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Francis Parker Yockey

Francis Parker Yockey (September 18, 1917 – June 17, 1960) was an American fascist and pan-Europeanist ideologue. A lawyer, he is known for his neo-Spenglerian book Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics, published in 1948 under the pen name Ulick Varange, which called for a neo-Nazi European empire.

Yockey supported far-right causes around the world and remains an influence of white nationalist and neo-fascist movements. Yockey was an antisemite, revered German Nazism, and was an early Holocaust denier. In the 1930s he contacted or worked with the Nazi-aligned Silver Shirts and the German-American Bund. He served in the U.S. Army in 1942–43, and went AWOL to help Nazi spies. After legal appointments in Detroit in 1944–45, he worked for eleven months on the War Crimes tribunal in Germany before he either resigned or was fired for siding with the Nazis. In London, he worked for the British fascist Oswald Mosley's Union Movement, and after falling out with Mosley, founded the breakaway European Liberation Front in 1949, leading it until it fizzled around 1954.

During the Cold War, Yockey reportedly worked with Soviet bloc intelligence, and argued for a tactical far-right alliance with the Soviets against what he saw as Jewish-American hegemony. He also briefly wrote anti-Jewish propaganda in Egypt, where he met its president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Yockey remained influential in fascist circles until his suicide in FBI custody in 1960. Yockey's last visitor in prison was Willis Carto, who became the leading advocate and publisher of his writings.

Biography
Yockey had many aliases, and some facts about him are not certain. Acquaintances and declassified FBI files described him as a talented speaker, brilliant, well-read, sometimes charming, humorous and a gifted mimic — but also haughty, immature, secretive, a loner, and, in the FBI's words, "nervous, high-strung, erratic, unpredictable and dictatorial", with "an amazing capacity for alienating people".

Early life and education
Yockey was born in 1917 in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of four siblings in an upper-middle-class Catholic family of Irish and German descent. His father was a stockbroker. Yockey was raised in Ludington, Michigan. He learned classical piano.

He began college as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, then transferred to Georgetown University, and later completed his degree at the University of Arizona. Before starting law school at Northwestern University, he also studied law at De Paul University, and graduated from the Notre Dame Law School in 1941. In college, he declared he would not dine with black, Jewish or communist students.

Yockey had been attracted to Marxism in early life before gravitating to Adolf Hitler and Nazism in the 1930s, and in college, Oswald Spengler. Other influences include Karl Haushofer and the Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt, whom Yockey was later accused of plagiarizing. Yockey joined pro-German and pro-fascist groups in the late 1930s. In 1938, his essay "The Tragedy of Youth" was published in Social Justice, a journal known for publishing antisemitic tracts that was distributed by the "radio priest" Charles Coughlin. In 1939 Yockey spoke at a gathering of Silvershirts.

World War II and immediate postwar
Yockey enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942, serving in an intelligence unit. He went AWOL from his camp in Georgia in November 1942 on a Nazi mission to Texas and Mexico City. According to Yockey's biographer Kevin Coogan, Yockey secretly helped German Nazi spies who had landed in the United States and Mexico. He was also a friend of a German American intelligence officer Herbert Hans Haupt, who stayed at the home of his wife and was later executed for espionage for his participation in Operation Pastorius. Later, Yockey received an honorable discharge from the Army for "dementia praecox, paranoid type" in 1943 after suffering a nervous breakdown or feigning one. He was placed on a government list of Americans suspected of pro-Nazi views. In 1944 he became an assistant prosecuting attorney for Wayne County, Michigan, but was bored by the work, leaving in 1945.

In early 1946, Yockey found a job with the United States War Department in Wiesbaden, Germany, as a post-trial review attorney for the Nuremberg Trials, and he moved to Germany with his wife and two daughters. Evidence suggests Yockey may have tried to help accused Nazi war criminals including SS General Otto Ohlendorf by sharing top-secret documents with German defense lawyers. Often absent from his job, he was fired for "abandonment of position" on the 26th of November 1946, when it was noticed that he was siding with the Nazis. He agitated against Allied occupation of Germany, and later worked for the Red Cross in Germany but deserted his post. U.S. intelligence began tracking Yockey in Germany in 1946 or 1947. Yockey left his estranged wife and daughters in Germany in 1947 for exile in Ireland.

Yockey was a central figure in early postwar Nazi networks. Over time, he contacted or worked with far-right figures and organizations including the German-American Bund, the National German-American Alliance, William Dudley Pelley's Silver Shirts, Sir Oswald Mosley's Union Movement, George Sylvester Viereck, the American H. Keith Thompson, Gerald L. K. Smith, and James H. Madole's National Renaissance Party. After the war Thompson and Madole became advocates of Yockey's worldview and published some of his essays.

Cold War years
Yockey identified the United States, not Russia, as Europe's main enemy, urged Europeans not to collaborate with America in the Cold War, and wanted to act against American forces in Germany and England. He hoped to weaken or overthrow the government of the United States. Yockey's ideas were usually embraced only by those who could countenance an alliance between the far left and the far right.

Without notes, Yockey wrote his first book, Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics, in Brittas Bay, Ireland, over the winter and early spring of 1948. Imperium is a Spenglerian critique of 19th century materialism and rationalism that scorns democracy and equality, extols Nazism, and blames Jews for various problems. It subscribes to Spengler's suggestion that Germany had been destined to fulfil the 'Roman' role in Western Civilization by uniting all its states into one empire. It is dedicated to "the hero of the Second World War", by which he meant Hitler. In an early example of Holocaust denial, it also claims that the Nazis' gas chambers were faked, even though in private Yockey praised the Holocaust against the Jews. Yockey mailed copies of Imperium to far-right figures in Europe and America. Views expressed in it were endorsed by former Nazi General Otto Remer (who had been Hitler's bodyguard); the American Revilo P. Oliver; and Italian esotericist Julius Evola, as well as the praise of Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Giorgio Almirante, Heinz Knoke, and Karl-Heinz Priester.

Yockey became embittered with Sir Oswald Mosley (Hitler's leading British proponent ) after the latter refused to publish or review Imperium upon its completion, after having promised to do so. Mosley punched Yockey in the nose during a dispute in London's Hyde Park. With a small group of British fascists including the former Mosleyites Guy Chesham and John Gannon, Yockey formed the European Liberation Front (ELF) in 1948–49. The ELF formed ties with old Nazis along with other fascists. It issued a newsletter, Frontfighter, and in 1949 published Yockey's virulent anti-American, anti-communist and antisemitic text The Proclamation of London, which called for a reinstatement of Nazism and the expulsion of the Jews (whom it labeled "the Culture-distorter") from Europe. The ELF was opposed by other neo-fascist groups and essentially disappeared by 1954 due to members being alienated by Yockey's imperious personality.

The American Nazi Party of George Lincoln Rockwell rejected Yockey's anti-American attitude and willingness to work with anti-Zionist communist governments and movements. (Yockey told Willis Carto that he had never heard of the ANP when Carto visited him in prison in 1960.) Other neo-Nazis such as Rockwell's ally Colin Jordan disagreed with Yockey's views on race, and saw Yockeyism as being "Strasserist" which would undermine Nazism.

Declassified FBI files show that Yockey traveled to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York to collaborate with ultra-right activists, while eluding FBI agents who sought to question him. As a fugitive he spoke at the 1950 Christian Nationalist Party convention in Los Angeles organized by Gerald L. K. Smith. He also spent time in New Orleans writing propaganda for use in Latin America. His intercepted letters to other fascists in the 1950s were often signed "Torquemada" after the torturer of the Spanish Inquisition.

Yockey was approached by the group around the anti-Communist Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1951. He was asked to ghost-write a speech for McCarthy which stressed the importance of greater friendship between Germany and the United States. Although McCarthy never delivered it as the theme of the speech, when it was announced through posters in the Yorkville neighbourhood of New York City, the-then Left Wing newspaper The Daily Compass ran a front page expose, alongside negative press attention from the New York Post, probably influenced by the fact that a series of well known Holocaust deniers were going to speak alongside him. Yockey collaborated with Soviet bloc intelligence, traveled behind the Iron Curtain, and was suspected of visiting East Germany, the Soviet Union and Cuba. One theory for this derives from a September 1956 story about a mysterious American man, who went by the name of "Frederick C. Hopkins" who was released from Soviet police custody on the 6th of September 1956. He wrote with approval of antisemitic purges in the Eastern bloc countries. In late 1952, he traveled to Prague and witnessed the Prague Trials, and asserted that they "foretold a Russian break with Jewry". He then became a Czechoslovak Secret Service courier. He is suspected of having been in contact with a Soviet agent by the name of Alfred Francke-Gricksch.

Yockey met Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, whom he called "a great and vigorous man", in Cairo in 1953. He worked briefly for the Egyptian Information Ministry, writing anti-Zionist propaganda. In the Arab world, he made contact with Nazi exiles including Otto Ernst Remer and Johann von Leers. Yockey reportedly tried to persuade Nasser to finance development of a cobalt bomb by ex-Nazi scientists.

Yockey was known as a womanizer, and had an affair with Hazel Guggenheim McKinley. In 1957, FBI agents assessed that he was "living in Los Angeles as a pimp or a gigolo" and had written pornography for money, including a sadomasochistic booklet called Arduous Figure Training at Bondhaven that was later found in his suitcase''. '' The 62 pages booklet was published by Nutrix Company of Jersey City and according to the FBI "contained numerous sketeches of partially clad females and [...] was of a masochistic or sadistic nature."

Arrest and death
After more than a decade of pursuit by the FBI, Yockey was finally arrested in 1960 after returning to the United States from abroad. En route to Oakland, California, his suitcase had either been lost or had broken open at the Dallas airport, and authorities found several of Yockey's falsified passports and birth certificates. When this was reported to the federal government, the FBI tracked Yockey down in Oakland, California, and arrested him. While in prison, he was visited by Carto, who later became the chief advocate and publisher of Yockey's ideas. While he was there, he was staying with the principal of a yeshiva called Alexander Scharf, who he had met in Reno and intended to give a loan of 2,000 USD. Yockey was soon after found dead with an empty cyanide capsule nearby while in a jail cell in San Francisco under FBI supervision. Writing after his suicide, the San Francisco Chronicle declared him "as important a figure in world Fascism as we now know."

