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Ministry of Magic

The Ministry of Magic is the government of the Magical community of Britain in J. K. Rowling's Wizarding World, headed by an official entitled the Minister for Magic. The magical government in Britain is first mentioned in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone; the Ministry makes its first proper appearance in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003). Throughout the books, it is regularly depicted as corrupt, elitist and completely incompetent, with its high-ranking officials blind to ominous events and unwilling to take action against threats to wizard society. In Order of the Phoenix, Dolores Umbridge was placed at Hogwarts to observe the happenings within the school (acting as a ministry plant), and prevent the spread of news concerning the return of Lord Voldemort. It reaches a zenith of corruption, before being effectively taken over by Voldemort. At the end of the final book, following Voldemort's death, Kingsley Shacklebolt is revealed to have become the Minister for Magic.

Connection to Muggle world
Each new Muggle Prime Minister receives a visit from the Minister for Magic, who informs them of the existence of the wizarding world. The Minister explains that they will contact the Prime Minister only in circumstances in which the events of the wizarding world may affect Muggles. For example, the Minister has to inform the Prime Minister if dangerous magical artefacts or animals are to be brought into the UK.

The Ministry contacts the British Prime Minister via a wizard's portrait in the Prime Minister's office at 10 Downing Street. The portrait, which cannot be removed from the wall (because of a Permanent Sticking Charm in place), informs the Prime Minister of the Minister for Magic's arrival and, after they have been notified, the Minister for Magic appears in their office via the fireplace which has been specifically integrated into the Floo Network. The Ministers for Magic who appear in the Harry Potter series, such as Cornelius Fudge and Rufus Scrimgeour, tend to act in a somewhat condescending manner towards the Muggle Prime Minister.

The Ministry government succeeded the earlier "Wizards' Council," the earliest-known form of government for the wizarding world of Harry Potter. According to Pottermore, it was formally established in 1707.

Government structure
In the Harry Potter books, the Ministry's employees appear to be a largely unelected body. The post of Minister itself, however, is stated to be an elected position. Who has the power to elect or dismiss ministers is never explained. Nevertheless, both the Minister and the Ministry as a whole are seen throughout the Harry Potter series to be highly sensitive to (and reliant on) wizard public opinion, which they attempt to influence via wizarding newspapers. In the books, employment with the Ministry can be obtained right after completion of a wizarding education, though different offices require different levels of education and sometimes specific exam results with some extra training required within the department itself.

Furthermore, the government gives the impression of (at various times) either incompetence or malice. It often appears woefully incompetent, to the point of being unable to detect or prevent an assault on the Department of Mysteries, apparently its most heavily guarded department. Due to lax security, a group of Hogwarts students, as well as Voldemort, a dozen Death Eaters, and the Order of the Phoenix, all of whom were wanted by the government, are able to enter the department on a whim and without provoking any response whatsoever, even signing in as a "rescue mission" without attracting attention. However, these events occur under Cornelius Fudge's reign, a Minister who is renowned in the books as incompetent. Fudge's resignation in the next book is a direct result of these events.

Judicial system and corruption
In the books and films, the wizarding courts have displayed at times, a marked lack of interest in evidence for or against a suspect, even relying on personal prejudice to decide the outcome as quickly as possible. Not all of the accused are even given trials, as in the case of Sirius Black. In Order of the Phoenix, the Ministry is shown to be quite prepared to decree and enforce draconian laws without notice. At times, the Ministry can also seem uninterested in solving serious problems, choosing instead to ignore or cover up bad news. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Fudge takes a long time to respond to the attacks on Hogwarts; and even then is sure that Rubeus Hagrid is causing the trouble rather than someone else. In the fourth and fifth instalments, Fudge refuses to believe that Lord Voldemort has returned, despite mounting evidence. The Ministry even mounts a campaign to damage Harry Potter's credibility, an effort fuelled in part by Fudge's fear that Albus Dumbledore wants to forcibly remove him from his position. Eventually, the Ministry is forced to acknowledge the emergency and act on it. Fudge is subsequently removed from office for incompetence and replaced by Rufus Scrimgeour.

When interviewed, Rowling stated that when Harry, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger work for the Ministry, they change it significantly, making it less corrupt.

Department of Magical Law Enforcement
The Department of Magical Law Enforcement is a combination of police and justice facilities. It is located on the second level of the Ministry of Magic. Bartemius Crouch Sr. once headed the department, prior to the first book. At the beginning of the series, it is headed by Amelia Bones, who is replaced by Pius Thicknesse after Voldemort murders her. Thicknesse is replaced by Corban Yaxley after Voldemort has Thicknesse appointed the puppet Minister for his regime. By the events of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Harry Potter has become its head.

According to Rowling, this is the department that Hermione joins, after the events of the seventh book, transferring from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, where she began her post-Hogwarts career.

Auror Office
The Ministry employs aurors to pursue and apprehend Dark wizards. According to Minerva McGonagall, the Auror Office takes in new recruits with a minimum of 5 N.E.W.T.s (with marks no lower than "Exceeds Expectations"). She suggests that Potions, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Charms, and Herbology N.E.W.T.s are the most appropriate subjects for someone who aspires to gain admission to the training program. A potential recruit also has to pass "a series of character and aptitude tests." Nymphadora Tonks mentions that the program's courses of study include "Concealment and Disguise" and "Stealth and Tracking," and that the training is hard to pass with high marks.

Aurors in the Harry Potter series include Alastor Moody, Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, John Dawlish, Frank and Alice Longbottom, Rufus Scrimgeour, Gawain Robards, Hesphaestus Gore, Proudfoot, Savage, and Williamson. Harry himself later joins the department, and, according to a Rowling 2007 interview, is eventually promoted to department head.

During the First War against Voldemort, Aurors had authorisation to use the Unforgivable Curses on suspected Death Eaters: that is, they received licence to kill, coerce, and torture them. Many of the Dark criminals in the Harry Potter universe first duel with the aurors sent to arrest them, before finally giving up their freedom. Aurors also operate to protect high-profile targets such as Harry, Hogwarts, and the Muggle prime minister – in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix auror Kingsley Shacklebolt worked secretly in the Muggle Prime Minister's security detail.

Improper Use of Magic Office
The Improper Use of Magic Office is responsible for investigating offences under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Confederation of Wizards' Statute of Secrecy. They regulate an underage wizard's or witch's use of magic and prohibit wizards and witches from performing magic in the presence of Muggles or in a Muggle-inhabited area in the Harry Potter universe. An enchantment called "the Trace" is placed upon children and helps the department detect offences; it breaks when they reach the age of 17. However, Dumbledore explains to Harry that the Ministry cannot tell who exactly uses magic in a given area, only that it has been used. This can be seen as unfair to young witches and wizards who grew up in the Muggle world (such as Muggle-born wizards, or those with one magical and one Muggle parent) as they are more likely to be caught using magic than those who grow up in the wizarding world. Those living in the Muggle world generally have no contact with other witches or wizards away from school, and the Ministry simply presumes that any magic performed where they are is an act of underage wizardry, while at the same time presuming that any magic performed in a wizard home that has minors present was performed by those aged 17 and over. This means that minors living in the wizard world have a much greater chance of escaping punishment for the use of underage magic. The Ministry has to rely on wizard and witch parents to enforce the ban on under-age magic within their homes.

It is not known how or when the Trace is placed upon a child, though it may be assumed that it begins either when the child begins to show magical talent or when they first go through the barrier to Platform 9¾. The Ministry seemingly ignores the Trace during the school year as students at Hogwarts are expected to perform magic and are under the supervision of teachers. This 'blind eye' also seems to be extended to places such as Diagon Alley, Platform 9¾, the Hogwarts Express and the village of Hogsmeade (the only settlement in Britain inhabited solely by wizards and other magical beings), which is located close to Hogwarts and which 3rd year students and above can visit on weekends provided they have a signed permission slip from their parent or guardian. The Ministry also seems to turn a blind eye to the use of magic in the Muggle world when the child is under the age of 11, as their powers have generally not been developed enough to cause a problem. A number of witches and wizards, including Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Lily Evans, and Severus Snape all known to have performed some underage magic while growing up in the Muggle world that went unpunished.

After Harry's first minor violation – a Hover charm that was actually performed by Dobby the House-elf – he is merely warned. His second violation, inflating Aunt Marge, is forgiven by Fudge because the Minister fears that Sirius Black is after Harry, and feels that his safety after running away from the Dursleys takes precedence. After his third offence (creating a Patronus to protect himself and Dudley from two Dementors), the letter sent to him states that he is expelled from school; that representatives will arrive at his home to destroy his wand; and that he is required to appear at a disciplinary hearing given that the offence occurred after he had already received one warning. Dumbledore reminds Fudge that the Ministry doesn't have the power to expel students from Hogwarts, or to confiscate wands without benefit of a hearing.

At Harry's hearing, he is tried by the entire Wizengamot court and cleared of all charges thanks to Dumbledore's intervention. Such proceedings are highly unusual, however. For a simple case of underage use of magic, Harry was originally supposed to be interviewed solely by Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

The only known worker at the office is Mafalda Hopkirk.

