) with Smedley retaining control of the company. Many of the original EverQuest team, including Brad McQuaid and Steve Clover left SOE by 2002.

Growth and sequels
The first four expansions were released in traditional physical boxes at roughly one-year intervals. These were highly ambitious and offered huge new landmasses, new playable races and new classes. The expansion Shadows of Luclin (2001) gave a significant facelift to player character models, bringing the dated 1999 graphics up to modern standards. However, non-player characters which do not correspond to any playable race-gender-class combination (such as vendors) were not updated, leading to the coexistence of 1999-era and 2001-era graphics in many locations. The expansion Planes of Power (2002) introduced The Plane of Knowledge, a hub zone from which players could quickly teleport to many other destinations. This made the pre-existing roads and ships largely redundant, and long-distance overland travel is now virtually unheard of.

EverQuest made a push to enter the European market in 2002 with the New Dawn promotional campaign, which not only established local servers in Germany, France and Great Britain but also offered localized versions of the game in German and French to accommodate players who prefer those languages to English. In the following year the game also moved beyond the PC market with a Mac OS X version.

In 2003 experiments began with digital distribution of expansions, starting with the Legacy of Ykesha. From this point on expansions would be less ambitious in scope than the original four, but the production rate increased to two expansions a year instead of one.

In the same year the franchise also ventured into the console market with EverQuest Online Adventures, released for Sony's internet-capable PlayStation 2. It was the second MMORPG for this console, after Final Fantasy XI. Story-wise it was a prequel, with the events taking place 500 years before the original EverQuest. Other spin-off projects were the PC strategy game Lords of EverQuest (2003) and the co-op Champions of Norrath (2004) for the PlayStation 2.

After these side projects, the first proper sequel was released in late 2004, titled simply EverQuest II. The game is set 500 years after the original. EverQuest II faced severe competition from Blizzard's World of Warcraft, which was released at virtually the same time and quickly grew to dominate the MMORPG genre.

Decline
Since the release of World of Warcraft and other modern MMORPGs, there have been a number of signs that the EverQuest population is shrinking. The national New Dawn servers were discontinued in 2005 and merged into a general (English-language) European server.

The 2006 expansion The Serpent's Spine introduced the "adventure-friendly" city of Crescent Reach in which all races and classes are able (and encouraged) to start. Crescent Reach is supposed to provide a more pedagogic starting environment than the original 1999 cities, where players were given almost no guidance on what to do. The common starting city also concentrates the dwindling number of new players in a single location, making grouping easier. 2008's Seeds of Destruction expansion introduced computer controlled companions called "mercenaries" that can join groups in place of human players, a response to the increasing difficulty of finding other players of appropriate level for group activities. As of Seeds the production rate also returned to one expansion a year instead of two.

In March 2012 EverQuest departed from the traditional monthly subscription business model by introducing three tiers of commitment: a completely free-to-play Bronze Level, a one-time fee Silver Level, and a subscription Gold Level. The same month saw the closure of EverQuest Online Adventures. Just a few months earlier EverQuest II had gone free-to-play and SOE flagship Star Wars Galaxies was also closed.

In June of the same year SOE removed the ability to buy game subscription time with Station Cash without any warning to players. SOE apologized for this abrupt change in policy and reinstated the option for an additional week, after which it was removed permanently.

The sole Mac OS server Al'Kabor was closed on November 18, 2013.

In February 2015 Sony sold its online entertainment division to private equity group Columbus Nova, with Sony Online Entertainment subsequently renamed Daybreak Game Company (DBG). An initial period of uncertainty followed, with all projects such as expansions and sequels put on hold and staff laid off. The situation stabilized around the game's 16th anniversary celebrations, and a new expansion was released nine months later.

Expansions
There have been thirty expansions to the original game since release. Expansions are purchased separately and provide additional content to the game (for example: raising the maximum character level; adding new races, classes, zones, continents, quests, equipment, game features). When the players purchase the latest expansion they receive all previous expansions they may not have previously purchased. Additionally, the game is updated through downloaded patches. The EverQuest expansions are as follows:

Servers
The game runs on multiple game servers, each with a unique name for identification. These names were originally the deities of the world of Norrath. In technical terms, each game server is actually a cluster of server machines. Once a character is created, it can be played only on that server unless the character is transferred to a new server by the customer service staff, generally for a fee. Each server often has a unique community and people often include the server name when identifying their character outside of the game.

There is an official EverQuest server list, as well as unofficial 3rd-party servers. For example, the Project 1999 EverQuest servers are intended to recreate EverQuest in the state it existed in the year it launched and the two subsequent expansions, referred to as the "Classic Trilogy".