Occult and philosophy interests
Coogan writes that "Yockey's occult interests had political ramifications" as he "clearly saw himself as part of an underground elite, a secret new race of god-men". Yockey was an owner of documents relating to Theosophy, according to the FBI. At the time of his suicide, he had copies of books and articles written by Baltasar Gracián, Otto Weininger, H. G. Wells, and George B. Leonard.

Influence
While some postwar European and American nationalists of the post-war period sided with the United States against communism, or in other cases argued for third positionism, Yockey argued for a red-brown alliance (red representing the far-left and brown representing the far-right). He argued that rightists should aid the spread of communism and Third World anti-colonial movements when they threatened the United States. This view did not have a very significant influence on the American right, which in the Cold War for the most part remained anti-communist. He had a greater impact in Europe, where the European New Right, where for instance the Belgian Jean Thiriartand the Frenchmen Christian Bouchet, René Binet, and Dominique Venner are known to have been influenced by him. Additionally, the Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, and the French writer Alain de Benoist, adopted positions similar to Yockey's, although there is little evidence his work influenced them in this. He also influenced American Nazi Party member Dan Burros and National Renaissance Party founder James H. Madole. The British military writers Liddell Hart and J.F.C. Fuller (a fascist) gave early praise to Imperium.

Yockey is also remembered as an early and influential Holocaust denier.

Yockey's present influence is reflected mostly through the work of Willis Carto and his Liberty Lobby and successor organizations. According to Stephen E. Atkins, "Because of the efforts of Carto, Yockey is more popular after his death than he ever was when he was alive". Carto ran the Youth for George Wallace group supporting segregationist George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign. That group formed the basis for the National Youth Alliance, which promoted Yockey's political philosophy and his book Imperium. Core members of Carto's political groups were members of the Francis Parker Yockey Society, a neo-Nazi cult. Afterward, Yockey continued to be a cult figure among neo-fascists. His influence also persists among Odinists. According to the American political scientist George Hawley, "Yockey's vision of a global fascist movement that transcends national borders is now a common trope within the Alt-Right".

In his 2011 book of correspondences with American conductor David Woodard, Swiss writer Christian Kracht recommended Yockey's Imperium. The following year, Kracht published his bestselling novel Imperium.

In Malta, the Neo-Fascist leader by the name of Norman Lowell is heavily inspired by Yockey's book Imperium, and has the name of his organization, Imperium Europa directly alluding to it.

The Order of Nine Angles, a Satanist and terrorist group, is known to draw from his beliefs. Other terrorists inspired by Yockey include Leo Felton, responsible for the 2002 white supremacist terror plot and John William King an assailant in the Murder of James Byrd Jr.. Additionally, far-right political activist Augustus Sol Invictus has drawn inspiration from Yockey's book Imperium, as well as the New Zealander Kerry Bolton.

title: Francis Parker Yockey


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Talk:Jacob Johan Anckarström

Move?
Nationalencyklopedin and se:Jacob Anckarström calls him Jacob Johan Anckarström. Why did Mic move him to Johan Jacob Anckarström? I think he should moved back to Jacob Johan Anckarström or perhaps Jacob Anckarström. --Martinl 09:41, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Answer from User:Mic: "Possibly it was an attempt to adjust to practices used elsewhere, probably also Swedish Wikipedia at the time, but in vain as it may seem. The convention used in Nationalencyclopedin, and currently Swedish Wikipedia, is good enough for me, feel free to change it back. -- Mic 07:27, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)" --Martinl 22:11, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Really French?
Did the king and his assassins really speak French on this occasion? It seems rather peculiar... --- Someone else 06:00 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * Not to me; until recently, French was a common language in royal courts across Europe. - Montréalais

 * Neither to me; Gustav III spoke French most of his time. --Martinl 09:41, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Nothing strange about that. French was à la mode at the Swedish court and among the Swedish nobility at the time. Jonas Liljeström 23:26, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

 * The king did speak Frech after he was shot, to be precise. He did, in fact, quote the French king Henry IV, who said "ai, je suis blessé" when being assassinated in 1610. Gustav III was a great fan of Henry IV. Gustav's first word, though, was "aj". You would have said it too, if you were shot in the back. Gösta Sandell 06:56, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Sourcing
I have no reason to think the Swedes are lying about it, but we could use a cite for the DOB, since Britannica has him being born in a different year. — Llywelyn II   02:46, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

How many pistols?

 * "The murder weapon was loaded with two balls, five shot and six bent nails."

and
 * "Anckarström . . . had thrown the pistol down as he left.[1] These were brought around to several gunsmiths the next morning and one who had repaired them for Anckarström recognized them and identified him as their owner." [My bolding].

An obvious contradiction here. Can anyone check some Swedish sources? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 185.74.232.130 (talk) 09:43, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
 * There were two pistols; he discharged one and intended to shoot himself with the other, but when the king did not die as expected, Anckarström threw away the second one. Gösta Sandell 06:59, 19 September 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gösta Sandell (talk • contribs)

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

title: Talk:Jacob Johan Anckarström


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Tex Schramm

Texas Earnest Schramm Jr. (June 2, 1920 – July 15, 2003) was an American football executive who was the original president and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys franchise of the National Football League (NFL). Schramm, usually referred to as "Tex", became the head of the Cowboys when the former expansion team started operations in 1960.

Early life and career
Despite his name, Schramm was not born in Texas, but in San Gabriel, California. Texas was his father's name and where his parents met. Schramm attended Alhambra High School and went to the University of Texas, graduating in 1947 with a bachelor's degree in journalism. At UT he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, as was his father. Schramm interrupted his education to serve as an officer in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II.

Before joining the Cowboys, Schramm was part of the Los Angeles Rams from 1947 to 1956. During his tenure, he hired Pete Rozelle as the Rams' public relations director, who would eventually become the Commissioner of the National Football League. They remained close friends after Rozelle became NFL commissioner and Schramm became general manager of the Cowboys (each holding his position for 29 years).

Dallas Cowboys
In late 1959, when it became apparent that the NFL was intent on expanding to Dallas, Schramm told his friends in football that he was interested in running the team. Chicago Bears owner George Halas introduced Schramm to Clint Murchison Jr., who had tried to bring the NFL to Dallas several times in the past. Murchison hired Schramm as the general manager for a potential Dallas team, which became a reality when the league awarded a franchise to the city on January 28, 1960.

In 1960, Schramm hired head coach Tom Landry and chief scout Gil Brandt. By the mid-1960s, the three men had built the Cowboys into an elite team. The Cowboys, despite two consecutive losses to the Green Bay Packers in the NFL Championship Game in 1966 and '67, had 20 consecutive winning seasons, and won the most games of any NFL team of the 1970s. They appeared in five Super Bowls that decade, winning Super Bowls VI and XII, and losing Super Bowls V, X, and XIII by a combined 11 points. The Cowboys became a marquee NFL franchise, their popularity inspiring the nickname "America's Team".

In 1966, Schramm met secretly with American Football League (AFL) founder Lamar Hunt to begin the negotiations that led to the 1970 merger of the NFL and AFL, as well as the first Super Bowl in 1967.

Schramm was known as the most powerful general manager in the NFL. The Cowboys' owners during his tenure, Murchison (1960–84) and Bum Bright (1984–1988), largely left day-to-day operations in his hands. Schramm represented the Cowboys at league meetings and exercised the team's voting rights, something normally reserved for team owners.

Schramm was a leading opponent of the 1987 NFLPA Strike. The NFL players union at the time were agitating for a better deal, including free agency rights. Schramm, with other owners, organized the hiring of replacement players while the usual players were on strike, earning a nickname of "the commissioner of replacement football". Schramm cattily said to executive director of the NFLPA Gene Upshaw "Gene, here’s what you have to understand: we're the ranchers and you're the cattle, and we can always get more cattle." Schramm was comparatively effective in convincing regular players of the Cowboys to cross the picket line, albeit at the cost of splitting the team; he aggressively used contract clauses as threats to revoke millions of dollars in annuity payments from players who would not return to work. Running back Tony Dorsett, who had previously criticized other team members for breaking the strike, felt he was financially forced to rejoin as well by Schramm's threats. Eventually 21 Cowboys players would break the strike and play with replacement players, a much higher rate than for other teams in the League; the Cowboys went 2-1 during the three strike-affected games. The cost of Schramm's threats to the team's success was high: The Cowboys would only go 8–35 over the next two and a half seasons, not recovering until new ownership took over.

Innovations
Schramm was known for advocating for a number of changes and innovations that helped modernize the NFL. These include instant replay, using computer technology in scouting, multi-color striping of the 20- and 50-yard lines, 30-second clock between plays, extra-wide sideline borders, wind-direction stripes on the goal post uprights, the referee's microphone, headsets in the quarterback's helmet for hearing plays, and hiring Dee Brock to establish the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. While leading the league's Competition Committee, he oversaw rule changes such as using overtime in the regular season, putting the official time on the scoreboard, moving goalposts from the front of the end zone to the back, and protecting quarterbacks through the in-the-grasp rule. Schramm's desire for a more comprehensive scouting combine led to the annual offseason NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. Don Shula said of Schramm, "I truly believe he had as much, or more, to do with the success of professional football as anyone who has ever been connected with the league."

After the Cowboys
Schramm stayed on only briefly with the Cowboys after Jerry Jones purchased the team and fired Tom Landry. He left to become the president of the World League of American Football. Schramm was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1991. Schramm's entry into the Cowboys Ring of Honor took much longer due to strained relations with Jones. Schramm had created the Ring of Honor, and had been a "one-man committee" on inductions. Jones became that "committee" when he took over. Finally in 2003, Jones announced that Schramm would be inducted into the ring during the next football season. Schramm attended the announcement press conference and spoke, but died a few months later and was inducted posthumously.