Wizengamot
The Wizengamot serves as the wizard high court of law, from the words "wizard" and "Witenagemot", which was a council of powerful people summoned to advise and appoint kings in Anglo-Saxon England. That word derives from the Old English for "meeting of wise men" (witan – wise man or counsellor / gemot – assembly)

In Order of the Phoenix, about fifty people are present at Harry Potter's hearing, wearing plum-coloured robes embroidered with a silver "W" on the left-hand side of the chest. During the hearing, the Minister for Magic sits in the middle of the front row and conducts most of the interrogation, while Percy Weasley (the Junior Undersecretary), acts as stenographer. Other officials seen at the Wizengamot include the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister and the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Dumbledore had held the position of Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot for about 50 years. He was removed at the beginning of the Order of the Phoenix novel and reinstated at the end. He remained in that post for one year, until his death at the end of Half-Blood Prince.

Other offices
Other offices include the Magical Law Enforcement Squad, which pursues day-to-day law offences; the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, headed by Perkins, and the job in which the reader first sees Arthur Weasley; and the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects Office, created by Rufus Scrimgeour in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, into which Mr Weasley is promoted, to be its head.

Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes
The Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes is responsible for repairing accidental magical damage in the world of Harry Potter. It is located on the third level of the Ministry of Magic and houses the following offices:
 * The Accidental Magic Reversal Squad is a squad of wizards whose job it is to reverse "accidental magic." These accidents are normally caused by young witches and wizards who have not learned to control their magic. They may also be caused by older wizards out of control, or severe, unintentional effects of charms or spells, such as splinching (in Apparition when a wizard or witch is split with one part remaining at the point of origin, and the rest of the wizard at the destination). For instance, two members of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad were sent out in the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban book and movie when Harry Potter inflated Aunt Marge; they "deflated" her and erased her memory of the inflation (the memory modification done by Obliviators).
 * The Obliviator Headquarters. "Obliviator" is the designation for a Ministry of Magic employee who has the task of modifying the memory of a Muggle who witnesses incidents belonging to the Wizarding world. They are first called so in the sixth volume, although the practice is mentioned in the previous novels: any wizard can modify memories in the Harry Potter books by using the spell "Obliviate". In contrast to the incompetence displayed by the Ministry as a whole, the Obliviators appear to perform their task with a near-perfect success rate, keeping the Muggle world completely oblivious to the existence of the Wizarding World. They were sent out in the third book when after they deflated Aunt Marge, they erased her memory of the incident.
 * The Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee explains any major magical accidents to the Muggles by creating a non-magical reason for the accident. For example, Peter Pettigrew killed twelve Muggle bystanders and tore apart the street (so as to reach the sewer pipe and escape) by means of an immense explosion curse during his altercation with Sirius Black. The massive and obvious damage and mortality was explained by the committee as due to a tragic accidental explosion of the gas main.

Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures
As noted in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures is divided into three divisions (the Beast Division, the Being Division, and the Spirit Division) and contains the Goblin Liaison Office and Centaur Liaison Office, though the centaurs, being isolationists, have never interacted with the office since its creation. Thus, "being sent to the Centaur Office" has become a euphemism at the Ministry for those about to be fired. For further detail on the distinctions between these divisions, see Regulation and classification of Magical creatures. It is also noted that Hermione began her post-Hogwarts career here before transferring to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in this office. It is located on the fourth level of the Ministry of Magic.

Department of International Magical Cooperation
The Department of International Magical Cooperation is an agency that attempts to get wizards from different countries to co-operate in wizarding actions both political and public. This department on the fifth level of the Ministry of Magic includes the headquarters of the International Magical Trading Standards Body, the International Magical Office of Law, and the British seats of the International Confederation of Wizards. The former head was Barty Crouch Sr., until his death. This is also where Percy Weasley began his Ministry career.

This department is similar in function to the real-life Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom, and various organs of the United Nations. Among the duties of the Department of International Magical Cooperation are:
 * Work with magical governments of other countries
 * Set standards for trade
 * Create regulations for things like cauldron thickness
 * Work with Department of Magical Games and Sports on the Triwizard Tournament
 * International Confederation of Wizards, British Seats

Department of Magical Transportation
The Department of Magical Transportation is responsible for various aspects of magical transport. It is located on the sixth level of the Ministry of Magic and includes the following offices: the Floo Network Authority, responsible for setting up and maintaining the network, and distributing the greenish floo powder; the Broom Regulatory Control, that controls the traffic of broom travel; the Portkey Office, the regulation of Portkeys; and the Apparition Test Centre, that grants licences to witches and wizards so that they can apparate.

Department of Magical Games and Sports
The Department of Magical Games and Sports, seen as the most relaxed department (posters for favourite Quidditch teams are found tacked to the walls), deals with organising sports events like the Quidditch World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament. Ludo Bagman used to be the Head of Department here, but his gambling problem forced him to flee from Goblin creditors. The department is located on the seventh level of the Ministry of Magic, and includes the British and Irish Quidditch League Headquarters, Official Gobstones Club, and the Ludicrous Patents Office – other sports and games-related aspects of the Harry Potter world.

Department of Mysteries
The Department of Mysteries, located on Level Nine, is a department in the Ministry of Magic which studies particular enigmas (death, time, space, thought, and love) and stores copies of prophecies made in the Harry Potter universe. During Voldemort's discriminatory regime, he forces the department to lie and claim that Muggle-borns actually steal magic from Pure-bloods, making them "illegal magicals" and allowing their arrest.

The rooms at the Department each seem (although not spelled out directly) to refer to various mysteries of life. These rooms include:

Unspeakables
The Unspeakables are the group of wizards who work in the Department of Mysteries (their identities classified for security reasons). Known Unspeakables include Broderick Bode, Croaker, and Augustus Rookwood who is a Death Eater.

Ministry officials

The following characters are notable Ministry of Magic officials. Arthur Weasley, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks are listed under Order of the Phoenix. Yaxley is listed under Death Eaters.

Ludo Bagman
Ludovic "Ludo" Bagman is a retired professional Quidditch player, formerly a highly successful Beater for the Wimbourne Wasps and England's international team, whose good looks have gone a bit to seed; his nose is squashed in (apparently having been broken by a stray Bludger) and he is quite a bit thicker around the middle than he was in his Quidditch days. He was the head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Rowling uses Dumbledore's Pensieve to reveal in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that Bagman was accused of being a Death Eater about thirteen years before the events of the fourth book because he had given information to recently discovered Death Eater Augustus Rookwood. It is stated that he had believed Rookwood, who was his father's friend, to be beyond suspicion, and that, consequently, he had thought that he was aiding the Ministry by passing the information on to him.

Bagman loves gambling, which got him in financial trouble so severe that he pays some of his creditors (including Fred and George Weasley) with disappearing Leprechaun Gold, after they have gambled on the Quidditch World Cup. After the World Cup final, some goblins corner him in the woods outside the stadium and take all the gold he had on him, which is not enough to cover his debts. To clear his debts with the goblins, Bagman makes a bet on the Triwizard Tournament, of which he is one of the judges. He bets the goblins that Harry would win. He tries to help Harry over the course of the Tournament, giving him a perfect score in the First Task even though he is injured, and offering him advice. Harry and Cedric Diggory end up tying for first place in the tournament, and Bagman does not win the bet as the goblins argue that Bagman was betting Harry would win outright. Bagman runs away after the Third Task of the Tournament.

Bagman's character was cut from the film adaptation of the fourth book. Some of Ludo's primary functions in the story were performed by Cornelius Fudge and Barty Crouch Sr., in the film adaptation. Bagman appears in the Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup video game as a Quidditch announcer.

Barty Crouch Sr.
Bartemius "Barty" Crouch Sr. was the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement when Voldemort first came to power. Crouch was somewhat megalomaniacal and intensely preoccupied with presenting the appearance of respectability. Crouch was a narrow, inflexible man who stiffly followed the rules. Though he despised the Dark Arts, the lengths to which he was willing to go to disassociate with anything that might blemish his reputation led him to behave almost as cruelly as many on the Dark Side, and gave Aurors powers to kill rather than capture suspected Death Eaters who resisted arrest. He sent Sirius Black to the wizard prison Azkaban without a trial. Crouch appeared to be the favourite to become the next Minister for Magic until his son, Barty Crouch Jr., was caught with the Lestranges, Death Eaters who were assisting Voldemort's rise to power and who had tortured Neville Longbottom's parents into insanity with the Cruciatus Curse. Crouch gave his son a trial before sending him to Azkaban; however, according to Sirius, the trial was a sham, merely a public demonstration of how much he hated the boy. The public were sympathetic to Crouch Jr., and placed all the blame on Crouch Sr., accusing him of driving his son to join the Death Eaters because of his parental neglect. After the trial, Crouch lost much of his popularity and any chance he had of becoming Minister of Magic, and he was shunted sideways to a post as the head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation.

About a year after the trial, Crouch's terminally ill wife begged for her son's life to be saved, so Crouch abetted the two in trading appearances using Polyjuice Potion. Mrs. Crouch died as Crouch Jr. in Azkaban, while Crouch Sr. subsequently used the Imperius Curse to keep Crouch Jr. under house arrest. When Bertha Jorkins discovered the truth, Crouch Sr. silenced her with a powerful Memory Charm that permanently damaged her memory.

Crouch Sr. makes his first appearance in the series at the Quidditch World Cup in Goblet of Fire, when he attends the Quidditch World Cup with his house elf Winky as well as Crouch Jr., who is hidden under an Invisibility Cloak. Due to Winky's fear of heights, Crouch Jr. is able to slip away and steals Harry's wand to conjure the Dark Mark. When Winky is subsequently caught by Amos Diggory with Harry's wand, Crouch Sr. angrily dismisses Winky on the spot for failing to keep his son under control, as it was her idea to let Crouch Jr. attend.