OS X
SOE devoted one server (Al'Kabor) to an OS X version of the game, which opened for beta testing in early 2003, and officially released on June 24 of the same year. The game was never developed beyond the Planes of Power expansion, and contained multiple features and bugs not seen on PC servers, as a side-effect of the codebase having been split from an early Planes of Power date but not updated with the PC codebase. In January 2012, SOE announced plans to shut down the server, but based on the passionate response of the player base, rescinded the decision and changed Al'Kabor to a free-to-play subscription model. At about the same time, SOE revised the Macintosh client software to run natively on Intel processors. Players running on older, PowerPC-based systems lost access to the game at that point. SOE closed Al'Kabor server in November 2013.

European
Two SOE servers were set up to better support players in and around Europe: Antonius Bayle and Kane Bayle. Kane Bayle was merged into Antonius Bayle.

With the advent of the New Dawn promotion, three additional servers were set up and maintained by Ubisoft: Venril Sathir (British), Sebilis (French) and Kael Drakkal (German). The downside of the servers was that while it was possible to transfer to them, it was impossible to transfer off.

The servers were subsequently acquired by SOE and all three were merged into Antonius Bayle server.

Reception
Reviews of Everquest were mostly positive upon release in 1999, earning an 85 out of 100 score from aggregate review website Metacritic. Comparing it to other online role-playing titles at the time, critics called it "the best game in its class", and the "most immersive and most addictive online RPG to date". Dan Amrich of GamePro magazine declared that "the bar for online gaming has not so much been raised as obliterated" and that the game's developers had "created the first true online killer app". The reviewer would find fault with its repetitive gameplay in the early levels and lack of sufficient documentation to help new players, urging them to turn to fansites for help instead. Greg Kasavin of GameSpot similarly felt that the game's combat was "uninteresting" but did note that, unlike earlier games in the genre, EverQuest offered the opportunity to play on servers that wouldn't allow players to fight each other unless they chose to, and that it heavily promoted cooperation. Despite saying that the combat was little "boring", that the manual was "horrible", that the quest system is "half-baked", and the game having small share of miscellaneous bugs, he ultimately called EverQuest as one of the most memorable gaming experiences he had. Baldric of Game Revolution likewise stated that the game was more co-operative than Ultima Online, but that there was less interaction with the environment, calling it more "player oriented" instead of "'world' oriented".

Despite server issues during the initial launch, reviewers felt that the game played well even on lower-end network cards, with Tal Blevins of IGN remarking that it rarely suffered from major lag issues. The reviewer did feel that the title suffered from a lack of player customization aside from different face types, meaning all characters of the same race looked mostly the same, but its visual quality on the whole was "excellent" with "particularly impressive" spell, lighting, and particle effects. Next Generation said that EverQuest set a high standards for its genre. Computer Games Magazine commended the game's three-dimensional graphics, first-person perspective, environments, and simple combat system, remarking that EverQuest gave the players the first step towards to the true virtual world.

Accolades
Everquest was named GameSpot's 1999 Game of the Year in its Best & Worst of 1999 awards, remarking that after the game's release in March, the whole gaming industry was grounded to a halt, that a least one prominent game developer blamed EverQuest for product delays, and that for several weeks GameSpot's editors were spending more time exploring Norrath than they were doing their jobs. The website would also include the game in their list of the Greatest Games of All Time in 2004. GameSpot UK would also rank the title 14th on its list of the 100 Best Computer Games of the Millennium in 2000, calling it "a technological tour de force" and the first online RPG to bring the production values of single-player games to the online masses. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences named EverQuest their "Online Game of the Year" during the 3rd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, while Game Revolution named it the Best PC RPG of 1999. It was included in Time magazine's Best of 1999 in the "Tech" category, and Entertainment Weekly would include the game in their Top Ten Hall of Fame Video Games of the '90s. In 2007, Sony Online Entertainment received a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award for EverQuest under the category of "Development of Massively Multiplayer Online Graphical Role Playing Games". During the 2nd annual Game Developers Choice Online Awards in 2011, EverQuest received a Hall of Fame award for its long-term advancement of online gaming, such as being the first MMORPG to feature a guild system and raiding.

Editors of Computer Gaming World and GameSpot each nominated EverQuest for their 1999 "Role-Playing Game of the Year" awards, both of which ultimately went to Planescape: Torment. CNET Gamecenter likewise nominated it in this category, but gave the award to Asheron's Call. GameSpot would also nominate the title for Best Multiplayer Game of 1999, but would give the award to Quake III Arena. In 2012, 1UP.com ranked EverQuest 57th on its list of the Top 100 Essential Games. Game Informer placed the game 33rd on their top 100 video games of all time in 2009.