Schramm married his high school sweetheart, Martha Anne Snowden, in 1941. Martha Schramm died on December 8, 2002. The couple had three daughters.

title: Tex Schramm


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Mattel Aquarius

Aquarius is a home computer designed by Radofin and released by Mattel Electronics in 1983. Based on the Zilog Z80 microprocessor, the system has a rubber chiclet keyboard, 4K of RAM, and a subset of Microsoft BASIC in ROM. It connects to a television set for audiovisual output, and uses a cassette tape recorder for secondary data storage. A limited number of peripherals, such as a 40-column thermal printer, a 4-color printer/plotter, and a 300 baud modem, were released. The Aquarius was discontinued in October 1983, only a few months after it was launched.

Development

Looking to compete in the home computer market, Mattel Electronics turned to Radofin, the Hong Kong based manufacturer of their Intellivision consoles. Radofin had designed two computer systems. Internally they were known as "Checkers" and the more sophisticated "Chess". Mattel contracted for these to become the Aquarius and Aquarius II, respectively.

Aquarius was announced in 1982 and finally released in June 1983, at a price of $160. Production ceased four months later because of poor sales. Mattel paid Radofin to take back the marketing rights. Four other companies: CEZAR Industries, CRIMAC, New Era Incentives, and Bentley Industries also marketed the unit and accessories.

The Aquarius was often bundled with the Mini-Expander peripheral, which added game pads, an additional cartridge port for memory expansion, and the General Instrument AY-3-8910 sound chip. Other peripherals were the Data recorder, 40 column thermal printer, 4K and 16K RAM carts. Less common first party peripherals include a 300 baud cartridge modem, 32k RAM cart, 4 color plotter, and Quick Disk drive.

Reception

Although less expensive than the TI-99/4A and VIC-20, the Aquarius had comparatively weak graphics and limited memory. Internally, Mattel programmers adopted Bob Del Principe's mock slogan, "Aquarius -a system for the seventies". Of the 32 software titles Mattel announced for the unit, only 21 were released, most of which were ports of Intellivision games. Because of the hardware limitations of the Aquarius, the quality of many games suffered. There was such a lack of programmable graphics that Mattel added a special character set (see Character set section), so the games could at least use semigraphics.

As a magazine of the time put it, "The Aquarius suffered one of the shortest lifespans of any computer—it was discontinued by Mattel almost as soon as it hit store shelves, a victim of the 1983 home computer price wars." Just after the release of the Aquarius, Mattel announced plans for the Aquarius II, and there is evidence that the Aquarius II reached the market in small numbers, but was also not a commercial success.

Technical specifications

 * CPU: Zilog Z80 @ 3.5 MHz
 * Memory: 4K RAM, expandable to 36K RAM; 8K ROM
 * Keyboard: 48-key rubber chiclet keyboard
 * Display: 80x72 semigraphics in 16 colors (TEA1002 chip, 40x24 text characters - with a 25th "zero" row at top - with a size of 8x8 pixels, equivalent to 320 x 192 pixels) Correction update - the TEA1002 does not generate the display itself, its purely a colour encoder
 * Sound: One voice, expandable to four voices
 * Ports: Television, cartridge/expansion, tape recorder, printer
 * PSU: Non-removable external power supply hard-wired into case providing 8.8 / 16 / -19 VDC

Peripherals
Despite its relatively short time on the market, Mattel Electronics and Radofin managed to have most of the announced peripherals available within a month or so of the release of the system. Some products never materialized beyond prototype phase, and some were available only in specific markets. Beginning in 2016, new user-designed peripherals began to show up, mostly on eBay or on vintage computer forums such as AtariAge.

Interfacing
The Aquarius manual did not contain details of any of the ports available. The cassette port, although using the same 5-Pin DIN 41524 connector as the TRS-80, did not have the same pin out and thus was incompatible with readily available cables for the TRS-80, even though they physically fit the sockets on both the computer and cassette player. The Aquarius branded cassette deck came with the appropriate cable.

The cassette port a 5-pin female DIN 41524 connector

The MIC and EAR connections from the Aquarius each go to the tip/center of one of the two mini-plugs being attached to the recorder; Ground goes to the base/outside of both mini-plugs.

The printer interface is a mini-stereo socket with 3 lines, the same as on the Mattel Entertainment Computer System. The Aquarius printers came with their own cables. The interface conforms to RS-232 serial signal standards (+12VDC/-12VDC), with the knowledge of the pinout it is possible to interface printers with a corresponding RS-232 interface. The serial is fixed to 1200 baud 8N2 and provided both carriage return and line feed commands to the printer, thus the printer needed to be set to not auto feed with carriage return.

Pin out for the connector on the Aquarius:

Typical serial printers had DB-25 interfaces; some had DE-9 interfaces; and, some Radio Shack (RS) printers had round 4-pin female DIN connector serial interfaces (with the pin sockets numbered left-to-right: 4, 3, 2, 1). The proper cable for connecting such a printer is as follows:

MINI-STEREO PLUG     DB-25    DE-9     RS       FUNCTION

Tip/Center of Plug   Pin 3    Pin 2    Pin 4    Data to Printer Middle of Plug       Pin 20   Pin 4    Pin 2    Printer Busy/Ready Base/Outside         Pin 7    Pin 5    Pin 3    Signal Ground

Character set
The following table shows the Mattel Aquarius character set. Each character is shown with a potential Unicode equivalent if available.

List of games
Around 75 games were published for this system.

title: Mattel Aquarius


text:
Discovery Bay

Discovery Bay (DB) is a resort town on Lantau Island, Hong Kong. It consists of mixed, primarily residential, development, in particular upmarket residential development and private and public recreational facilities, including garden houses, low-, mid-and high-rise residential developments, a 27-hole golf course, an ice rink, a 262-berth marina, two clubhouses, the first private manmade beach in Hong Kong, international schools, two shopping malls and the largest oceanfront alfresco dining area in Hong Kong.

The 2021 census recorded a population of 19,336 residents in DB, with 55% of them being non-Chinese. DB is home to a significant community composed of expatriates from over fifty countries. It is one of the most ethnically diverse places in Hong Kong. With only 45% of the population being Chinese, the largest ethnic minority groups in the community is white (25%) and Filipinos (11.2%). DB is located 2 km west of Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and approximately 12 km west from the nearest point on Hong Kong Island.

As of April 2018, Discovery Bay consists of 15 residential development phases with properties ranging from garden houses to low-, mid-and high-rise. The development also features a 400-metre-long privately owned beach (accessible to the public), four private membership clubs including a golf club and a marina club, and a public park (Siena Central Park).

Discovery Bay is a key community in Lantau Island (after Tung Chung) and enjoys a very low plot ratio of 0.15. Pets are allowed in Discovery Bay.

History
In May 1973, the Hong Kong Resort Company (HKR) was established by Edward Wong Wing-cheung, a Hong Kong merchant. Following two years of planning and negotiation, a 'Master Plan' was agreed in December 1975 between HKR and the Hong Kong government. By New Grant No. 6122 of 10 September 1976, HKR agreed The plan called for development, on Lot 385 at Tai Pak Wan, of "membership club houses and a leisure resort and associated facilities which shall include an hotel or hotels ... a cable-car system ... and a non-membership golf course ..." In addition, HKR handed over HK$61.5 million in exchange for the grant and undertook to spend no less than another HK$600 million on development (excluding site formation costs) within 10 years of the grant.

Within months, however, Wong faced financial difficulty. The Soviet-government-controlled Moscow Narodny Bank Limited filed a writ in Hong Kong on 1 April 1977 against Wong himself for return of US$7 million advanced in 1973, as well as against Wong's Panamanian bank holding company, Paclantic Financing Co., Inc. (which was HKR's majority shareholder), for US$22.12 million in proceedings in Panama. Both the Chinese and British governments were concerned to prevent the property rights to the single largest piece of privately controlled land in Hong Kong falling into the hands of the Russian bank during times of deepening political uncertainty for Hong Kong. Sir David Akers-Jones, then-Secretary for the New Territories, led the government's efforts to avert that prospect, steering HKR into the hands of Hong Kong-based Chinese industrialist Cha Chi-ming. It is suspected that Cha decided to bid for the project under the instruction of Liao Chengzhi, then director of China's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office to avoid Soviet acquisition of Hong Kong land.

Having lost control of HKR and facing bankruptcy proceedings, Wong left Hong Kong in January 1977 while mooting the establishment of a Pacific Atlantic Bank of Miami and going into the casino business with the Anderson group of whom one Robert B. Anderson, of One Rockefeller Plaza, had been a fellow director on the HKR board.

Cha Chi-ming, better known for running China Dyeing Works Ltd during the 1970s, an international textile group, acquired equity interest in HKR in 1977. By 1979 all debts were paid off and work started on the reservoir and the core infrastructure but for a very different sort of project – essentially a residential community offering a relaxed lifestyle. This decision was revisited in 2004 when it was discovered that Akers-Jones did not seek approval from the Executive Council (ExCo) for the deviation from the terms of the Land Grant. In a 2004 report by the government's Audit Commission, the Lands Department was severely criticised for allowing this to happen, particularly since Akers-Jones did not call on HKR under Cha to pay any additional land premium. After retiring from government, in 2000 Akers-Jones joined the board of Mingly Corporation, also controlled by Cha.

Unlike other large Hong Kong developments, everything in DB was built with private money, including roads, electricity and the water supply. The government-operated fire and police station, community hall and the government-aided primary school were also built by the developer. These developments have to be approved and checked by the government with the official Master Plan version 6.0a in 2003, including the major extension in 2003 in Yi Pak Wan.

Geography
As with most of the terrain in Hong Kong, Lantau Island seems to be a set of hills that rise out of the water. DB is wedged between the hills and the sea and both environments are accessible from the edges of the developed areas. The hills directly behind DB reach up to 465 m, and the hiking trails that traverse all the peaks on Lantau Island are accessible from those hills. The hills of Lantau tend to fall dramatically into jungle-covered valleys that spread up into verdant, grass-covered hills. DB has a series of rock pools which lead to one such valley and into a man-made addition to the water-drainage system. (Note: DB has switched to Government potable water supply since 2000)

Environment
DB is home to animals of many kinds, most of which are domestic pets. There are, however, a number of wild species that lived or are living on Lantau Island that can be found in and around DB. Most of these creatures are birds such as finches, tits, gulls and kites. Until the construction of the new Hong Kong International Airport in Chek Lap Kok, wild cattle and water buffalo thrived in the pasture-like hills. Increasingly vigorous development all over Hong Kong has reduced the habitat of the local dolphin and whale populations. The most famous of these is the Chinese white dolphin, often called the pink dolphin due to a slight pinkish cast to their skin. (See Environment of Hong Kong)

Climate
Discovery Bay has a sub-tropical climate characterised by distinct seasons. Summers are usually from June to August, with temperatures often within the mid 20s to low 30s Celsius (80s to 90s Fahrenheit) range. Winters start in December and run till February, with temperatures ranging from teens to low 20s Celsius (high 50s to low 70s Fahrenheit).