Shortly thereafter, Voldemort and Peter Pettigrew show up at the Crouch family home, having found out about Crouch Jr. from interrogating Jorkins. Voldemort places Crouch Sr. under the Imperius Curse, freeing Crouch Jr. from the Imperius Curse placed on him by his father, and forces Crouch to continue to appear in public as if there is nothing wrong. While still under the Imperius Curse, Crouch Sr. acts as one of the five judges at the Triwizard Tournament. However, worried that Crouch will fight off the effects of the Imperius Curse, Voldemort later has him imprisoned within his own house and has him communicate exclusively through supervised owl post. Despite this precaution, Crouch manages to break free of the Imperius Curse, and makes his way to Hogwarts, hoping to warn Dumbledore of what is happening, running into Harry and Viktor Krum in the Forbidden Forest. However, while Harry is on his way to summon Dumbledore, he unwittingly alerts Crouch Jr., who is using Polyjuice Potion to impersonate Mad-Eye Moody, to his father's presence. Crouch Jr. immediately goes to the forest, stuns Krum, kills his own father, transfigures the body into a bone, and buries it on the Hogwarts grounds.

Roger Lloyd-Pack appeared as Crouch Sr. in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. His apathetic condemnation of his son pleading for mercy was changed to his son openly revealing himself as a Death Eater due to Karkaroff's testimonies, with Crouch being heartbroken about having to put him in jail. His abusive custody and mind-control of Crouch Jr. is omitted entirely, as is his mistreatment and dismissal of Winky as she was not included in the films. In addition, his body is found by Harry in the woods near the Hogwarts grounds, rather than buried by Crouch Jr.

John Dawlish
John Dawlish is an Auror. He is very capable and self-assured, and is described as a "tough-looking wizard" with "very short, wiry" grey hair. He leaves Hogwarts with Outstandings in all his N.E.W.T.s (Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Test). However, it is a running joke of the books that in any appearance or mention of him, he is eventually hexed, usually due to a combination of far superior opponents and sheer bad luck.

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Dawlish accompanies Fudge to Hogwarts to confront Harry about the secret Dumbledore's Army meetings. Dawlish is knocked out along with Fudge, Umbridge, and Kingsley when Dumbledore, who takes all the blame for the Army on himself, escapes. A few weeks later, Dawlish is among the wizards who attempt to arrest Hagrid when Umbridge sacks the gamekeeper. Still later, Dawlish arrives at the Ministry of Magic with Fudge after the battle at the Department of Mysteries is over. Fudge then sends him to attend to the captured Death Eaters. Dawlish appears again in Half-Blood Prince guarding Hogwarts after the commencement of the Second War. He is sent to follow Dumbledore when the Headmaster leaves school to search for Voldemort's Horcruxes, but is "regretfully" hexed by the Headmaster. He is Confunded by an Order member early on in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and gives Death Eater Corban Yaxley false information on Harry's removal from the Dursleys' home. Being Confunded, he is defeated by Dirk Cresswell, who escapes halfway on the way to Azkaban. Later, Dawlish is sent to arrest Augusta Longbottom. After a struggle, her defence places Dawlish in St Mungo's Hospital.

Dawlish's first name is not revealed in the books or films. However, Rowling said in an interview with the podcast "PotterCast" that she named him John, owing to host John Noe's appreciation of the character.

Dawlish was portrayed by Richard Leaf in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Cornelius Fudge
Cornelius Oswald Fudge is first mentioned in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as the Minister for Magic of the United Kingdom. He makes his first appearance in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when he arrives at the school to take Hagrid to Azkaban, even though he does not firmly believe that Hagrid is guilty. He also removes Dumbledore as Headmaster when pressured by Lucius Malfoy who insisted that all the school governors had voted on it. However, it is not until Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban that Fudge meets Harry for the first time. Fudge does not press charges against Harry for accidentally inflating Aunt Marge, and advises him to be careful because an escaped convict is at large. When Fudge goes for a social drink at the Three Broomsticks pub, he inadvertently tells an unseen Harry that Sirius was James Potter's best friend and was believed to have betrayed the Potters to Voldemort. Fudge allowed the near-execution of Buckbeak to occur, once again intimidated by Lucius Malfoy. In this book, it is revealed that, before becoming Minister for Magic, he worked in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes.

His kindly relationship to Harry abruptly changes in Goblet of Fire. When Harry emerges from the Triwizard Tournament's third task after having seen the rebirth of Voldemort, Fudge refuses to believe it. He is worried about the fallout of announcing Voldemort's return, marking the end of the Wizarding world's years of peace, and the sudden outbreak of gloom and terror; hence he decides to merely ignore all of the evidence rather than accept the truth. J. K. Rowling has since stated that Fudge's behaviour mirrors that of Neville Chamberlain in the lead-up to World War II.

In Order of the Phoenix, Fudge orchestrates a vicious smear campaign through the Daily Prophet to present Dumbledore as a senile old fool (even though he was constantly asking for Dumbledore's advice in his early days of being Minister for Magic) and Harry as an unstable, attention-seeking liar. He also passes a law allowing him to place Dolores Umbridge, his Senior Undersecretary, as a teacher at Hogwarts. He then appoints Umbridge as Hogwarts' "High Inquisitor", with the power to inspect and sack teachers, and ultimately Dumbledore's successor as Headmaster, which gives her (and by extension, Fudge himself) primary control of how Hogwarts is managed. Fudge is concerned that Dumbledore is a threat to his power and that he is planning to train the Hogwarts students to overthrow the Ministry.

After Voldemort appears in the Ministry of Magic at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, Fudge finally admits that Voldemort has returned. He is ousted by the wizarding community for his failure to announce the return of Voldemort immediately after the Triwizard Competition; for discrediting Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore; and for installing Dolores Umbridge as Headmistress of Hogwarts. He is replaced by Rufus Scrimgeour, though he stays on as a powerless advisor and messenger to the Prime Minister in Half-Blood Prince.

Prior to his dismissal, he seeks Harry's support in giving the wizarding community the impression that the Ministry is winning the war, but Dumbledore and Harry both refuse to even consider it. Fudge is last mentioned in the series as one of the attendees at Dumbledore's funeral. His fate during Voldemort's takeover of the Ministry during the following year is unknown.

Fudge was portrayed by Robert Hardy in the film series.

Bertha Jorkins
Bertha Jorkins was a student at Hogwarts at the same time as James Potter and company. She was nosy with a good head for gossip, but also very absent-minded. She became a Ministry of Magic employee after leaving Hogwarts. In the summer before the events of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, she was killed by Voldemort. Rowling later revealed that her death was used to turn Nagini, Voldemort's snake, into a Horcrux. Some months before her murder, she accidentally discovered that Barty Crouch Jr., who supposedly died in Azkaban prison, was still alive and being hidden by his father. Barty Crouch Sr. silenced her with a powerful Memory Charm, which made her a little befuddled. Voldemort irreparably damaged her mentally and physically while breaking the Memory Charm, through which he gained information about the Triwizard Tournament and Crouch Jr.. During the duel between Harry and Voldemort in the graveyard at Little Hangleton, Bertha is one of the shadows that spills out from Voldemort's wand and helps Harry escape. She appears to be wiser after her death, and supports Harry during The Goblet of Fire so he can defeat Voldemort, her murderer.

Rufus Scrimgeour
Rufus Scrimgeour serves as the Minister for Magic of the United Kingdom from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince until his death in the following book, succeeding Cornelius Fudge. He is described as looking like an old lion with tawny hair and bushy eyebrows, yellow eyes and wire-rimmed spectacles. Before being selected as minister, Scrimgeour headed the Auror Office of the Ministry and he is heavily battle-scarred from his years of service as an Auror, giving him an appearance of shrewd toughness. As the Minister, he visits the Muggle Prime Minister with Fudge, now an advisor, to inform him about recent wizarding events, crucial to internal security.

Scrimgeour, however tough he looked, was no better than Fudge. He (and the rest of the Ministry) was more concerned about the Ministry's reputation than seeing the danger the Death Eaters and Voldemort posed to the wizarding world. He tried to make it look like the Ministry was making progress by covering up breakouts from Azkaban and arresting random suspects like Stan Shunpike. He also sought to raise the wizarding population's morale by asking Harry, who has been labelled as the "Chosen One", to be seen visiting the Ministry, so that the public would believe that Harry supports the Ministry's actions against Voldemort. This becomes a source of contention between the Minister and Dumbledore, who does not support this idea. Harry also rejects that role, primarily because of his own antagonistic history with the Ministry and because of the Ministry's treatment of Dumbledore and innocents like Stan Shunpike.

Scrimgeour makes a short appearance, looking tired and grim due to the pressures of his position, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at The Burrow, apparently as executor of Dumbledore's will. A final argument promptly breaks out with Harry over Dumbledore's bequests, his refusal to cooperate with the Ministry, and the Ministry's scapegoating of wizards guilty of no crime.

Scrimgeour is assassinated shortly after the visit, when the Death Eaters take over the Ministry through a coup. He is rumoured to have been tortured for Harry's whereabouts by Ministry officials under the control of the Imperius Curse before he is killed. Harry felt a "rush of gratitude" to hear that Scrimgeour, in his final act, attempted to protect Harry by refusing to disclose his location. With the Ministry in the Death Eaters' hands, the official line for Scrimgeour's death is that he resigned.

Bill Nighy played Scrimgeour in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, in which he is portrayed as Welsh and a more compassionate character.

