* 1980 – Namco releases the highly influential arcade game Pac-Man.

One of the last successful electro-mechanical arcade games was F-1, a racing game developed by Namco and distributed by Atari in 1976 ; the game was shown in the films Dawn of the Dead ( 1978 ) and Midnight Madness ( 1980 ), as was Sega's Jet Rocket in the latter film.

Pac-Man is a popular 1980 arcade game by Namco and the name of its titular character.

While this allowed for inclusion of music in early arcade video games, it was usually monophonic, looped or used sparingly between stages or at the start of a new game, such as the Namco titles Pac-Man ( 1980 ) composed by Toshio Kai or Pole Position ( 1982 ) composed by Nobuyuki Ohnogi.

The first video game to feature continuous, melodic background music was Rally-X, released by Namco in 1980, featuring a simple tune that repeats continuously during gameplay.

It was published by Namco in Japan and was imported to North America by Midway in 1980.

In 1980 Namco partnered with the American company Midway to release the game in North America.

The copyright notice was changed by the replacement of the "( C ) ( P ) 1982 NAMCO LTD ." string with "( C ) 1980 WATSON CO .", and the removal of the red Namco logo underneath.

Rally-X in 1980 was the first game to feature continuous background music, which was generated using a dedicated sound chip, a Namco 3-channel PSG.

* Some rides featured in levels along with the bonus level parade floats contain popular Namco characters such as Pac-Man ( 1980 ), Pooka from Dig Dug ( 1982 ), Solvalou from Xevious ( 1982 ), Mappy ( 1983 ), Gil and Ki from The Tower of Druaga ( 1984 ), Grobda ( 1984 ), Paccet from Baraduke ( 1985 ), Wonder Momo ( 1987 ), Amul ( in dragon form ) from Dragon Spirit ( 1987 ), Bravoman ( 1988 ), Valkyrie from Valkyrie no Bōken ( 1986 ) and its sequels.

* Atmosphere ( Joy Division song ), a song by Joy Division, released in 1980 on the Atmosphere / She's Lost Control single, originally released in the same year as Licht und Blindheit

The BRP standalone booklet was first released in 1980.

From 1977 to 1980, he released three more albums in Turkey, partly consisting of compilations of older singles, namely Sakla Samanı Gelir Zamanı ( 1977 ), Yeni Bir Gün ( 1979 ) and 20.

* Singer Songwriter Barry Manilow released a single " Bermuda Triangle " in 1981, taken from his 1980 album Barry

In 1980, the gag-based comedy Airplane !, a spoof of the previous decade's disaster film series was released and paved the way for more of the same including Top Secret!

His bands have included Watt 4 ( 1980 ), in which he played keyboards and provided voice, Craig Charles and the Beat Burglars ( 1989 ), The Sons of Gordon Gekko ( 1989 ), where he wrote lyrics and also composed tunes for the band, and The Eye ( 2000 – 01 ), with whom he released the rock album " Giving You The Eye, Live at the Edinburgh Festival ".

The group had no major hits in 1980, but by 1981 they released two Top Ten hits with " Oh No " (# 4 U. S .) and their first upbeat single in almost five years, " Lady ( You Bring Me Up )" (# 8 U. S .)

By comparison, when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, it released ~ 1. 2 km < sup > 3 </ sup > ( DRE ) of ejecta.

In early 1980, they recorded and released the single " Holiday in Cambodia ".

In 1980, Yamaha eventually released the first FM digital synthesizer, the Yamaha GS-1, but at an expensive retail price of $ 16, 000.

In 1980, Toho released the first of a series of annual feature length animated films based on the lengthly special volumes published annually.

By the time the film " The Empire Strikes Back " was released in 1980 Star Wars fanzines had surpassed Star Trek zines in sales.

In 1980 and again in 1981, Gaynor released two disco albums which were virtually ignored in the United States due to the backlash against disco, which began late in 1979.

Zork I was released originally for the TRS-80 in 1980 and eventually sold more than a million copies across several platforms.

The console was test marketed in Fresno, California, in 1979 with a total of four games available, and was released nationwide in 1980 with a price tag of US $ 299 and a pack-in game: Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack.

* In 1980, the film The Shining was released, directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack Nicholson.

However, Can't Stop the Music, starring The Village People, was a calamitous attempt to resurrect the old-style musical and was released to audience indifference in 1980.