As DB is a coastal region, typhoon season (May–November) provides a more intense weather experience for residents. Severe tropical storms tend to only occur later in the season, typically August and September. These storms bring torrential rain and strong winds to the region, sometimes leading to a temporary suspension of ferry services to the resort town.

Environmental awareness
DB was awarded the Green Property Management Award (Private Housing) in 2002. To make DB a greener town, DBSML, the management company of DB, has replaced conventional ballasts with energy-saving tubes. The number of lights in common corridors and main entrances of buildings were re-assessed and unnecessary lights were removed. It was thought that a 30% reduction in electricity charges was achieved in La Vista, one of the villages. Apart from energy reduction, flea market, old books collection, old clothes collection and used household items collection have been held on a regular basis to promote recycling.

Current development
DB was developed in phases and the developer, HKR, envisages that DB will eventually be home to 25,000 residents. The following data applies as of April 2008:

Community and Culture
Community life centres on two commercial hubs: DB Plaza and DB North Plaza. DB Plaza features a bus terminus, ferry pier, an open piazza, and a range of shops, medical and dental clinics, and a veterinary surgery. The DB plaza mall was opened in 2021 bringing in lots of external businesses. The two plazas each have a supermarket and a range of international themed restaurants, bars and food outlets.

Amenities include: two schools, a beach at Tai Pak Bay; four private membership recreational clubs including a 27-hole golf course and a marina (previously a residential area for houseboats, but now a premium yacht club); natural streams and rock pools: a bicycle track alongside Discovery Bay Road; an astro-turf football pitch; basketball courts; children's playgrounds scattered around the developments and hiking paths leading to other parts of Lantau Island – including the Trappist Haven Monastery and Mui Wo. A Community Centre / Indoor Recreation Centre was finally completed in 2007, seven years after the extended development in Yi Pak was approved. It was handed over to government-appointed operators in April 2009. (All are private clubs with separate membership fees)
 * Clubs in DB
 * Discovery Bay Recreation Club and Club Siena (DBRC)
 * Lantau Yacht Club (LYC)
 * Discovery Bay Golf Club (DBGC)

Housing units in DB used to be sold with a DBRC debenture (and later a right to join the club), although residents can choose whether to be active members and pay a monthly subscription. DBRC members are automatically members of Club Siena. Debentures of DBMC and DBGC are traded in the secondary market.

The Maria opens into Nim Shue Wan, a bay to the south of DB. There is also a public landing stage for cargo boats and privately operated kat-to ferries that link DB to nearby Peng Chau Island and the Trappist Haven Monastery pier about 2 km to the south. There are also Kai-to services connecting to Mui Wo (Silvermine Bay).

Residents also run activities and groups. These include the Lantau Boat Club (a catamaran sailing and outrigger canoe club), Discovery Bay Pirates Rugby Club, and numerous religious services.

Auberge Discovery Bay Hong Kong

The resort hotel on the waterfront of Yi Pak opened in March 2013 complements the resort lifestyle of Discovery Bay. The 325-room resort features an outdoor swimming pool, gym, all-day dining, Spa Botanica, and 1,300 square metres of function space comprising a 700 square metres ballroom and 11 function rooms; all available to suit every need and stay for leisure, meeting, incentive, event, wedding or a special celebration. Opening alongside the hotel is the first-ever seaside glass wedding chapel in Hong Kong. The glamorous white chapel is 16-metre tall, offering a capacity of 100 guests and a sea view as backdrop for weddings.

Transportation
DB is connected the rest of Hong Kong via a road tunnel to the North Lantau Expressway and by a ferry service.

All services accept Hong Kong's Octopus card.

Ferries
There are 3 different ferry routes operating in Discovery Bay: There are 2 discount package provided by DBTPL. For plan A, there are total 1,550 stored points in transport card for adult at a price of HK$1,310 and 775 for child at a price of HK$655. For plan B, there are 930 stored points in the card for adult and 465 points for child. The prices are HK$858 and HK$429 respectively.
 * A day time ferry service plies between DB Pier on Tai Pak Bay and Pier 3 in Central District on Hong Kong Island (journey time of approximately thirty minutes; frequency of around 15–30 minutes. Current ticket price, paid by Octopus Card, is HKD$46 for adults and HKD$23 for children for a single journey; If using a DB Resident's Octopus Card, the prices for adults and children / students will be HKD$33.5 and HKD$16.8 (regular services). Seniors can enjoy the HKD$2 scheme subsidised by the government. Since 2005, ferries have been equipped with free on-board Wi-Fi wireless broadband Internet, which is unique not only in Hong Kong but across Asia.
 * Kai-to ferries operated by an independent operator link DB to nearby Peng Chau Island (via Trappist Haven Monastery) and Mui Wo, also on Lantau Island (journey time approximately 10 and 20 minutes respectively)

Ferries were the only way to reach Discovery Bay until the opening of the DB Tunnel in 2000 and remain the main way to reach DB from Central. The service is operated by Discovery Bay Transportation Services Ltd (DBTSL), a wholly owned subsidiary of HKR. The route between DB and Central is served by monohull and catamaran waterjets manufactured by Marinteknik in Singapore; seating 300 and 500 passengers respectively.

Buses
Commuting within DB is done via a 24-hour internal shuttle bus service operated by DBTSL, which runs between various parts of DB and the Bus Terminus by the DB Plaza/the ferry pier. Travelling between the various villages by bus requires a change at the DB Plaza Bus Terminus. The same applies for residents not living on a direct connection to the schools, churches and most of the clubs.

In 2000, a 2.4 km road tunnel linking DB to the North Lantau Expressway opened, enabling access to DB by road – and shortening the journey to other parts of Lantau, Kowloon and the New Territories. From the tunnel's inauguration, shuttle bus services ran to Tung Chung and the Hong Kong International Airport in Chek Lap Kok, and shortly after the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland and the Sunny Bay MTR station in June 2005, an additional route between Sunny Bay and DB was launched, further shortening the time to reach Kowloon and New Territories.

The five external bus are operated by Discovery Bay Transit Services Limited (DBTSL), another wholly owned subsidiary of HKRI: {| class="wikitable" !Route no. !Start dest. !End dest. !Fare
 * DB01R: From DB Plaza Bus Terminus to Tung Chung MTR station (journey time approximately 15–20 minutes; frequency of every 20 minutes during day time, every 10 minutes at peak hours).
 * DB02R: From DB Plaza Bus Terminus to Hong Kong International Airport in Chek Lap Kok (via Cathay City; journey time approximately 20–30 minutes; frequency of every 30 minutes during day time, every 60 minutes at midnight hours, 24-hour service)
 * DB03R: From DB Plaza Bus Terminus to Sunny Bay MTR station (journey time approximately 15–20 minutes; frequency of every 20 minutes during day time, every 5–8 minutes at peak hours).
 * DB03P: From DB(N) Commercial Centre to Sunny Bay MTR station (journey time approximately 15–20 minutes; frequency of every 30 minutes during day time, every 20 minutes at peak hours).
 * DB08R: From No 28, Coastline to Central Ferry Pier 3. an overnight ferry replacement service. 5 buses from 00:15 to 05:00 with the ferry restarting at 06:30. Journey time approximately 60 minutes.
 * +Internal and External Bus Services
 * GC
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * Discovery Bay Golf Club
 * Free for Golf Club members
 * 1
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * Headland Drive / Parkland Drive
 * $6.2 ($5.1 for Residents)
 * 1/6
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * Headland Drive / Parkland Drive / Seabee Lane
 * $6.2 ($5.1 for Residents)
 * 2 and 3
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * Midvale/Parkvale
 * $6.2 ($5.1 for Residents)
 * 4
 * Coastline Villa
 * DB North
 * $6.2 ($5.1 for Residents)
 * 4A
 * DB North
 * Coastline
 * $6.2 ($5.1 for Residents)
 * 5
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * La Serene
 * $6.2 ($5.1 for Residents)
 * 6
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * Seabee Lane
 * $6.2 ($5.1 for Residents)
 * 9
 * Caperidge Drive
 * Chianti (Pavilion)
 * $6.2 ($5.1 for Residents)
 * 9A
 * Chianti (Pavilion)
 * Caperidge Drive
 * $6.2 ($5.1 for Residents)
 * 18
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * IL PICCO House 25
 * $6.2 ($5.1 for Residents)
 * DB01R
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * Tung Chung Station Bus Terminus
 * DB02R
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * Airport (New Coach Station)
 * $48 ($40.6 for Residents)
 * DB03P
 * DB North
 * Sunny Bay Public Transport Interchange
 * DB03R
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * Sunny Bay Public Transport Interchange
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * Tung Chung Station Bus Terminus
 * DB02R
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * Airport (New Coach Station)
 * $48 ($40.6 for Residents)
 * DB03P
 * DB North
 * Sunny Bay Public Transport Interchange
 * DB03R
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * Sunny Bay Public Transport Interchange
 * DB03R
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * Sunny Bay Public Transport Interchange
 * DB Plaza Bus Terminus
 * Sunny Bay Public Transport Interchange

 * DB08R
 * No 28, Coastline Villa
 * Central Pier 3
 * }
 * }
 * }

Separate night buses

 * N3/2 – DB Plaza Bus Terminus <> Midvale / Parkvale
 * N3/2/7/8 – DB Plaza Bus Terminus <> Midvale / Parkvale / Caperidge / Capevale / Coastline / Capeland
 * N5/1/6 – DB Plaza Bus Terminus <> La Serene / Parkland / Headland / Seabee
 * N7/8 – DB Plaza Bus Terminus <> Capridge / Capevale / Coastline / Capeland

Private transport
Private cars not permitted to enter the area, with a few exceptions for certain agents of the developer, local businesses or for emergency needs and Taxis are only allowed in DB North.