Pius Thicknesse
Pius Thicknesse is first introduced in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. He is the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the start of the book, when he is placed under the Imperius Curse by Corban Yaxley, who uses his position to infiltrate the senior ranks of the Ministry. Thicknesse is described as a man with long hair and a beard, which are mostly black but tinged with some grey, along with a great overhanging forehead and glinting eyes. Harry's immediate impression is of "a crab looking out from beneath a rock."

After the coup in which Scrimgeour is killed, the Ministry comes under the de facto control of Voldemort, who appoints Thicknesse as his puppet Minister. Thicknesse joins the ranks of the Death Eaters for the rest of the book and fights with them at the Battle of Hogwarts, where he duels against Percy Weasley, who resigns mid-duel. Following the end of the battle, the Imperius Curse that was placed upon him is broken. Kingsley Shacklebolt replaces him as interim (later permanent) Minister for Magic. Not much is known about the "real" nature of Thicknesse, as he has been under the control of Yaxley for nearly the entire book.

Guy Henry plays Thicknesse in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2, in which he is depicted as a Death Eater even before Scrimgeour's death. In Part 2, Thicknesse is killed by Voldemort.

Dolores Umbridge
Dolores Jane Umbridge was the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher during Harry Potter's fifth year, the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, and the main antagonist in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. She is a short, squat woman described as resembling a large pale toad, with "short, curly, mouse-brown hair". She speaks with a quiet, childish, high-pitched voice, and loves kittens, chocolate cakes, biscuits, tea and other related paraphernalia, decorating her surroundings in the same manner. She has a tendency to speak to people she feels are her lessers in a very condescending tone, as if they are simpletons or very young children. Besides Voldemort, she is the only other character in the series to leave a lasting scar on Harry's body.

Percy Weasley
Percy Ignatius Weasley is the third son of Arthur and Molly Weasley. In direct contrast to his brothers, he is a stickler for rules and often pompous due to his love of authority, though he does have good intentions at heart. When readers first meet Percy in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, he is a Gryffindor prefect, and in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, he becomes Head Boy, much to his mother's delight. In both these circumstances, he becomes physically attached to his badge, wanting to polish it and wear it even when out of school. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Percy secretly has a girlfriend – Ravenclaw prefect Penelope Clearwater. Academically a high-performing student, Percy received twelve OWLs and twelve NEWTs. When he finished school, this academic distinction plus his having served as Head Boy secured him a job in the Ministry in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. His immediate supervisor is Barty Crouch Sr.; Percy somewhat idolises Mr Crouch, but Crouch never seems to remember Percy's name, calling him "Weatherby." When Crouch is ill, Percy replaces him as a judge in the second Triwizard Tournament task. He gave up his family time for a better position as an assistant to the Minister for Magic.

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Percy is promoted to Junior Assistant to Minister Fudge. Since this is an unusually high-ranking position for someone of Percy's age to hold, Arthur suspects that Percy's promotion was not earned but instead given to him to allow the Ministry to better manipulate the Weasleys. Outraged and hurt by the suggestion, Percy violently argues with Arthur, resulting in Percy's subsequent alienation from his family. Although Harry notes he has always liked Percy "the least of Ron's brothers", he is still shocked to hear of this. When Percy learns Ron is made a prefect, he sends him a letter congratulating him for following in his footsteps, and unsuccessfully urges Ron to sever ties with Harry (claiming Harry is an extreme danger to Ron's prefect status), and to pay loyalty to Umbridge and the Ministry – going so far to refer to her as a "delightful woman," much to Harry's and Ron's disgust. Percy later makes an appearance in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, where he has apparently seen the error of his ways and pays an awkward visit to his family with new Minister Rufus Scrimgeour during the Christmas Holidays, although it is later revealed that this was engineered by Scrimgeour to speak to Harry alone. He later attends Dumbledore's funeral with Ministry officials, including Dolores Umbridge.

In the climax of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Percy returns to his family and manages to make up with all of them, and eventually duels new Minister for Magic and Voldemort puppet Pius Thicknesse in the Battle of Hogwarts. While dueling Thicknesse, Percy announces that he is resigning, the first joke he has made in many years, much to Fred's delight. While dueling alongside Percy, he witnesses the death of his brother Fred at the hands of Augustus Rookwood, and Percy clings to the corpse and shields it from further damage. In the last part of the battle, he and his father work together to defeat Thicknesse. His final appearance is in the book's epilogue, at King's Cross Station, talking loudly about broom regulations.

Percy is portrayed by Chris Rankin in the film series.

Reception
In connection with her portrayal of the bureaucratised Ministry of Magic and the oppressive measures taken by the Ministry in the later books (like making attendance to Hogwarts compulsory and the "registration of Muggle-borns" with the Ministry), Rowling has been asked whether there is a parallel with Nazism. She replied that "It wasn't really exclusively that. I think you can see in the Ministry even before it's taken over, there are parallels to regimes we all know and love." Jennifer Barnett of People's Weekly World stated that the reader is drawn "into the politics of the wizarding world—the 'Educational Decrees' from the toad-like Ministry of Magic representative, the high-level connections of 'war criminals' from the last rise of Voldemort, the prejudice against 'mudbloods' and 'half-breeds,'" and suggested connections "to the world we live in, to the similarities and differences between the Fudge administration and the Bush administration." Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also interpreted Rowling's depiction of the ministration as criticism of the Bush and Blair administrations, suggesting the Ministry's security pamphlet recalls the Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System). University of Tennessee law professor Benjamin Barton notes what he considers to be libertarian aspects of Harry Potter in his paper "Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy", published in the Michigan Law Review, stating that "Rowling's scathing portrait of government is surprisingly strident and effective. This is partly because her critique works on so many levels: the functions of government, the structure of government, and the bureaucrats who run the show. All three elements work together to depict a Ministry of Magic run by self-interested bureaucrats bent on increasing and protecting their power, often to the detriment of the public at large. In other words, Rowling creates a public-interest scholar's dream—or nightmare—government."

In popular culture
One of the most influential wizard rock bands is named Ministry of Magic after the government structure in the series. Ministry of Magic has made numerous performances, amongst the most notable of them taking place in Wrockstock.

title: Ministry of Magic


text:
TI-99/4A

The TI-99/4 and TI-99/4A are home computers released by Texas Instruments in 1979 and 1981, respectively. Based on Texas Instruments's own TMS9900 microprocessor originally used in minicomputers, the TI-99/4 was the first 16-bit home computer. The associated TMS9918 video display controller provides color graphics and sprite support which were only comparable with those of the Atari 400 and 800 released a month after the TI-99/4. The TI-99 series also initially competed with the Apple II and TRS-80.

The calculator-style keyboard of the TI-99/4 was cited as a weak point, and TI's reliance on ROM cartridges and their practice of limiting developer information to select third parties resulted in a lack of software for the system. The TI-99/4A was released in June 1981 to address some of these issues with a simplified internal design, full-travel keyboard, improved graphics, and a unique expansion system. At half the price of the original model, sales picked up significantly and TI supported the 4A with peripherals, including a speech synthesizer and a "Peripheral Expansion System" box to contain hardware add-ons. TI released developer information and tools, but the insistence on remaining sole publisher continued to starve the platform of software. Architectural quirks of both models reduced the performance benefits of the 16-bit CPU.

The 1981 US launch of the TI-99/4A followed Commodore's VIC-20 by several months. Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel began a price war by repeatedly lowering the price of the VIC-20 and forcing TI to do the same. In late 1982, TI was shipping 5,000 computers a day from their factory in Lubbock, Texas. By 1983, the 99/4A was selling at a loss for under US$100. Even with the increased user base created by the heavy discounts, Texas Instruments lost US$330 million in the third quarter of 1983 and announced the discontinuation of the TI-99/4A in October 1983. Production ended in March 1984.

The TI-99/4 was intended to fit in the middle of a planned range of TI-99 computers, none of which were released, but prototypes and documentation have been found after the TI-99/4A was discontinued.

Features
The TI-99/4A is a self-contained console with the motherboard, ROM cartridge slot, and full-travel keyboard in the same case. The power supply is external. An RF modulator allows the use of a television as a monitor. Lowercase letters are displayed as small caps, rather than separate glyphs. TI BASIC, an ANSI-compliant BASIC interpreter based on Dartmouth BASIC, is built-in and includes support for graphics, sound, and file system access. Later versions of the 99/4A, identified by  on the title page, prevent the use of unlicensed ROM cartridges from third-party manufacturers such as Atarisoft.

Peripherals include a 5¼" floppy disk drive and controller, an RS-232 card with two serial ports and one parallel port, a P-code card for Pascal support, a thermal printer, a 300-baud acoustic coupler, a tape drive using standard audio cassettes as media, and a 32 KB memory expansion card.

16-bit processor
Both TI-99/4 models use the 16-bit TMS9900 CPU running at 3 MHz. The TMS9900 is a single-chip implementation of a TI-990 minicomputer. Although a full 16-bit processor, only the system ROM and 256 bytes of scratchpad RAM are available on the 16-bit bus.

In order to build a complete 16-bit system, TI would have had to redesign many of their existing 8-bit support chips. Instead, TI decided to use existing devices for the majority of the system. The result was that only a small portion of the system was 16-bit, and used a second 8-bit computer bus for the rest.

One of the key features of the TMS9900 from the minicomputer design that spawned it was the inclusion of several sets of processor registers. Registers are used to store information that is being actively worked on by a particular program, as opposed to main memory which stores much more data but is slower to access. In a minicomputer setting, the system was typically running a time-sharing or multitasking operating system, or being used for real-time computing, both of which benefit from being able to quickly switch among programs. To do this, the TMS9900 stored several sets of registers in main memory and could switch between the sets of sixteen 16-bit registers by changing the single workspace pointer register, thereby allowing very rapid context switching.