Formally introduced in September 1979, Initial samples were released in February 1980, with production chips available over the counter in November.

" A number of original recordings also were released in this way in the 1970s and early 1980s, such as " Gall in the Family Fare " ( a parody of All in the Family ), a single entitled " Makin ' Out ," the octuple-grooved track " It's a Super Spectacular Day ," which had eight possible endings, the spoken word Meet the Staff insert, and a six-track, 30-minute Mad Disco EP ( from the 1980 Special of the same title ) that included a disco version of " It's a Gas.

" In 1980 a second game was released: The Mad Magazine Card Game by Parker Brothers.

In the fall of 1980, REO Speedwagon released Hi Infidelity, which represented a change in the music from hard rock to more pop-oriented material.

He concurrently began pursuing a solo career, debuting with the experimental electronic fusion album The Thousand Knives of Ryūichi Sakamoto ( 1978 ), and later released the pioneering album B-2 Unit ( 1980 ), which included the electro classic " Riot in Lagos ".

In 1980, he released the solo album B-2 Unit, which is considered to be his " edgiest " record.

Also in 1980, Sakamoto released the single " War Head / Lexington Queen ", an experimental synthpop and electro record.

Pac-Man ( 1980 ) became Immensely popular and an icon of 1980s popular culture.

Pac-Man ( 1980 ) was the first game to achieve widespread popularity in mainstream culture and the first game character to be popular in his own right.

Space Invaders ( 1978 ), Galaxian ( 1979 ), Pac-Man ( 1980 ), Battlezone ( 1980 ), Defender ( 1980 ), and Donkey Kong ( 1981 ) were especially popular.

Arcades catering to video games began to gain momentum in the late 1970s with games such as Space Invaders ( 1978 ) and Galaxian ( 1979 ) and became widespread in 1980 with Pac-Man, Centipede and others.

The show aired on The Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Show from 1980 – 82 and The Pac-Man / Little Rascals / Richie Rich Show from 1982 – 84.

It was Pac-Man ( 1980 ), however, that would become definitive of Namco's legacy, going on to become a fixture in popular culture.

In 1979, Sega's Head On was a racing game that played like a maze chase game and is thus considered a precursor to the 1980 hit Pac-Man.

The most successful game of this era was Namco's Pac-Man, released in 1980, which would go on to sell over 350, 000 cabinets, and within a year, generate a revenue of more than $ 1 billion in quarters ; in total, Pac-Man is estimated to have grossed over 10 billion quarters ($ 2. 5 billion ) during the 20th century, equivalent to over $ 3. 4 billion in 2011.

The first game to feature cut scenes in the form of animated interludes between certain game stages was the 1980 hit Pac-Man, which featured brief comical interludes about Pac-Man and the ghosts chasing each other around during those interludes, resembling simple entertaining silent-film type scenes.

* Pac-Man ( 1980 ): The flagship makes an appearance as a bonus fruit on rounds 9 and 10, and is worth 2000 points if Pac-Man eats it.

Star Fire appeared in the 1980 film Midnight Madness, while Mouse Trap was the subject of a song on the 1982 Pac-Man Fever album.

Williams was moderately successful in this new arena, and through Midway, it licensed and distributed Taito's seminal arcade game Space Invaders in the U. S. and the hit U. S. version of Namco's Pac-Man in 1980, followed by Ms. Pac-Man, in 1981.

Arcades catering to video games began to gain momentum in the late 1970s with games such as Space Invaders ( 1978 ), Asteroids ( 1979 ), and Galaxian ( 1979 ), and became widespread in 1980 with Pac-Man, Missile Command, Berzerk, Defender, and others.

Arcades also appeared in many other films at the time, such as Dawn of the Dead ( where they play Gun Fight and F-1 ) in 1978, Used Cars and Midnight Madness in 1980, Take This Job and Shove It and Puberty Blues in 1981, the 1982 releases Rocky III, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Koyaanisqatsi and The Toy, the 1983 releases Psycho II, Spring Break and Never Say Never Again, the 1984 releases Footloose, The Karate Kid ( where Elisabeth Shue plays Pac-Man ), The Terminator and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, the 1985 releases Back to the Future, The Goonies and The Boys Next Door, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Something Wild in 1986.

Designed and programmed by Ed Averett, Munchkin is very heavily based on Namco's 1980 arcade game Pac-Man, but not a direct clone.