Golf carts are a common mode of transportation for residents within Discovery Bay, however exiting the resort town in a golf cart is not allowed. The number of golf carts is restricted by Hong Kong Transport Department to 500. This has contributed to the exuberant prices of the vehicle, with some buggies selling for more than $2 million HKD.

The presence of golf carts (with a much slower maximum speed than normal private cars) creates a safer road environment than many other places in Hong Kong, especially compared with the road traffic density in other parts of the territory. As such, DB has gained a reputation for its child and pet-friendly environment. Most golf carts run on petrol, however electric models are being introduced.

Residents can also use the hire car service which is operates as a point-to-point minibus shuttle service (e.g. operating on a basis similar to SuperShuttle airport services in the United States). This service only operates within Discovery Bay.

Motorised scooters have gained popularity in recent years, particularly amongst teenagers.

Education
A number of schools and colleges operate in Discovery Bay, ranging from kindergartens to secondary schools. This ranges from government-subsidised to private schools.

Discovery Bay is in Primary One Admission (POA) School Net 99, which contains two aided schools: SKH Wei Lun Primary School (聖公會偉倫小學) in Discovery Bay and Holy Family School (聖家學校) in Peng Chau; no government primary schools are in this net.

Schools located within Discovery Bay include

 * Discovery Montessori Academy (DMA) offers an IB Montessori education curriculum for children aged 3-12 years old. It is the first IB Montessori accredited school in Hong Kong and Asia, and is also highly recommended by the local community.
 * Discovery Bay International School (DBIS), built by the developer in 1983. It is an English-language private international kindergarten, primary and early secondary school providing education from nursery to Year 13.
 * Discovery College, a primary and secondary 'through-train' school set up under the government's Private Independent Schools scheme. The college opened for the 2008–2009 academic year, currently operating from Year 1 to Year 13.
 * SKH Wei Lun Primary School, a Chinese-language government-aided Anglican primary school providing education from Year 1 to Year 6.
 * Discovery Mind Primary School, opened in 2012, provided private primary education.
 * L'Ecole Pierre et Marie Curie Education Centre, a French school, offering programmes in French, English and Mandarin, for Year 1 to Year 6 students.

Nursery and kindergartens operating within Discovery Bay include
 * Discovery Montessori School (DMS): Located in the North Plaza Unit 101, DMS has earned a strong reputation among families in the area for providing high-quality Montessori education for children aged 1-6 years old.
 * Discovery Bay International School (DBIS) Kindergarten, an English-language private international kindergarten;
 * Discovery Mind Kindergarten (DMK), a private kindergarten operating Chinese and English sessions;
 * Sunshine House, an English language private international kindergarten; and
 * La Petite Enfance Kindergarten, a French-language private international kindergarten.

There are a number of parents that send their children to the schools in Hong Kong Island, Tung Chung and the Kwai Tsing District.

A further site has been earmarked for the development of a Catholic 'through train' school. However, as of August 2009, this is still at the proposed stage.

Municipal services
DB is owned and developed by HKR International Limited (HKRI). Discovery Bay Services Management Limited (DBSML), a subsidiary of HKRI, manages the development. DB used to have its own private water supply from a reservoir and water treatment plant located near the golf course in the mountain valley above the estate. Since DB Tunnel opened in 2000, DB has been connected to the municipal supply from the Water Supplies Department which sources its water both from reservoirs throughout Hong Kong, Lantau Island and the New Territories and from the Pearl River Delta in the mainland. Current municipal facilities inside DB include a fire station and ambulance depot, a post office and a police reporting post. These facilities were built by the developer and services rendered by various government bodies.

With the opening of the DB Tunnel in 2000, the Government deemed the police station and fire station/ambulance depot unnecessary, and DB relies on services provided by the headquarters in Tung Chung.

Discovery Bay Marina Club 2018
On 31 August 2018 the Discovery Bay Marina Club (DBMC) gave notice to all 200+ boat owners to vacate the marina permanently by 31 December 2018 for renovations. The majority of these boats were live-a-boards, used by families. The DBMC offered no time line for the renovations or indication that the boats would be allowed to return. A public campaign was started to have the HKRI reverse their decision. Many families went into debt as their 'house boats' became worthless overnight. The DBMC, rebranded as Lantau Yacht Club, was transformed from the family and community friendly club to an exclusive members-only yacht club.

The problem was first foreseen when DBMC lined up all the berth dates and wouldn't renew them. The first open move the club did against its members at the time was removing itself from the marine departments official typhoon shelter list just 2 weeks before Typhoon Mangkhut. This stopped boats from being allowed to take shelter within the DBMC breakwater.

Sports ground
Discovery bay currently has one artificial turf pitch beside the community centre, located in the north plaza (there is also a pitch located in-between the two Primary schools).

Transport
Whereas other parts of Hong Kong are generally well served by frequent transport options from competing operators, DB is served solely by DBTSL and DBTPL, both subsidiaries of HKRI.

Ferry dispute, 2008–2009
On 8 October 2008, the sole ferry service operator DBTPL proposed to increase the ferry fares between Discovery Bay and Central up to 64 per cent. A questionnaire received by residents from Discovery Bay Transportation Services proposes an increase of 16 per cent to 64 per cent. The frequency of services would depend on the size of the increase. A single ride now costs HK$27, or HK$23.20 in 50-trip tickets (Child tickets are HK$17.00). Under the lowest fare-rise option, the number of services on weekdays would fall by 113 to just 40. Under this option, ferries would only travel every 70 minutes even during the morning peak. Overnight ferries could also be scrapped in favour of a coach service from Central. Residents also have the choice of taking buses to Sunny Bay and Tung Chung MTR stations. The ferry operator said in a letter to residents that annual fuel expenses had risen from HK$20 million in 2001 to a projected HK$80 million this year and it had been operating at a deficit, with an accumulated loss of more than HK$120 million since 2001.

HKRI has come up with a new proposal which calls for a 27.5% increase (for 50 trip holders) and a 33.3% increase (for single trips). Furthermore, frequencies are to be reduced from 113 sailings a day to 80. After midnight services will be replaced by a coach service. Residents are still concerned that this is still a substantial increase given the current economic situation and fuel prices have fallen below US$50.00. The eventual deal agreed with the Transport Department (TD) was for single fares of HK$31 per journey with an overnight surcharge of HK$13 per journey between 00:00 and 06:00. This represented a general price increase of 10%.

Ferry prices, 2018–2019

A further increase by HKRI was implemented on 10 June 2018. The new cost of a standard ticket from Discovery Bay to Central will rise a further 15% to HK$46 for adults, while the price of a child's ticket, aged 1 to below 12, will rise to $23. Overnight, sailings on or after 12:00 midnight and before 6:00 am, will see a +HK$19.50 surcharge. If you were to pay via Octopus Card, the same charges take effect. Senior citizens can enjoy a HK$2 Government Scheme.

A single adult trip using a Transport Card (T-Card) will cost 43.5 stored points, and overnight 66.5 stored points. A child T-Card trip will cost 21.8 stored points, and 44.7 stored points overnight.

As of October 2017, any DB resident including owners, tenants, occupants and domestic helpers can enjoy privileges around Discovery Bay with a registered DB Resident's Octopus Card. A single adult trip with this card costs HK$33.5, and HK$50.50 overnight. For children, a single trip costs HK$16.80 and overnight HK$33.8. Again, senior citizens enjoy a HK$2 Government Scheme.

Construction
As an ongoing residential development, construction sites, continual renovation work to many increasingly older apartments and the subsequent dust and noise is an ever-present issue in DB. Buildings are generally renovated every seven years, in compliance with the government regulations.

Environment
A number of green groups are pushing for the re-introduction of electric golf carts, replacing the current petrol powered golf carts. However, this is being faced with some resistance of the management company and residents as there are other green priorities including upgrading of the buses to Euro standards.

DB suffers few natural disasters, with the exception of typhoons and hillfires as a result of a mixture of dry weather and carelessness.

title: Discovery Bay


text:
Talk:List of newspapers in Hong Kong

Original research
The list has a serious WP:OR issue. Where is the citation to classified newspapers into Pro-democracy, Localist, Financial? Also, some newspaper can be both Financial and Pro-Beijing. Matthew hk (talk) 14:07, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Repeated addition of "Asia Environmental Daily"
User:DZ-NYU-2020 is repeatedly adding Asia Environmental Daily to the list. This does not appear to be a genuine publication, but one of countless similar spam websites that simply copies content from elsewhere in order to generate ad revenue. All "stories" on the site are links to other publications. The "Editorials" are similarly copy-and-pasted from elsewhere on the Internet (example: "editorial", apparent source material from genuine newspaper "Dawn" with different author listed). I also don't see any connection to Hong Kong. User:DZ-NYU-2020 likened the site's content to that of Yahoo News, but Yahoo News is a news aggregator, not a newspaper, and also wouldn't belong on this list. This user has been blocked in the past for spamming links to similar websites, and so I suspect this is either a case of undeclared paid editing, or simply an inability to identify genuine journalistic publications. In either case, "Asia Environmental Daily" does not belong here. Citobun (talk) 08:43, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:List of newspapers in Hong Kong


text:
User talk:JeanetteMartin/Archive 1

Old Talk
Hello there AntonioMartin, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you ever need editing help visit Wikipedia:How does one edit a page and experiment at Wikipedia:Sandbox. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Wikipedia:Naming conventions. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Wikipedia:Help or add a question to the Village pump. Cheers! --maveric149

This is just my opinion, but I find that some of your articles about popular culture (for example, Bananarama and pre-edit Mary Kay Olsen) are written in a style that is more publicity brochure than NPOV. It is rather tiring to edit all of these articles to remove the kvelling and stick to the facts. You may wish to review other articles about famous people for style tips. -- user:Montrealais

Please, read the NPOV article. It is one of the main characteristics of this encyclopedia, and you don't seem even trying. We need facts, not opinions. Speaking of people as "great" "excellent", etc. is not NPOV, its opinions. When opinions are put, we have to say who has that opinion. Also, try to check your facts. Eg. Don Francisco was not born in Germany.:) Other than that, have fun!--AN 06:15 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)