The new design put 256 bytes of random-access memory (RAM) on the 16-bit bus to store up to eight sets of registers. This area of RAM is known as the "scratchpad memory". As the processor's instructions are all 16-bit as well, the 8 KB internal system read-only memory (ROM) was also on the 16-bit side. Only the program counter, status register, and workspace pointer registers are actually implemented on the chip itself.

Included on the 8-bit side of the system is the majority of the RAM and almost all of the support chips, especially the video display controller (VDP). All accesses to the VDP system are executed eight bits at a time. The system's RAM is managed by the VDP, which provides access to the CPU only when the VDP is not using the memory. This means that user programs and data has to be read over two machine cycles, essentially reducing speed by half. According to TI's former manager for microprocessors, who oversaw TMS9900 development, this negates the performance advantage of a 16-bit processor.

Video display processor
Graphics in the 99/4A are generated by a TMS9918A Video Display Processor (VDP), with a variant for PAL territories. The VDP was developed by Texas Instruments and also sold independently, allowing it to be used in other systems. It serves as the video processor for the ColecoVision and SG-1000 consoles, and an earlier model is part of the MSX computer standard.

The TMS9918A supports character-based and bitmap display modes as well as hardware sprites. There are 32 single-color sprites total, but only a maximum of 4 can be displayed per scan line. Each sprite is either 8×8 or 16×16 pixels and can be scaled 2× to 16×16 or 32×32.

16 KB of RAM is provided for the Video Display Processor. VDP RAM is the largest block of writeable memory in the unexpanded TI-99/4A architecture, and is used for storing disk I/O buffers and TI BASIC user programs. Access to this memory has to use the VDP as an intermediary.

Expansion
TI-99 peripherals contain device drivers in ROMs in the hardware. When a new peripheral is attached, it is immediately available for any software that wants to use it. All device access uses a generic file-based I/O mechanism, allowing new devices to be added without updating software. The Peripheral Expansion System can hold two RS-232 cards, for a total of four RS-232 ports and two parallel printer ports.

The computer supports two cassette drives through a dedicated port, using a custom data format. Composite video and audio are output through another port on NTSC-based machines, and combine through an external RF modulator for use with a television. PAL-based machines output a more complex YUV signal which is also modulated to UHF externally.

Two digital joysticks can be connected through a single DE-9 port. It is identical to the Atari joystick port, but with incompatible pins. Aftermarket adapters allow the use of Atari compatible joysticks.

TI sold an official 32 KB RAM expansion. The memory is not available to all uses. For example, an Extended Basic program is restricted to using 24 KB with the remaining 8 KB available for machine code routines. The Mini Memory plug-in module contains 4 KB of battery-backed RAM that can be used as a persistent RAM disk or to load a machine-code program.

Peripheral Expansion Box

The TI-99/4A can be upgraded via expansion cards added to an eight-slot, external chassis containing its own linear power supply and a full-height 5¼" floppy bay. Encased in silver plastic, but made from sheet steel, this is labeled as the Peripheral Expansion System by TI, but usually called the Peripheral Expansion Box or PEB. Each card has an LED that blinks or flickers when being accessed by software. The section of the power supply that powers the card slots is unregulated. Each card has on-board regulators for its own requirements, which reduces power consumption on a partially-loaded PEB, allowing for cards with unusual voltage requirements.

The PEB carries an analog sound input on the expansion bus, allowing the Speech Synthesizer's audio to be carried through the console to the monitor. The audio is also carried through the ribbon cable to the PEB, both allowing the relocation of the Speech Synthesizer to the PEB and the possibility of audio cards offering more features than the console's built-in sound. No official cards from TI do this.

Official cards from TI that were released and could be placed inside the PEB include
 * 32 KB RAM expansion card
 * RS-232 and parallel port card
 * P-code card, implementing the UCSD p-system IV.0 by acting as a ROM-disk
 * Diskette drive control card. The design allowed controlling both drives internally in the PEB and external drives.

Peripherals designed to be used without the PEB existed too.

Speech synthesizer

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, TI was a pioneer in speech synthesis because of its Texas Instruments LPC Speech Chips which were used in its Speak & Spell toys. A plug-in speech synthesizer module was available for the TI-99/4 and 4A. Speech synthesizers were offered free with the purchase of a number of cartridges and were used by video games such as Alpiner and Parsec. Alpiner's speech includes male and female voices and can be sarcastic when the player makes a bad move.

The synthesizer uses a variant of linear predictive coding and has a small in-built vocabulary. The original intent was to release small cartridges that plugged directly into the synthesizer unit to increase the device's vocabulary. However, the success of software text-to-speech in the Terminal Emulator II cartridge cancelled that plan.

History
In 1977, groups within Texas Instruments were designing a video game console, a home computer to compete against the TRS-80 and Apple II, and a high-end business personal computer with a hard drive. The first two groups were both working at TI's consumer products division in Lubbock, Texas, and continually competed. According to Wally Rhines, the 99/4's "ultracheap keyboard" (with calculator-style keys), RF modulator, and ROM cartridges came from the console design. Eventually, the two teams were merged and directed towards the home computer market. Meanwhile, the third team was merged into TI's Data Systems Division, which had a line of minicomputer products and various computer terminals; they viewed the all-in-one machine as a threat and the project was eventually killed.

Others within the company persuaded the Lubbock group to use TI's TMS9900 CPU. This was in keeping with TI's "one company, one computer architecture" concept, where a single processor model would scale from consoles to its high-end minicomputers. The TMS9900 is a single-chip implementation of TI's 16-bit TI-990 mini design, and is the CPU in low-end models of that platform. Feature-limited single-chip versions of popular minicomputer designs from the 1960s were popular in the mid-1970s and newly designed 16-bit and 32-bit CPUs like the Intel 8088 and Motorola 68000, respectively, quickly rendered these earlier designs obsolete. Many of the TMS9900's quirky features, like processor registers in main memory, came from its minicomputer roots where such concepts were more common.

Meanwhile, another home computer product was emerging from TI's European headquarters, where a third party consulting firm was contracted to produce a prototype codenamed "Mojo". This was based on TI's version of the 8-bit Intel 8080 supported by an all-TI chip set. After a series of discussions, Mojo was abandoned and the Consumer Products concept moved forward.

99/4
In 1979, TI was a successful manufacturer of large computers and was the largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world. Its catalog included a huge variety of analog and digital integrated circuits already widely used in microcomputers, giving it a single-source advantage no other company could meet. It used this position to take over markets, as it did in the mid-1970s introducing its first scientific calculators. These underpriced its former customers like Commodore and drove them out of the calculator business. Observers expected TI would do the same to the microcomputer market if it released a competitive system. The New York Times suggested that the entry of TI and Hewlett-Packard would reshape the entire industry.

Through the development period, several companies attempting to enter the home computer market were faced with significant pushback from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC had developed new rules for consumer devices that connected directly to televisions in an effort to control ongoing complaints about interference by poorly shielded devices. Televisions of the era generally had only a single antenna input, and thus connecting to them required the internal video signal of the device to be converted to radio frequency using an RF modulator. The resulting signals were often poorly shielded and signal leakage could be picked up in the antennas of nearby televisions.

The new rules were extremely difficult to meet. TI continued battling the FCC both in the lab and in Congress, where it had considerable power due to its position within Texas's high-tech industry. It failed to meet the FCC requirements as the release date approached. The company eventually gave up and bundled a modified Zenith Electronics television as a computer monitor, eliminating the need for the RF modulator that generates the interference by connecting directly to the TV's circuitry using a composite video signal. This put the introductory price at US$1150 1980.

The 99/4 sold poorly. Very little software was available, as few developers ported their products to its 16-bit CPU. The machine was met with almost universal disdain when it was released. Every review complained about the keyboard, the lack of lower case characters, any sort of expansion, and lack of software. In July 1980, Adam Osborne reported that, despite poor sales, TI had raised the price of a complete system to US$1400, higher than the popular Apple II, which started at US$950. Osborne said, "Some dealers, who have offered the complete system (including the monitor) for less than the price of the Apple, have still been unable to sell it". TI sold fewer than 20,000 computers by summer 1981, less than one tenth Apple or Radio Shack's volume. Atari, Inc. had an installed base of Atari 8-bit computers more than twice as large. David H. Ahl described the 99/4 as "vastly overpriced, particularly considering its strange keyboard, non-standard Basic, and lack of software". The Times called it an "embarrassing failure".

99/4A

Two years after the 99/4's debut, TI released the 99/4A. It adds a typewriter-style keyboard—keeping the non-standard layout—and more expansion options. The expansion system extends from the right side of the chassis, with modules that can be daisy-chained. There is a practical limitation to this, because each module increases the width of the system. The price was initially US$525, less than half that of the 99/4.

TI continued lowering the price through 1981, first to US$449.95, and then to US$399.95 in early 1982, in competition with Commodore's US$300 VIC-20. This turned into a price war with Commodore. TI responded by cutting the wholesale price of the 99 by US$100, while also offering a US$100 rebate directly to consumers, lowering the street price to about US$200. Bill Cosby in advertising for TI marketed the refund. By mid-1982, Jerry Pournelle wrote that TI was "practically giving away the TI-99/4A". An industry joke stated that the company was losing money on each computer, but was making up for it in volume. Commodore matched the US$200 price in December 1982.