Sales and subscriptions
EverQuest was the most pre-ordered PC title on EBGames.com prior to its release in March 1999. The game had 10,000 active subscribers 24 hours after launch, making it the high-selling online role-playing game up until that point. It achieved 60,000 subscribers by April 1999. Six months later, around 225,000 copies of the game had been sold in total, with 150,000 active subscribers. By early 2000, the game's domestic sales alone reached 231,093 copies, which drew revenues of $10.6 million. NPD Techworld, a firm that tracked sales the United States, reported 559,948 units sold of EverQuest by December 2002. Subscription numbers would rise to over 500,000 active accounts four years after release in 2003. By the end of 2004 the title's lifetime sales exceeded 3 million copies worldwide and reached an active subscriber peak of 550,000. As of September 2020, EverQuest had 66,000 subscribers and 82,000 monthly active players.

Sale of in-game objects/real world economics
The sale of in-game objects for real currency is a controversial and lucrative industry with topics concerning issues practices of hacking/stealing accounts for profit. Critics often cite how it affects the virtual economy inside the game. In 2001, the sales of in-game items for real life currency was banned on eBay.

A practice in the real-world trade economy is of companies creating characters, powerleveling them to make them powerful, and then reselling the characters for large sums of money or in-game items of other games.

Sony discourages the payment of real-world money for online goods, except on certain "Station Exchange" servers in EverQuest II, launched in July 2005. The program facilitates buying in-game items for real money from fellow players for a nominal fee. At this point this system only applies to select EverQuest II servers; none of the pre-Station Exchange EverQuest II or EverQuest servers are affected.

In 2012, Sony added an in-game item called a "Krono", which adds 30 days of game membership throughout EverQuest and EverQuest II. The item can be initially bought starting at US$17.99. Up to 25 "Kronos" can be bought for US$424.99. Krono can be resold via player trading, which has allowed Krono to be frequently used in the real-world trade economy due to its inherent value.

Mystere incident
In October 2000, Verant banned a player by the name of Mystere, allegedly for creating controversial fan fiction, causing outrage among some EverQuest players and sparking a debate about players' rights and the line between roleplaying and intellectual property infringement. The case was used by several academics in discussing such rights in the digital age.

Addiction
Some argue the game has addictive qualities. Some players jokingly refer to it as "EverCrack" (a comparison to crack cocaine). There was one well-publicized suicide of an EverQuest user named Shawn Woolley, that inspired his mother, Liz, to found Online Gamers Anonymous. In November 2001, Shawn Woolley committed suicide. Although he had been diagnosed with depression and schizoid personality disorder, Shawn's mother said the suicide was due to a rejection or betrayal in the game from a character Shawn called "iluvyou".

Sociological aspects of MMORPGs
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are described by some players as "chat rooms with a graphical interface". The sociological aspects of EverQuest (and other MMORPGs) are explored in a series of online studies on a site known as "the HUB". The studies make use of data gathered from player surveys and discuss topics like virtual relationships, player personalities, gender issues, and more.

Organized protests
In May 2004, Woody Hearn of GU Comics called for all EverQuest gamers to boycott the Omens of War expansion in an effort to force SOE to address existing issues with the game rather than release another "quick-fire" expansion. The call to boycott was rescinded after SOE held a summit to address player concerns, improve (internal and external) communication, and correct specific issues within the game.

Prohibition in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil
On 17 January 2008, the Judge of the 17th Federal Court of Minas Gerais State forbade the sales of the game in that Brazilian territory. The reason was that "the game leads the players to a loss of moral virtue and takes them into 'heavy' psychological conflicts because of the game quests".

EverQuest franchise
Since EverQuest's release, Sony Online Entertainment has added several EverQuest-related games. These include:
 * EverQuest Hero's Call (Pocket PC, January 2003)
 * EverQuest Online Adventures (PlayStation 2, February 2003)
 * EverQuest Online Adventures Frontiers (PlayStation 2, November 2003)
 * Lords of EverQuest (PC, December 2003)
 * Champions of Norrath (PlayStation 2, February 2004)
 * EverQuest Hero's Call 2 (Pocket PC, April 2004)
 * EverQuest War On Faydwer (Pocket PC, April 2004)
 * EverQuest II (PC, November 2004)
 * Champions: Return to Arms, sequel to Champions of Norrath (PlayStation 2, February 2005)
 * EverQuest Role-Playing Game (a role-playing game produced in collaboration with White Wolf which uses the d20 system).
 * Legends of Norrath (a virtual card game which launched sometime in 2007 or early 2008 which also awards EverQuest and EverQuest II players with in-game items).
 * EverQuest Next, newest story-based EverQuest game (cancelled)
 * EverQuest Next Landmark, only world-building EverQuest game (cancelled)

A line of novels have been published in the world of EverQuest, including:
 * Rogue's Hour, by Scott Ciencin (October 2004)
 * Ocean of Tears, by Stewart Wieck (October 2005)
 * Truth and Steel, by Thomas M. Reid (September 2006)
 * The Blood Red Harp, by Elaine Cunningham (October 2006)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: EverQuest