Antonio, I've been modifying many of your articles because of the point AstroNomer mentioned above. In addition, when you use such terminology as "the 80's", you're linking to the Year 80, not to the 1980s. I've had to change this over and over again in your work. Use "the 1980s" instead. -- Zoe

Thanks for your words, Antonio. I noticed how your entries improved over time. I'm glad you considered my advise useful. Another advice, this time technical: when you are signed in, you can use Antonio Martin and it will be autimatically replaced by your user name and link to your page. AN

I answered your question on my talk page. Oh, by the way, I'm sadly not the most important Admin. I don't think such a person exists. --mav

Hi Antonio - no it wasn't that the Sgt Pepper page was written by me, but the article you made was spelt slightly incorrectly: it was at Sgt. Pepper Lonely's Hearts Club Band instead of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (note the place of the apostrophe). Not your fault, though, you just followed a badly spelled link from heavy metal. Don't worry about it, it happens to us all :) I'll try to integrate the articles in a moment. --Camembert Hi again - I've merged the two articles to the best of my ability, but I had to leave out one paragraph, because I don't have the knowledge to weave it in. I've added it to Talk:Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - you might want to have a look and see what you can do with it, and also check that my merge is OK. All the best, Camembert

I'll see what I can add to the 1980s film article. My point, though, was that the definition might be a bit broad, and that there might not be any unifying characteristics between French and American and German films of the 1980s. :-) --KQ

I moved Conspiracy Theory (Movie) to Conspiracy Theory (movie) in order to reflect our capitalization naming convention. I've also noticed that some of the other page titles you have created are also capitalized maybe where they shouldn't be. When you have a moment, a quick read of the above naming convention page will explain why this isn't such a great idea. The wiki awaits.... :-) --mav

Hi again. I noticed that you uploaded a .art picture. I have no idea what is that, and it is not among the recommended formats (jpeg for pictures, png for graphs). I you can convert it to jpeg it would be great. About the authorization, you probably could put "courtesy of ...." in the article under the picture to comply with his request. The note you put in the description page looks fine to me.--AN

Don't be angry at tarquin for deleting your page on Donna Karan. As you can see in my answer on my user page, what he deleted was not your page but another version that was really junk. Your version for whatever reason seems not to have been saved at all. Andre Engels 08:10 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)

Nice work on the airport and boxing articles. :-) --mav

I concur, very good work. Antonio, I'm not the end all and be all on the project, but normally we're only interested in birthdates for famous people. If you're some sort of celebrity, then go ahead and put your birthday in, but otherwise, people are pretty much going to want to know, "who is this person"? -- Zoe

I disagree. The more facts the better. :) -- Oliver Pereira 21:27 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

Oh, I see - that was in answer to the question he asked on your talk page! Well, in that case, I agree with you after all. (Sorry, I'm a bit slow.) But why don't people put answers to questions after the questions themselves!? That would seem more sensible to me - otherwise no-one can know what is in answer to what... -- Oliver PEREIRA 03:01 Dec 8, 2002 (UTC)

Dear Isis: Hi! Thanks for readng my page about diabetic Chocks. I have to tell you, thru, that the word chock needs to be changed back on the title from shock to chock. Believe me, I unfortunately have found out more times than I wanted how doctors like spelling the word that describes a sugar reaction. Ive had 7 chocks to date, and Im praying my dear Lord I dont get any more. doctors have told me that the word Shock means something different to them, like the shock from seeing something big happen, I guess.

Other than that, thank you for reading my article, I appreciate that someone is kind enough to read them. I hope to read from you soon! God bless you!!

Sincerely yours,

AntonioMartin (ps: Welcome back!!)

Hi, hope you don't mind my popping up here. I have made a comment on this issue on the Talk page for the Diabetic shock article Talk:Diabetes_shock which I hope might help a little. Nevilley 08:57 Dec 4, 2002 (UTC)

I thought I remembered hearing the term, which is why I didn't change it in the article, but I knew it was an alternative term for something, because I got no hits at all for it on Google, and I'm on deadline to get some copy in a few hours from now and didn't have time to do anything more myself, so I simply moved it and marked it for someone else's attention. Thanks to you both for your attention to it, and I'm happy to leave it in your capable hands. -- isis 11:37 Dec 4, 2002 (UTC)

Scottsdale, Arizona already has an entry! The content of your Scottsdale entry appears to be very POV!!! -- RTC 06:52 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

It is quite simple, I left Phoenix because when I graduated I already had a job offer with a company in Palo Alto, California. Since then they have moved to San Jose, California, been bought by Rockwell International?, and following the Rockwell split last year are now owned by Rockwell Collins?. I still work there (at the end of February I will have worked there 25 years).

BTW, you might see if you can merge some of the stuff in your Scottsdale article into the main Scottsdale, Arizona article (but reduce the POV content), there is some good stuff in your article that the main one doesn't have (especially if you can expand it some). Then either change the Scottsdale article to a "redirect" or put it on votes for deletion as an old "mistake". -- RTC 05:48 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

On another subject --- use the Upload file function on the Wikipedia menu to upload images. It is actually fairly obvious once you get into it. -- RTC 06:02 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

Good job on Mary Kelly.Ill give the writer credit because he is new, so Ill cut him some slack, but he didnt even put the name of the movie where Heather Graham played Mary Kelly to Johnny Depp's (I believe it was him) Jack. Unfortunately, I didnt know the name of the movie either. He should have written a page about the movie and put that information there.

AntonioMartin Don't cut him too much slack -- look at what he did to List of famous Australians on 3 December. I didn't know what movie it was either and so just deleted the info on both pages (and deleted the other page entirely), figuring someone will write it up properly someday if it warrants inclusion in the 'pedia. Please keep an eye on this contributor, if you have time. Keep up the good work. -- isis 09:31 Dec 11, 2002 (UTC)

Antonio, where do you get all the great information to build your articles? The rate at which you seem to write such great stuff is really amazing. I'm a very active Wikipedian and I'm lucky to create half the original text you do per week. Please don't ever leave. :-) --mav

I've unblocked IP 205.188.209.14 for you. Somebody else on your same internet provider (AOL?) was using this IP to vandalize pop star articles. I know it wasn't you and so does the sysop doing the blocking. You were an innocent person caught in the crossfire. Sorry about that. If this wasn't the right IP then just email me by using the 'Email this user' feature on my user page while you are logged-in. --mav

Thank you for your kind words and for fixing the List of famous people who have suffered from or died of cancer. --Mrwojo

You forgot to mention which IP Isis blocked. I assume it was the last one she did (194.145.59.170) so I unblocked that one. I'm pretty sure that is an AOL or other ISP proxy so please don't take offense at being blocked since many people use the same IP number. We have been having a good deal of trouble from these proxies for some time now so when you get blocked again just email me to have the block removed. --mav

I have nothing against John Casablancas. I never heard of him before yesterday. I was annotating the Biographical Listing/C article, clicking on every name that didn't have any information. I came across his page and considered that it had no encyclopedic interest and was an advertisement. I said so. Others disagreed. I looked into it further and found that most people in the modeling world consider modeling schools a scam. As for the article being an advertisement, it is incorrect to call Casablanca's business a "modeling agency". It is not. Items I posted on Talk:John Casablancas state that calling a school an agency is a common ploy for modeling schools. The article states that Casablancas "has contacts with the Elite Modeling Agency". Well, he used to be the president, but he hasn't been there for three years. He had a very good reputation as a model and as president of Elite, but his reputation has suffered with the modeling school venture as far as I can tell. I personally don't care anything about him, but I do care about the reputation of Wikipedia. His modeling school operates by marketing heavily to teenagers, telling them they have talent, then charging them a couple of thousand bucks for "training". They do not place models, nor do they have any particular reputation for success in training models. I hope the article is removed, or, if not, that it is changed to reflect more of the reality of his operation. Ortolan88 15:33 Jan 21, 2003 (UTC) I made minor corrections to the article and withdrew my statement that it should be deleted. Coca Cola is a world wide cultural phenomenon with political implications. John Casablancas is an ex-model who runs some schools. I hope you get more acting jobs and do well at it. Ortolan88 23:14 Jan 21, 2003 (UTC)

I answered your question on my talk page. --mav

Hm, you must be on dialup, or an ISP that rotates proxies. You should be unblocked now, sorry about that. Best, Koyaanis Qatsi

Hi Antonio. About Autograph collecting do's and dont's?. I don't think merging it with Autograph is a good idea since the first is really a personal essay. Perhaps in a very condensed and NPOV form? (But I'm not a candidate for doing that: I'm not an autograph collector and I wouldn't have a clue of what's important). However, the complete article could be sent to meta as stated on its talk page. Have a nice day (...even if I don't know what time zone you're in:-) D.D. 20:55 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)

Antonio, I will try to notice who the champs are, but I am sometimes confused about various boxing authorities, weight classes, and the like. You are more knowledgeable than I am (although I did once see Joe Louis fight in an exhibition and shook hands with Ingomar Johansen?), so maybe you can fill in a few of those too. I think all lists benefit from a little additional information. This is particularly so when the subject matter is unfamiliar (like performers from the Dominican), so I'd suggest than when you are making lists like that, a few identifying or explanatory phrases can be a big help. Best regards, Ortolan88 Antonio, I think what you call a holding bridge, we would call a suspension bridge. -- Zoe

It wasn't me fixing the page, Antonio, it was "Someone else". -- Zoe

Hey, there Antonio - no te puedes usar "famoso" para todas las paginas - esto es el razon. Tambien, quien sabemos que no es famoso? - this is conventional naming - I know its odd, but proper sentences arent the best titles for pages... --Stevert

Antonio, Glad to help, it's always nice when it's agreed that a change is an 'improvement"!. -- Someone else 22:50 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)

Answer for you on my talk page. --mav 08:14 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC) Hi Antonio, nice to see another Tony around the place. I guess my drugs question was a sort of fishing expedition - I always struggle to tell any sensible difference between, say, marijuana and cocaine on the one hand, and alcohol and tobacco on the other.