TI celebrated the 99/4A's market success at the January 1983 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Cosby joked how easy it was to sell a computer by paying people US$100 to buy one. Sales peaked at 30,000 a week that month, but on 10 January 1983 Commodore lowered the price of its computers. In February TI responded with a 99/4A retail price of US$150. In April, the VIC-20's bundled retail price reached US$100 and the 99/4A followed suit. In the spring of 1983, TI attempted to reduce the parts count to maintain a competitive edge by combining multiple chips into a single custom chip, renaming the 4A PCB as a "QI" (Quality Improved) board and began production of plastic beige cases without the former aluminum trim of the black console. In May, it began offering the PEB for free with the purchase of three peripherals. In August the company reduced prices of peripherals by 50% and offered US$100 of free software; in September, it reduced software prices by up to 43%.

Lack of third-party development
The president of Spectravideo later said that "TI got suckered by" Jack Tramiel, head of Commodore. The company could not make a profit on the TI-99/4A at a price of $99—it was much more expensive to manufacture than the VIC-20—but hoped that selling many inexpensive computers would increase sales of more profitable software and peripherals. Because such a razor and blades business model requires that such products be its own, TI strictly controlled development for the computer, discouraging hobbyists and third-party developers. It wanted unsophisticated consumers to buy its computers like an appliance, and not technical users who might want to write their own software, despite the latter being what Pournelle described as "a large unpaid R&D department" for computer companies. The company advertised its calculators in almost every issue of BYTE starting in 1980, but deliberately excluded its home computer from the ads except briefly in late 1982. TI also used its preexisting calculator sales channel of mass-market retailers, and not specialized computer stores.

TI did not provide an editor, assembler, or hardware technical information when it released the computer. Pournelle stated that "TI's message is loud and clear: 'Drop dead, hobbyists!, and added that the company "worked very hard at keeping you outside the machine". Citing Money, publisher of Kilobaud Microcomputing Wayne Green reported in August 1980 that TI planned to have only 100 applications available by the end of 1981, stating that "This tiny figure has to put a chill on the whole industry". Green's company, Instant Software, was a prolific publisher for the TRS-80 but could not find anyone to port software to the TI. He wrote, "We understand the problems with the system and the efforts Texas Instruments made to make translation difficult". A Spinnaker Software executive said that the 99/4A had "the worst software in the business", and Ahl noted that unlike other computers, it did not have "Microsoft BASIC, VisiCalc, WordStar, or any popular games". Peripherals cost about twice as much as for other computers. TI joysticks were of poor quality and difficult to find, for example; one reseller reported that its best-selling product was the Atari CX40 joystick adapter cable.

Pournelle added, "TI had rightly concluded that the hobbyists and hackers were a tiny part of the market and wrongly concluded that they were therefore unimportant". Rivals were more open with information. Kilobaud Microcomputing reported that a Commodore executive promised the VIC-20 would have "enough additional documentation to enable an experienced programmer/hobbyist to get inside and let his imagination work". Even when competitors did not disclose technical information, because their computers used commercial off-the-shelf parts like MOS 6502 and Zilog Z80, much more information was public than for TI's proprietary components. IBM learned from TI's mistake, Pournelle said. The company released software and hardware technical information when the IBM PC was announced in 1981, stating that "the definition of a personal computer is third-party hardware and software".

TI had also learned from its mistake and no longer ignored hobbyists, Pournelle said in 1982. The company advertised in BYTE its program for publishing others' software, and job openings for software developers. TI insisted on being the sole publisher for the system, however, which many developers refused to agree to. After third-party developers' games for the Atari 2600 became very successful, the company at the June 1983 Consumer Electronics Show announced that only cartridges with a TI-licensed lockout chip would work in the 99/4A. The Boston Phoenix predicted that "most [software developers] just won't bother making TI-compatible versions of their programs", and Pournelle wrote that "TI once again tells the hobbyists to drop dead".

No official technical documentation from TI was released until the "Editor/Assembler" development suite was released in 1981, and no system schematics were ever released to the public until after TI had discontinued the computer.

Discontinuation
After TI in mid-1983 unexpectedly announced a US$100 million loss in the second calendar quarter—implying a pretax loss from home computers of $$200 million$—its stock dropped by one third in two days. The Times stated in June 1983 that Cosby's US$100 refund "joke is no longer funny", and that "future options are slim". The low price affected the 99/4A's reputation; "When they went to US$99, people started asking 'What's wrong with it?'", one retail executive said. An L.F. Rothschild sell-side analyst estimated that TI had prepared to manufacture three million computers in 1983, but would only be able to sell two million.

Some observers predicted after the second quarter's loss that the 99/4A would not be able to recover; even if the company did not plan to discontinue the computer, the fear that it would become orphaned technology might cause retailers to avoid ordering inventory. Others thought that TI could sell excess inventory and continue producing the computer. After losing US$111 million after taxes in the third calendar quarter of 1983, TI announced plans to discontinue the 99/4A, while continuing to sell the TI Professional MS-DOS-compatible computer. (TI stock rose by 25% after the announcement, because the company's other businesses were strong.) With another TI price cut, retailers sold remaining inventory of the former US$1150 computer during Christmas for $49. The 90 Child World stores quickly sold over 40,000 computers at a price referred to as "nearly a stocking stuffer" in a Times article.

A total of 2.8 million units were shipped before the TI-99/4A was discontinued in March 1984, perhaps the largest installed base among all personal computers. The 99/4A became the first in a series of home computers to be orphaned by their manufacturer over the next few years, along with the Coleco Adam, Mattel Aquarius, Timex Sinclair 1000, and IBM PCjr.

Architecture
The TMS9900's machine language instructions must be word-aligned, so at least 16-bits are needed for every instruction. At the time, memory was expensive, so the size of this format was a concern. Additionally, programming the 8-bit side of the system from 16-bit code is somewhat complex. To address this, TI built a pseudo-assembly language known as "Graphic Programming Language", or GPL. This is a compact 8-bit language interpreted by the CPU which dynamically translates the GPL instructions into one or more TMS9900 instructions. GPL also includes utility routines that appear as single instructions in GPL code, allowing complex operations to be reduced to small sequences of code. For example, a block of memory can be cleared with a single instruction. All software originally distributed on ROM cartridges were written using GPL, and are sometimes referred to as GROMs.

At the time of launch, the system included only a single user-accessible programming language: TI's built-in BASIC interpreter, written in GPL. On the Creative Computing Benchmark, it runs at roughly half the speed of the Apple II.

CPU
TMS9900 @ 3 MHz, 16-bit, 64-pin DIP

Memory

 * 8 KB of monitor ROM and GPL interpreter
 * 8 KB of RAM, if memory expansion is attached
 * 8 KB allocated to expansion devices (e.g. disk drive controller)
 * 8 KB allocated to ROM/RAM in expansion cartridges
 * 256 bytes scratchpad RAM for the CPU
 * Memory ports for Video Display Processor, sound, speech etc.
 * 24 KB RAM, if memory expansion is attached
 * 16 KB Video Display Processor RAM accessible via the VDP (not in CPU's memory map)

Video
TMS9918A video display processor, 40 pin DIP. The earlier 99/4 uses the TMS9918. PAL systems use the "9929" versions of each.
 * 32 single-color sprites in defined layers allowing higher-numbered sprites to transparently flow over lower-numbered sprites. Sprites are available at 8×8 pixels or 16×16 pixels, with a "magnify" bit that doubled all sprites' size but not their resolution. A single bit is available in hardware for collision detection, and the console supports automatic movement via an interrupt routine in the ROM. There can only be 4 visible sprites per scan line.
 * 16 fixed colors (15 visible, one color reserved for "transparent" which shows the background color). Transparent is intended for the 9918's genlock which is disabled in the system.
 * Text mode: 40×24 characters (256 6×8 user-definable characters, no sprites, foreground and background color only, not accessible in BASIC, standard in the p-system/Pascal, assembly editor and word processor)
 * Graphics mode: 32×24 characters (256 8×8 user-definable characters, full 15 color palette + transparent (available in groups of 8 through the character table) and 32 sprites (The only mode available in BASIC. Extended BASIC is required for sprites, and can access only 28 of them.)
 * Bitmap mode: 256×192 pixels (no more than two colors in an eight-pixel row, full 15 color palette + transparent, all 32 sprites available but interrupt-based motion through the ROM routine is not due to the memory layout, not available to BASIC or the original 9918).
 * Multicolor mode: 64×48 pixels (each pixel may be any color, all 32 sprites are available)
 * All of the above comprise 36 layers starting with the video overlay input, then the background color, then two graphics mode layers, then a layer for each of the 32 sprites. A higher layer obscures a lower layer in hardware, unless that higher layer is transparent.

Sound
TMS9919, later SN94624, identical to the SN76489 used in many other systems
 * 3 voices, 1 noise (white or periodic)
 * Voices generate square waves from 110 Hz to approximately 115 kHz
 * Console ROM includes interrupt-driven music playback

Games

Roughly 100 games were published for the TI-99/4A, with most published by Texas Instruments. Some of the games released only for the 99/4A are Parsec, Alpiner, Tombstone City: 21st Century, Tunnels of Doom, and The Attack. TI Invaders and Car Wars are TI's renditions of Space Invaders and Head On respectively. Munch Man is similar to Pac-Man, but the title character fills the maze with a pattern rather than emptying it of dots.

Tigervision offered a solution to the memory limitation of the standard cartridge slot in the form of a 24 KB memory expansion cartridge that attached to the side expansion interface, emulating an expansion device. This allowed the company to implement a larger game completely in machine code, which was used for Espial and Miner 2049er. Exceltec also released two similar side cartridges: Arcturus and Killer Caterpillar.

