3DO

A multimedia and video game technology from the former 3DO Company, Redwood City, CA that was widely licensed to manufacturers and developers. The first 3DO player was Panasonic's Realistic Entertainment Active Learning (REAL) Multiplayer, which played audio CDs and could be fitted for Video CDs.

3DO developers created games from a large library of royalty-free sound effects, music, stills, clip art and film. The technology provided very high speeds for animation and also a 3D capability that could be viewed through glasses.

3DO was started in 1990 by Trip Hawkins, one of Apple's earliest employees and founder of Electronic Arts software company. In 2003, bowing to competitive pressure from Sony's Playstation and Sega's Saturn series, the company went into bankruptcy.

(company, games, standard)

3DO - A set of specifications created and owned by the 3DO company, which is a partnership of seven different companies. These specs are the blueprint for making a 3DO Interactive Multiplayer and are licensed to hardware and software producers.

A 3DO system has an ARM60 32-bit RISC CPU and a graphics engine based around two custom designed graphics and animation processors. It has 2 Megabytes of DRAM, 1 Megabyte of VRAM, and a double speed CD-ROM drive for main storage.

The Panasonic 3DO system can run 3DO Interactive software, play audio CDs (including support for CD+G), view Photo-CDs, and will eventually be able to play Video CDs with a special add-on MPEG1 full-motion video cartridge. Up to 8 controllers can be daisy-chained on the system at once. A keyboard, mouse, light gun, and other peripherals may also some day be hooked into the system, although they are not currently available (December 1993). The 3DO can display full-motion video, fully texture mapped 3d landscapes, all in 24-bit colour. Sanyo and AT&T will also release 3DO systems. Sanyo's in mid 1994 and AT&T in late 1994.

There will be a 3DO add-on cartridge based on the PowerPC to enable the 3DO to compete with Sony's Playstation console and Sega's Saturn console, both of which have a higher specification than the original 3DO. The add-on is commonly known as the M2 or Bulldog. It should hit the shops by Christmas 1995 and will (allegedly) do a million flat shaded polygons per second.

3DO Home.

Usenet newsgroup: news:rec.games.video.3do.