I'm not very good at famous people I'm afraid. I tend to remember events much better than the people involved in them, but if I think of anyone I'll be sure to add them in. I guess there is probably room for a companion list of famous people who died of smoking-related diseases or had alcohol problems. But this gets tricky as I'm sure there are places in the world where marijuana or betel nut is legal and alcohol is not - in other words, the "drugs = illegal drugs" categorisation soon breaks down. Whatever - I'll leave that to the people chiefly concerned with doing the list.

As for aircraft, yes, wonderful things. I like anything that flies, from 747s to honeyeaters (sort of the Australian equivalent of a humming bird) to dragonflies. (Well, not blowflies or mosquitos, but just about everything else.) Oh, and speaking of drugs, I rarely drink but I consume tea by the gallon, probably 20 or 30 half-litre mugs of it a day. Hence my nic. -- Tony (Tannin)

Hey, I don't like editing others' user pages, so I thought I'd point out that the movie is called How Stella Got Her Groove Back, not When (unless you're talking about a different movie). Just trying to prevent an article being written at the incorrect spot in the future... Tuf-Kat

About that "Run Away" song - do you mean the one by the Real McCoy? It seems to be "run away and save your life", rather than "run away and say goodbye", at least judging by the pages that Google throws up. Erm, not that I take that seriously as an indicator of truth, or anything... -- Oliver P. 23:16 Feb 25, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply! I see that the above link is red... No article! How terrible. I've just tried to look up some stuff about the Real McCoy on the Web, but I can't find much. Okay, I've attempted a stub, but I must admit, it's a pretty poor one. :( -- Oliver P. 23:52 Feb 25, 2003 (UTC)

I responded to you on my talk page. Stephen C. Carlson 15:39 Feb 28, 2003 (UTC)

Hi again Antonio. For me, it's in the blood. My father flew for TAA for ... oh .. 30-odd years I guess: DC-3, DC4, Viscount, Friendship, then a spell in Alice Springs flying the DH Dove for the Flying Doctor (I just barely remember that, I was about 5 at the time), back to Melbourne to start at the bottom again, but as a captain this time, not a First Officer: DC-3 again, Friendship & Viscount, then onto jets with the 727 and the DC-9. He retired then, and spent the next 10 or 15 years as an aviation safety consultant, working for the RAAF and most of the Australian airlines. My brother flies too: he is in the UK now flying 757s for an American freight company.

People often ask why I never took it up. The reason is simple: I was never interested. I love aircraft (and birds too - birds even more than aircraft, really): reading about them, looking at them, travelling in them, even the smell of jet fuel (which is something I grew up on, of course). But, for some reason, I've never had the slightest urge to want to actually fly one. Why should I? There is always a family member who can do the tricky stuff with throttle and stick, leaving me free to look out the window and enjoy myself!

Cheers-- Tannin

Moved from Netesq's Talk page:

Arrested for getting on a car's front hood?? Dear Netesq: Hi! I see that youre the most knowlegeable person at Wikipedia about laws, just like I probably am about boxing, which is basically my department. After a night out playing pool Friday night, I went onto my brother's car and got on the hood. I wasnt screaming or anything (yet). A cop saw me from afar, and screamed to get off the car and I, not recognizing it was a cop of course, said 'But its my brother's car!!'', ....he said 'I dont *F*ing care, get down from that car! Ill arrest you!' after that, I screamed and told my friends (mimicking Muhammad Ali) 'who are the pool champions of the world??" and then he said 'Get off the F*ing car Ill have you arrested!!'

Now, because of the way he was acting towards me in the first place, I think he wanted to arrest me cause I was on my brothers car, something Im not strange to doing. As far as I know Im not breaking any laws in the penal code when I do that, or am I? On the other hand, I wasnt drunk, cause Im a Diabetic, I dont mess with drinks, and if he suspected I was he couldve carried out a alcohol test before offering to arrest me, right?

thanks for listening to my question, and God bless you!!

Sincerely yours, Antonio IIIIII Almost Got Arrested Tonight!! Martin

Greetings, Antonio. And welcome to Wikipedia.

Thank you for noticing my legal scholarship. It's something in which I take great pride. Even so, I do not practice law, nor do I offer legal opinions or legal advice. Rather, I take great care to qualify any opinions that I give as being my personal opinions. If you need a legal opinion or legal advice, you should retain legal counsel.

With that disclaimer fully in place, let me set forth what I call "The Rule of the Gun," i.e.:

Those with the guns make the rules.

Simply put, I can't remember the last time someone I know won an argument with a peace officer as to whether said peace officer had a right to tell them what to do, Terence Hallinan's recent indictment of the SFPD's top brass for conspiracy to obstruct justice notwithstanding. So, within the confines of what is offensive to my personal moral code, I think it's a good idea to obey the orders of someone whose sworn duty is to uphold the law. Granted, one can't always tell when one is talking to a police officer. But once it becomes clear to me that I am dealing with a police officer, I become the essence of cooperation, and I would urge you to do the same. -- NetEsq 04:41 Mar 11, 2003 (UTC)

Thanx! Dear Nes: Thanxs for reading and answering my question. It's true, we should always obey law officers. He didnt show a badge or anything, thru, I think he should have shown it before threatening any arrests. I figured out he was a cop after he threatened with arresting me...but then again, I mean, I actually like cops, most of the ones Ive met have been pretty decent. But there are some who think they are God I guess. We need to watch out for those. Recently, near where I live, a cop shot a woman to death as she was looking for her driver's license. This in front of her baby and without doing 'standard procedure' of like, pointing the gun at her without shooting or something. Hes on trail for murder now, and it's not the first time he shot someone without a threat. So, yeah you are right, we need to obey those with guns...

On the other hand, I still dont see how I was breaking the law by getting on top of my brother's car without making a sound, (which I later did).

Well, thanks man, and God bless ya!!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Exentric Martin

title: User talk:JeanetteMartin/Archive 1


text:
Iora

The ioras are a small family, Aegithinidae, of four passerine bird species found in south and southeast Asia. The family is composed of a single genus, Aegithina. They were formerly grouped with the leafbirds and fairy-bluebirds, in the family Irenidae.

Taxonomy and systematics
The genus Aegithina was introduced in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot to accommodate the common iora. The genus name is from Ancient Greek aigithos or aiginthos, a mythical bird mentioned by Aristotle and other classical authors. The common iora was described in 1758 and given the binomial name Motacilla tiphia by Carl Linnaeus, but there was a some confusion about the nature of bird Linnaeus was referring to. Early taxonomists considered it to variously be a warbler, flycatcher, finch or babbler. When G. R. Gray erected the family Aegithinidae in 1869 he included a number of babbler genera in it with the ioras. Edward Blyth, working in the 1850s, was the first to connect the ioras with the leafbirds and fairy-bluebirds, and included all these with the bulbuls.

Description
The ioras are small to medium small sized passerines, ranging from 11.5 to(-) in length. Overall the males are larger than the females. These are reminiscent of the bulbuls, but whereas that group tends to be drab in colouration, the ioras are more brightly coloured. The group exhibits sexual dimorphism in its plumage, with the males being brightly plumaged in yellows and greens. Unlike the leafbirds, ioras have thin legs, and their bills are proportionately longer. Calls are strident whistles; songs are musical to human ears.

Habitat and distribution
Their habitats include acacia scrub, forest edge, and closed forests, as well as agricultural land and (in the common iora) gardens. They are generally lowland birds, with most reaching only as high as the submontane forests. They are generally highly arboreal and usually occur in the tree canopy, with only very rare records of this family coming down to the ground. The family is overwhelmingly non-migratory, although in West India there is some evidence that Marshall's ioras and common ioras are partly migratory in the seasonal semi-desert fringe.

Behaviour and ecology
Ioras eat insects and spiders, which they find by nimbly gleaning the leaves of the slenderest outer twigs.

In the two species whose male courtship displays are known, they are elaborate, culminating in the males' parachute-style descent looking like "green balls of fluff". The nests are compact open cups felted to branches with spiderweb. Females lay 2 or 3 eggs, which have pinkish speckles and red and purple lines. They incubate at night; the males, by day. Incubation lasts about 14 days. Both parents are responsible for brooding and feeding the chicks.

Relationship with humans
Ioras will commonly live close to humans and even lives in the suburbs of cites like Singapore. They are mostly not threatened by human activities, although the green iora is listed as near threatened by the IUCN, habitat loss being responsible for its decline. Unlike many other passerines they are not common species in the cage bird trade.

title: Iora


text:
Richard Garriott

Richard Allen Garriott (born 4 July 1961) is a British-born American video game developer, entrepreneur and private astronaut.

Garriott, who is the son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, was originally a game designer and programmer, and is now involved in a number of aspects of computer-game development. On October 12, 2008, Garriott flew aboard the Soyuz TMA-13 mission to the International Space Station as a private astronaut, returning 12 days later aboard Soyuz TMA-12. He became the second space traveler, and first from the United States, to have a parent who was also a space traveler. During his ISS flight, he filmed a science fiction movie Apogee of Fear.

The creator of the Ultima game series, Garriott was involved in all games in the series, and directly supervised all eleven main installments, starting with 1979's Akalabeth: World of Doom and concluding with 1999's Ultima IX: Ascension. Within the context of Ultima, Garriot presented himself as the fictional persona of Lord British. The series is considered influential, notably helping with establishing the computer role-playing game genre. He founded the video game development company Portalarium in 2009. He was CEO of Portalarium and creative director of Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues until 2018 when he shed the title, later relinquishing all Shroud of the Avatar assets to Catnip Games in 2019.

Early life
Richard Allen Garriott was born in Cambridge, England on 4 July 1961, to Helen Mary (Walker) Garriott (1930–2017 ) and Owen Garriott, one of NASA's first scientist-astronauts (selected in NASA Astronaut Group 4), who flew on Skylab 3 and Space Shuttle mission STS-9. His parents had been high school sweethearts growing up in Enid, Oklahoma. Although both his parents were Americans, Garriott claims dual citizenship for both the United States and the United Kingdom by birth.

Garriott was raised in Nassau Bay, Texas from the age of about two months. Since his childhood, he had dreamed of becoming a NASA astronaut like his father. Eyesight problems discovered at the age of 13 blocked his ambition, however, so he instead came to focus on computer game development.