The media criticized the computer's game library as mediocre. TI not only discouraged third-party development, including games, but it also failed to license popular arcade games like Zaxxon and Frogger.

Hex-Bus
The Hex-Bus interface was designed in 1982 and intended for commercial release in late 1983. It connects the console to peripherals via a high-speed serial link. Though it is similar to today's USB (plug and play, hot-swappable, etc.), it was never released, with only a small number of prototypes appearing in collector hands after TI pulled out of the market.

TI-99/4A successors
The TI-99/4 was intended to fit in the middle of a planned range of TI-99 computers, with prototypes and documentation created for other models. Initial plans were for a lower-end TI-99/2 and a more powerful TI-99/8. Later ideas for expanding the range included a bargain-priced TI-99/3, a terminal TI-99/7, and a direct follow-up to the TI-99/4A referred to as either TI-99/4B or TI-99/5.

At the time they left the home computer market, TI had been actively developing two successors to the TI-99/4A that went through several prototypes but never entered production. Some of these prototypes are now in the hands of TI-99/4A collectors. Both machines would have been substantially faster than the original TI-99/4A and used the Hex-Bus serial interface.

 * TI-99/2, a 4K RAM, 32K ROM computer with no color, sound, or joystick port and a Mylar keyboard. TI designed the computer in four and a half months to sell for under $100 and compete with the Sinclair ZX81 and Timex Sinclair 1000. Based on the TMS9995 CPU running at 10.7 MHz and with a built-in RF modulator, performance greatly increased when the screen was blank. The University of Southwestern Louisiana developed system software. 99/2 software ran on the 99/4A, but not vice versa. Working prototypes appeared at the January 1983 Consumer Electronic Show (CES). Home-computer prices declined so quickly, however, that by mid-1983 the 99/4A sold for $99. The company canceled the 99/2 in April 1983, but planned to exhibit it at the June CES until other companies' press conferences there indicated that competition would increase.
 * TI-99/8 and 99/6. The 99/8 reportedly had a $200 wholesale price. Privately shown to dealers but not announced at June CES, it was formally canceled in October 1983. It included 64 KB of RAM expandable to 15 megabytes, a larger keyboard, built-in speech synthesis, built-in UCSD Pascal operating environment, and the full 16-bit data bus available on the expansion port. It was abandoned in the prototype stage. The Multi Emulator Super System is capable of running what are believed to be the system's ROMs.

Legacy
The Tomy Tutor and its sibling systems are Japanese computers similar in architecture and firmware to the 99/8. Unlike the 99/8, it was released commercially, but sold poorly outside Japan. Portions of the operating system and BASIC code are similar to the 99/8.

Until 2006, there was an annual Chicago TI Faire where people celebrated the TI-99 family of computers.

Post-TI development
The Myarc Geneve 9640 is an enhanced TI-99/4A clone built by Myarc as a card to fit into the TI Peripheral Expansion System. It uses an IBM PC/XT detached keyboard. Released in 1987, it is similar to the unreleased TI-99/8 system. It includes a 12 MHz TMS9995 processor, enhanced graphics with 80-column text mode, 16-bit wide RAM, MDOS, and is compatible with nearly all TI software and slot-mounted hardware. A toggle switch slows the computer to the speed of the original.

The Second Generation CPU card (SGCPU) was released by the System 99 User Group in 1996 as a card to be installed in the PEB.

In 2004, a Universal Serial Bus card and Advanced Technology Attachment controller for IDE hard disks for the PEB were released.

A range of plug-in cartridge boards have been developed, allowing software projects to be distributed on cartridge.

The Phoenix G2, was designed in 2010 by Gary Smith, a member of TI-User Group UK. It uses two FPGAs to emulate the entire architecture of the Myarc Geneve 9640 and the TMS9995 microprocessor. It incorporates an SD card reader, Ethernet, VGA output, and 64 MB RAM.

An FPGA-based TMS9918 compatible graphics chip, called the F18A, is a drop-in replacement for the original 9918 VDP, but features VGA output, bypassing the TMS9918A's native composite output, and contains other enhancements such as removal of the restriction of 4 sprites per scan line.

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

title: TI-99/4A


text:
Kevin Eubanks

Kevin Tyrone Eubanks (born November 15, 1957) is an American jazz and fusion guitarist and composer. He was the leader of The Tonight Show Band with host Jay Leno from 1995 to 2010. He also led the Primetime Band on the short-lived The Jay Leno Show.

Early life and education
Eubanks was born into a musical family. His older brother, Robin Eubanks, is a trombonist, and his younger brothers Duane Eubanks is a trumpeter and Shane Eubanks is a DJ. As an elementary school student, Eubanks was trained in violin, trumpet, and piano at the Settlement Music School (in Philadelphia). He later attended Berklee College of Music (in Boston, Massachusetts).

Personal life
Eubanks is a pescetarian and maintains a diet of fresh fruits, vegetables, grains, egg whites, and fish.

Career
After Eubanks moved to New York, he began performing with noted jazzmen such as Art Blakey (1980–81), Roy Haynes, Slide Hampton and Sam Rivers. Like his brother Robin, Eubanks has played on record with double bassist Dave Holland.

In 1983, while continuing to perform with others, he formed his own quartet, playing gigs in Jordan, Pakistan, and India on a tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department.

In 2020, Eubanks appeared as a guest on the Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip marathon fundraiser episode of The George Lucas Talk Show. In the fall of 2021, Eubanks returned to working with Leno, as a sidekick on a revival of the TV game show You Bet Your Life.

Recording
His first recording as a leader, Guitarist, was released on the Elektra label when Eubanks was 25 years old. It led to a seven-album contract with the GRP label and four albums for Blue Note. In total, Eubanks has appeared on over 100 albums. In 2001, he founded the label Insoul Music on which he has released six albums.

Teaching
Eubanks has taught at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Canada, at Rutgers University, and at the Charlie Parker School in Perugia, Italy. In 2005, Eubanks received an honorary doctorate degree from his alma mater, Berklee College of Music. He has served as an active member of the Artistic Advisory Panel of the BMI Foundation since 1999.

The Tonight Show
In 1992, Eubanks moved to the West Coast to play guitar in The Tonight Show Band. He composed "Kevin's Country," the closing theme music for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. In 1995, he replaced Branford Marsalis as leader of the band.

When NBC moved Leno's show from late night to prime time, Eubanks moved with the band to continue conducting music for the short-lived The Jay Leno Show. Eubanks appeared on the new show as The Primetime Band.

On April 12, 2010, Eubanks announced on the show that he would be leaving The Tonight Show following its 18th season. His last show was on Friday, In May 2010. He indicated in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer that he wanted to concentrate on music, adding that his leaving was not provoked by any problems with Leno or NBC. Following his departure from The Tonight Show, he began touring with bandmate Marvin "Smitty" Smith on drums, Bill Pierce on saxophone, and Rene Camacho on bass.

As leader

 * Guitarist (Elektra Musician, 1983)
 * Sundance (GRP, 1984)
 * Opening Night (GRP, 1985)
 * Face to Face (GRP, 1986)
 * The Heat of Heat (GRP, 1987)
 * Shadow Prophets (GRP, 1988)
 * The Searcher (GRP, 1989)
 * Promise of Tomorrow (GRP, 1990)
 * Turning Point (Blue Note, 1992)
 * Spirit Talk (Blue Note, 1993)
 * Live at Bradley's (Blue Note, 1994)
 * Spirit Talk 2 – Revelations (Blue Note, 1995)
 * Zen Food (Mack Avenue, 2010)
 * The Messenger (Mack Avenue, 2012)
 * Duets with Stanley Jordan (Mack Avenue, 2015)
 * East West Time Line (Mack Avenue, 2017)

As sideman

 * Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Live at Montreux and Northsea (Timeless, 1980)
 * Steve Arrington, Steve Arrington's Hall Of Fame, Vol.1 (Atlantic, 1983)
 * The Young Lions (Elektra Musician, 1983)
 * Urszula Dudziak, Sorrow Is Not Forever... But Love Is (Keytone, 1983)
 * James Williams, Alter Ego (Sunnyside, 1984)
 * Oliver Lake, Expandable Language (Black Saint, 1985)
 * Billy Hart, Oshumare (Gramavision, 1985)
 * Meredith D'Ambrosio, It's Your Dance (Sunnyside, 1985)
 * James Williams, Progress Report (Sunnyside, 1985)
 * The Mike Gibbs Orchestra, Big Music (Venture, 1988)
 * Billy Hart, Rah (Gramavision, 1988)
 * Robin Eubanks, Different Perspectives (JMT, 1989)
 * Dave Holland, Extensions (ECM, 1989)
 * Greg Osby, Season of Renewal (JMT, 1990)
 * Gary Thomas, While the Gate Is Open (JMT, 1990)
 * Gary Thomas, The Kold Kage (JMT, 1991)
 * Robin Eubanks, Karma (JMT, 1991)
 * Kirk Lightsey, From Kirk to Nat (Criss Cross Jazz, 1991)
 * Steve Coleman, Rhythm in Mind (Novus, 1992)
 * Harold Mabern, The Leading Man (DIW, 1993)
 * Ralph Moore, Round Trip (Reservoir, 1985 [1987])
 * Jean-Luc Ponty, No Absolute Time (Atlantic, 1993)
 * Adam Rudolph's Moving Pictures, Skyway (Soul Note, 1994)
 * Dianne Reeves, That Day (Blue Note, 1997)
 * Terri Lyne Carrington, Jazz Is a Spirit (ACT, 2002)
 * Carmen Lundy, Moment to Moment (Afrasia, 2007)
 * Dave Holland, Prism (Okeh/Dare2, 2013)
 * Orrin Evans, #knowingishalfthebattle (Smoke Sessions, 2017)
 * Dave Holland, Another Land (Edition, 2021)

title: Kevin Eubanks


text:
Sound editor (filmmaking)

A sound editor is a creative professional responsible for selecting and assembling sound recordings in preparation for the final sound mixing or mastering of a television program, motion picture, video game, or any production involving recorded or synthetic sound. The sound editor works with the supervising sound editor. The supervising sound editor often assigns scenes and reels the sound editor based on the editor's strengths and area of expertise. Sound editing developed out of the need to fix the incomplete, undramatic, or technically inferior sound recordings of early talkies, and over the decades has become a respected filmmaking craft, with sound editors implementing the aesthetic goals of motion picture sound design.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognizes the artistic contribution of exceptional sound editing with the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing.