Garriott's "first real exposure to computers" occurred in 1975, during his freshman year at Clear Creek High School. In search of more experience than the single one-semester BASIC class the school offered, and as a fan of The Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons, Garriott convinced the school to let him create a self-directed course in programming. He used the course to create fantasy computer games on the school's teletype machine. Garriott later estimated that he wrote 28 computer fantasy games during high school.

One of Garriott's game pseudonyms is "British", a name he still uses for various gaming characters, including Ultima character Lord British and Tabula Rasa character General British. The name was given to him by his first Dungeons and Dragons friends because he was born in the UK.

Game design career
Garriott began writing computer games in 1974. His first games were created on teletype terminals. The code was stored on paper tape spools, and the game was displayed as an ongoing print-out. In summer 1979, Garriott worked at a ComputerLand store where he first encountered Apple computers. Inspired by their video monitors with color graphics, he began to add perspective view to his own games. After he created Akalabeth for fun, the owner of the store convinced Garriott it might sell. Garriott spent $200 printing copies of a manual and cover sheet that his mother had drawn, then put copies of the game in Ziploc bags, a common way to sell software at the time. Although Garriott sold fewer than a dozen copies at the store, one copy made it to California Pacific Computer Company, which signed a deal with him. The game sold over 30,000 copies, and Garriott received five dollars for each copy sold. The US$150,000 1979 he earned was three times his father's astronaut salary. Akalabeth is considered the first published computer role playing game.

Later that year, Garriott entered the University of Texas at Austin (UT). He joined the school's fencing team, and later, the Society for Creative Anachronism. He lived at home with his parents while attending university, and from there created Ultima I with his friend Ken Arnold. Its cover, and those of several subsequently Garriott games, were painted by Denis Loubet, whose art Garriott discovered during a visit to Steve Jackson Games.

Garriott continued to develop the Ultima series of video games in the early 1980s, eventually leaving UT to work on them full time. Originally programmed for the Apple II, the Ultima series later became available on several platforms. Ultima II was published by Sierra On-Line, as they were the only company that would agree to publish it in a box together with a printed cloth map. By the time he developed Ultima III, Garriott, together with his brother Robert, their father Owen and Chuck Bueche established their own video game publisher, Origin Systems, to handle publishing and distribution, in part due to controversy with Sierra over royalties for the PC port of Ultima II.

The use of the term avatar for the on-screen representation of the user was coined in 1985 by Richard Garriott for the computer game Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. In this game, Garriott desired the player's character to be their Earth self manifested into the virtual world. Due to the ethical content of his story, Garriott wanted the real player to be responsible for their character; he thought only someone playing "themselves" could be properly judged based on their in-game actions. Because of its ethically nuanced narrative approach, he took the Hindu word associated with a deity's manifestation on earth in physical form, and applied it to a player in the game world.

Garriott sold Origin Systems to Electronic Arts (EA) in September 1992 for $30 million. In 1997, he coined the term massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), giving a new identity to the nascent genre previously known as graphical MUDs. In 1999 and 2000, EA canceled all of Origin's new development projects, including Privateer Online, and Harry Potter Online. Garriott resigned from the company and formed Destination Games in April 2000 with his brother and Starr Long (the producer of Ultima Online). Once Garriott's non-compete agreement with EA expired a year later, Destination partnered with NCSoft where Garriott acted as a producer and designer of MMORPGs. After that, he became the CEO of NCSoft Austin, also known as NC Interactive.

Tabula Rasa failed to generate much money during its initial release, despite its seven-year development period. On November 24, 2008, NCSoft announced that it planned to end the live service of Tabula Rasa. The servers shut down on February 28, 2009, after a period of free play from January 10 onward for existing account holders.

NCSoft fired Garriot in November 2008, but publicly claimed that he left the company voluntary, resulting in a lawsuit against them. In July 2010, an Austin District Court awarded Garriott US$28 million in his lawsuit against NCSoft, finding that the company did not appropriately handle his departure in 2008. In October 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment.

Garriott founded the company Portalarium in 2009, which developed Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, a spiritual successor to the Ultima series. Garriott remarked that had they been able to secure the intellectual property rights to Ultima from EA, the game could have become Ultima Online 2. On March 8, 2013, Portalarium launched a Kickstarter campaign for Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues. An early access version of the game was released on Steam in 2014, and the game was fully released in March 2018.

In April 2022 he announced he had begun working on a new fantasy MMO that uses NFT technology with long-time contributor Todd Porter. In August 2022, the game was announced as Iron and Magic. However, in May 2023, it was reported that the game's official website has vanished and its Facebook page has lied dormant since September 2022, leading to many speculations regarding the status of the game.

Private Astronaut
In 1983, Softline reported that "Garriott wants to go into space but doesn't see it happening in the predictable future ... He has frequently joked with his father about stowing away on a spaceship, and recently his speculations have been sounding uncomfortably realistic". The income from the success of Garriott's video game career allowed him to pursue his interest in spaceflight. After the sale of Origin Systems, he invested in Space Adventures and purchased a ticket to become the first private citizen to fly into space. Due to financial setbacks in 2001 after the dot-com bubble burst, however, he was forced to sell his seat to Dennis Tito.

Garriott then returned to creating games; once he had accumulated sufficient funds, he put down another non-refundable deposit. During his mandatory medical examination a hemangioma was discovered on his liver, which could cause potentially fatal internal bleeding in the event of a rapid spacecraft depressurization. Given the choice of forfeiting his deposit or undergoing surgical removal of the angioma, he decided to have the surgery.

On September 28, 2007, Space Adventures announced that Garriott would fly to the International Space Station in October 2008 as a self-funded Private Astronaut at a reported cost of $30 million. On October 12, 2008, after a year of training in Russia, Garriott became the second second-generation space traveler (after Sergei Volkov), the first offspring of an American astronaut to go into space,  and the second person to wear the British Union flag in space. His father, Owen Garriott, was at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for the launch, and was in attendance when he landed safely, along with Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko, twelve days later.

During his spaceflight, Garriott took part in several education outreach efforts. The free Metro newspaper in London provided him with a special edition containing details of British primary school students' space experiment concepts that Garriott took to the ISS. The Metro has claimed, as a result, that it was the first newspaper in space. He communicated with students and other Amateur Radio operators and transmitted photographs using the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) slow-scan television system, and placed a geocache while aboard the ISS.

Garriott worked with the Windows on Earth project, which provides an interactive, virtual view of Earth as seen from the ISS. Garriott used Windows on Earth software to assist in the selection of locations on Earth to photograph, and the public were able to use the same online tool to track the ISS and see the view Garriott was experiencing. Garriott's photographs, along with images taken by his astronaut father Owen Garriott in 1973, will be available to the public through Windows on Earth, adding a personal element to studies of Earth and how Earth has changed over time.

Garriott covertly smuggled a portion of the ashes of Star Trek actor James Doohan on a laminated card, which he placed under the floor cladding of the ISS's Columbus module. This action was kept secret until Christmas Day 2020 when Doohan's son made the fact public on his Twitter account. At the time of the reveal, Doohan's ashes had orbited the Earth more than 70,000 times and traveled more than 1.7 billion miles.

Garriott's film Apogee of Fear was the first ever fictional (short) film fully filmed in space (whereas Return from Orbit was only partially filmed in space). Tracy Hickman wrote the screenplay.

In 2010 he was featured in a documentary, Man on a Mission: Richard Garriott's Road to the Stars, which covered his spaceflight training and mission into orbit.

Other exploration
In January 2021, Garriott was elected president of The Explorers Club. In February 2021, Garriott traveled to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest oceanic trench on the planet. While there, as well as performing scientific duties, he placed a geocache and recorded another short sci-fi film. This made him the holder of both altitude and depth records for these activities.

Other accomplishments and interests
In 1986, Garriott helped start the Challenger Center for Space Science Education with his high school science teacher, June Scobee Rodgers, widow of Challenger Shuttle Commander Dick Scobee, who piloted the ill-fated STS-51-L mission. Scobee Rodgers drew on Garriott's early leadership in gaming to help design what have become approximately 50 global interactive networked facilities, where students perform simulated space missions.

Garriott bought the Luna 21 lander and the Lunokhod 2 rover (both currently on the lunar surface) from the Lavochkin Association for $68,500 in December 1993 at a Sotheby's auction in New York. (The catalog incorrectly lists lot 68A as Luna 17/Lunokhod 1. ) Garriott notes that while UN treaties ban governmental ownership of property on other celestial bodies, corporations and private citizens retain such rights. Lunokhod 2 is still in use, with mirrors aligned to reflect lasers such that precise Earth-Moon distances can be measured. With his vehicle still in use, Garriott claims property rights to the territory surveyed by Lunokhod 2. This may be the first valid claim for private ownership of extraterrestrial territory. Lunokhod 2 held the record for distance traveled on the surface of another planetary body until it was surpassed by NASA's Opportunity Rover in 2014.

From 1988 through 1994 Garriott built a haunted house/museum every other year at Britannia Manor, his residence in Austin, Texas. Garriott's haunted houses cost tens of thousands of dollars to create each year and took many months and a sizable team to construct, yet were free to the public.

Garriott promotes private space flight and served as vice-chairman of the board of directors for Space Adventures. He is also a trustee of the X PRIZE Foundation.

Garriott participated in the first zero gravity wedding on June 20, 2009, with his wife Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux. The wedding took place in a specially modified Boeing 727-200 aircraft, G-Force One, operated by a company Garriott co-founded, Zero Gravity Corporation.

Garriott wrote a memoir (with David Fisher) covering his accomplishments in games publishing and spaceflight, entitled Explore/Create: My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark. It was published on January 10, 2017.

Garriott was the inspiration for the character James Halliday in Ernest Cline's Ready Player One.

Awards

 * Garriott was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1992.
 * Garriott became the ninth inductee into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame in 2006.
 * Garriott became the sixth recipient of the Game Developers Choice Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.
 * Garriott received the British Interplanetary Society's Sir Arthur Clarke Award for Best Individual Achievement in 2009.
 * Garriott received the British Interplanetary Society's Astronaut Pin given to British-born astronauts in 2009.
 * Garriott was inducted into the Environmental Hall of Fame in 2010.

title: Richard Garriott