There are primarily three divisions of sound that are combined to create a final mix, these being dialogue, effects, and music. In larger markets such as New York and Los Angeles, sound editors often specialize in only one of these areas, thus a show will have separate dialogue, effects, and music editors. In smaller markets, sound editors are expected to know how to handle it all, often crossing over into the mixing realm as well. Editing effects is likened to creating the sonic world from scratch, while dialogue editing is likened to taking the existing sonic world and fixing it. Dialogue editing is more accurately thought of as "production sound editing", where the editor takes the original sound recorded on the set, and using a variety of techniques, makes the dialogue more understandable, as well as smoother, so the listener doesn't hear the transitions from shot to shot (often the background sounds underneath the words change dramatically from take to take). Among the challenges that effects editors face are creatively adding together various elements to create believable sounds for everything you see on screen, as well as memorizing their sound effects library.

Equipment
The essential piece of equipment used in modern sound editing is the digital audio workstation, or DAW. A DAW allows sounds, stored as computer files on a host computer, to be placed in timed synchronization with a motion picture, mixed, manipulated, and documented. The standard DAW system in use by the American film industry, as of 2012, is Avid's Pro Tools, with the majority running on Macs. Another system in use presently is Yamaha owned Steinberg's cross platform DAW Nuendo running on Macs using operating system Mac OS X but also on Windows XP. Other systems historically used for sound editing were:
 * WaveFrame AudioFrame, manufactured by WaveFrame of Emeryville, California
 * Several DAWs have been manufactured by Fairlight
 * SonicSolutions
 * AMS-Neve Audiofile
 * AudioVision manufactured by Avid

The WaveFrame, Fairlights, and Audiofile were of the "integrated" variety of DAW, and required the purchase of expensive proprietary hardware and specialized computers (not standard PCs or Macs). Of the two surviving systems, Pro Tools still requires some proprietary hardware (either a low cost portable device such as the "Mbox" or the more expensive multichannel A/D,D/A converters for more professional high end applications), while Nuendo (a successor to Cubase) is of the "host based" variety.

Sound-effects library
Sound-effects editors typically use an organized catalog of sound recordings from which sound effects can be easily accessed and used in film soundtracks. There are several commercially distributed sound-effects libraries available, the two most well-known publishers being Sound Ideas and The Hollywood Edge. Online search engines, such as Sounddogs, A Sound Effect and Sonniss allow users to purchase sound effects libraries from a large online database.

Many sound effects editors make their own customized sound recordings which are accumulated into highly prized personal sound effects libraries. Often, sound effects used in films will be saved and reused in subsequent films. One exemplary case in point is a recording known as the "Wilhelm Scream" which has become known for its repeated use in many famous films such as The Charge at Feather River (1953), Pierre Marette Story (1957), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and Reservoir Dogs (1992). Credited with naming and popularizing this particular recording is sound designer Ben Burtt.

Early talkies
The first sound process to substantially displace silent films in the moviegoing market was the Vitaphone process. Under the Vitaphone process, a microphone recorded the sound performed on set directly to a phonograph master, which made Vitaphone recordings impossible to cut or resynchronize, as later processes would allow. This limited the Vitaphone process to capturing musical acts or one-take action scenes, like Vaudeville routines or other re-creations of stage performances; essentially, scenes that required no editing at all. However, Warner Brothers, even as early as The Jazz Singer, began experimenting with the mixing of multiple phonograph recordings and intercutting between the "master" sync take and coverage of other angles. The original mixing console used to make the master recording of The Jazz Singer, still viewable in the Warner Bros. Studio Museum, has no more than four or five knobs, but each is still visibly labeled with the basic "groups" that a modern sound designer would recognize: "music", "crowd", and so on.

Warner Bros. developed increasingly sophisticated technology to sequence greater numbers of phonograph sound effects to picture using the Vitaphone system, but these were rendered obsolete with the widespread adoption of sound-on-film processes in the early 1930s.

Mechanical editing
In a sound-on-film process, a microphone captures sound and converts it into a signal that can be photographed on film. Since the recording is imposed linearly on the medium, and the medium is easily cut and glued, sounds recorded can be easily re-sequenced and separated onto separate tracks, allowing more control in mixing. Options expanded further when optical sound recording processes were replaced with magnetic recording in the 1950s. Magnetic recording offered a better signal-to-noise ratio, allowing more tracks to be played simultaneously without increasing noise on the full mix.

The greater number of options available to the editors led to more complex and creative sound tracks, and it was in this period that a set of standard practices became established which continued until the digital era, and many of the notional concepts are still at the core of sound design, computerized or not:

 * Sounds are assembled together onto tracks. Many tracks are mixed together (or "dubbed together") to create a final film.
 * A track will generally contain only one "type" or group of sound. A track that contains dialogue only contains dialogue, a track that contains music should only contain music.  Many tracks may carry all the sound for one group.
 * Tracks may be mixed a group at a time, in a process called predubbing. All of the tracks containing dialogue may be mixed at one time, and all of the tracks containing foley may be mixed at another time.  In the process of predubbing, many tracks can be mixed into one.
 * Predubs are mixed together to create a final dub. On the occasion of the final dub, final decisions about the balance between different groups of sounds are made.

Historically the Dubbing Mixer (UK) or Re-Recording Mixer (US) was the specialist who mixed all the audio tracks supplied by the Dubbing Editor (with the addition of 'live sounds' such as Foley) in a special Dubbing Suite. As well as mixing, he would introduce equalization, compression and filtered sound effects, etc. while seated at a large console. Often two or three mixers would sit alongside, each controlling sections of audio, e.g., dialogue, music, effects.

In the era of optical sound tracks, it was difficult to mix more than eight tracks at once without accumulating excessive noise. At the height of magnetic recording, 200 tracks or more could be mixed together, aided by Dolby noise reduction. In the digital era there is no limit. For example, a single predub can exceed a hundred tracks, and the final dub can be the sum of a thousand tracks.

Digital sound
The mechanical system of sound editing remained unchanged until the early 1990s, when digital audio workstations acquired features sufficient for use in film production, mainly, the ability to synchronize with picture, and the ability to play back many tracks at once with CD-quality fidelity. The quality of 16-bit audio at a 48 kHz sampling rate allowed hundreds of tracks to be mixed together with negligible noise.

The physical manifestation of the work became computerized: sound recordings, and the decisions the editors made in assembling them, were now digitized, and could be versioned, done, undone, and archived instantly and compactly. In the magnetic recording era, sound editors owned trucks to ship their tracks to a mixing stage, and transfers to magnetic film were measured in hundreds of thousands of feet. Once the materials arrived at the stage, a dozen recordists and mix technicians required a half an hour to load the three or four dozen tracks a predub might require. In the digital era, 250 hours of stereo sound, edited and ready to mix, can be transported on a single 160 GB hard drive. As well, this 250 hours of material can be copied in four hours or less, as opposed to the old system, which, predictably, would take 250 hours.

Because of these innovations, sound editors, as of 2005, face the same issues as other computerized, "knowledge-based" professionals, including the loss of work due to outsourcing to cheaper labor markets, and the loss of royalties due to ineffective enforcement of intellectual property rights.

Animation sound editing
In the field of animation, traditionally the sound editors have been given the more prestigious title of "film editor" in screen credits. As animated films are more often than not planned to the frame, the traditional functions of a film editor are often unnecessary. Treg Brown is known to cartoon fans as the sound effects genius of Warner Bros. Animation. Other greats of the field have included Jimmy MacDonald of the Walt Disney Studios, Greg Watson and Don Douglas at Hanna-Barbera, and Joe Siracusa of UPA and various TV cartoon studios.

Other fields
In the production of radio programs and music, persons who manipulate sound recordings are known simply as "editors", in cases where the producers themselves do not perform the task.

title: Sound editor (filmmaking)


text:
Hindustani

Hindustani may refer to:

 * something of, from, or related to Hindustan (name for the subcontinent)
 * Hindustani language, an Indo-Aryan language, with Hindi and Urdu being its two standard registers
 * Hindustani Muslims are the Urdu-speaking, Hindustani people of Muslim faith.
 * Fiji Hindi, a variety of Eastern Hindi spoken in Fiji, and is known locally as Hindustani
 * Caribbean Hindustani, a variety of Eastern Hindi spoken in the Caribbean
 * Hindustani classical music, a major style of Indian classical music
 * Muhammadjan Hindustani, Islamist teacher of Uzbekistan

title: Hindustani