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Following on from Jes5199, this evil ubercracker technology is, in it's full form, Transient Electromagnetic Pulse Surveillance Technology, and can be defined as the practice of intercepting and recording data represented in electromagnetic form.

A TEMPEST device can snoop on your computing and networking by reading the electromagnetic emanations of your PC, your phone line if you use a modem, or your LAN cable.

You occasionally see the term TEMPEST shielding in Government informatics.

Tempest, expansion set number 12 for Magic: The Gathering, was released in October of 1997. Its series-symbol is a storm cloud with lightning bolt.Tempest introduced 3 new rules: "Buyback", "Licids", and "Shadow". Explanations of these rules are quoted from the Wizards of the Coast website, http://www.wizards.com

"Instants, interrupts, and sorceries normally go to your graveyard after they resolve. Buyback is a new option that allows you to use these types of spells over and over again by returning them to your hand when they resolve. Each such spell has a "buyback cost" in addition to the casting cost.

If you pay the buyback cost when you play the spell, then the spell is returned to your hand when it resolves, rather than going to your graveyard. You have to pay the buyback cost when you play the spell if you're going to pay it at all.

Returning the card to your hand is part of the spell's effect, so it won't occur if the spell is countered or fizzles against all of its targets. Instead, the card is put into your graveyard."

"Licids are a type of creature. Licids can become creature enchantments, reside on other creatures for a while, and then revert back to being creatures. A typical licid is represented below:

R(Tap): Enraging Licid loses this ability and becomes a creature enchantment that reads "Enchanted creature is unaffected by summoning sickness" instead of a creature. Move Enraging Licid onto target creature. You may pay to end this effect.

When a licid becomes a creature enchantment, is loses the licid ability and gains whatever ability is listed in the card text. It also stops being a creature and becomes a local enchantment instead. It retains all of its other characteristics, including its name, color, and so on. You still control the licid while it is an enchantment.

Unlike many abilities that move an enchantment onto another permanent, the licid ability targets the creature to be enchanted. If it fizzles against that creature, it will not take effect, so the licid itself will be unchanged.

Generally, the cost of using a licid's ability includes tapping it. This means that when it moves onto the creature, it will be a tapped local enchantment. the enchantment's ability will work normally, though, and the card will untap during your untap phase."

"Shadow is a new standard creature ability. It is both an evasion ability and a blocking restriction. Creatures with shadow cannot block creatures without that ability, but can't be blocked by those creatures either. In this respect they are like creatures that have flying but can't block creatures without flying."

Tempest consists of:
53 Black
53 Blue
53 Green
53 Red
53 White
39 Artifacts
10 Multi-colored
36 Land
350 Cards Total

Abandon Hope
Bellowing Fiend
Blood Pet
Bounty Hunter
Clot Sliver
Coffin Queen
Commander Greven il-Vec
Corpse Dance
Dark Banishing
Dark Ritual
Darkling Stalker
Dauthi Embrace
Dauthi Ghoul
Dauthi Horror
Dauthi Marauder
Dauthi Mercenary
Dauthi Mindripper
Dauthi Slayer
Death Pits of Rath
Diabolic Edict
Disturbed Burial
Dread of Night
Dregs of Sorrow
Endless Scream
Evincar's Justice
Fevered Convulsions
Imps' Taunt
Knight of Dusk
Leeching Licid
Living Death
Maddening Imp
Marsh Lurker
Mindwhip Sliver
Minion of the Wastes
Pit Imp
Rain of Tears
Rats of Rath
Reckless Spite
Sadistic Glee
Screeching Harpy
Servant of Volrath
Skyshroud Vampire
Spinal Graft

Benthic Behemoth
Dream Cache
Ertai's Meddling
Escaped Shapeshifter
Fighting Drake
Gaseous Form
Giant Crab
Horned Turtle
Legacy's Allure
Mana Severance
Manta Riders
Mnemonic Sliver
Power Sink
Rootwater Diver
Rootwater Hunter
Rootwater Matriarch
Rootwater Shaman
Sea Monster
Shadow Rift
Shimmering Wings
Skyshroud Condor
Spell Blast
Steal Enchantment
Stinging Licid
Thalakos Dreamsower
Thalakos Mistfolk
Thalakos Seer
Thalakos Sentry
Time Ebb
Time Warp
Tradewind Rider
Unstable Shapeshifter
Volrath's Curse
Whim of Volrath
Whispers of the Muse
Wind Dancer
Wind Drake
Winged Sliver

Apes of Rath
Bayou Dragonfly
Broken Fall
Canopy Spider
Charging Rhino
Crazed Armodon
Dirtcowl Wurm
Eladamri's Vineyard
Eladamri, Lord of Leaves
Elven Warhounds
Elvish Fury
Flailing Drake
Frog Tongue
Fugitive Druid
Heartwood Dryad
Heartwood Giant
Heartwood Treefolk
Horned Sliver
Mirri's Guile
Mongrel Pack
Muscle Sliver
Natural Spring
Nature's Revolt
Needle Storm
Nurturing Licid
Pincher Beetles
Rampant Growth
Reality Anchor
Root Maze
Rootbreaker Wurm
Seeker of Skybreak
Skyshroud Elf
Skyshroud Ranger
Skyshroud Troll
Spike Drone
Storm Front
Trained Armodon
Trumpeting Armodon
Verdant Force
Winter's Grasp

Ancient Runes
Barbed Sliver
Blood Frenzy
Canyon Drake
Canyon Wildcat
Chaotic Goo
Crown of Flames
Enraging Licid
Flowstone Giant
Flowstone Salamander
Flowstone Wyvern
Furnace of Rath
Giant Strength
Goblin Bombardment
Hand to Hand
Heart Sliver
Jackal Pup
Lightning Blast
Lightning Elemental
Lowland Giant
Mogg Conscripts
Mogg Fanatic
Mogg Raider
Mogg Squad
No Quarter
Rathi Dragon
Renegade Warlord
Rolling Thunder
Sandstone Warrior
Scorched Earth
Searing Touch
Starke of Rath
Stone Rain
Sudden Impact
Tahngarth's Rage
Tooth and Claw
Wall of Diffusion
Wild Wurm

Advance Scout
Angelic Protector
Armor Sliver
Armored Pegasus
Avenging Angel
Circle of Protection: Black
Circle of Protection: Blue
Circle of Protection: Green
Circle of Protection: Red
Circle of Protection: Shadow
Circle of Protection: White
Clergy en-Vec
Cloudchaser Eagle
Elite Javelineer
Field of Souls
Flickering Ward
Gerrard's Battle Cry
Hanna's Custody
Hero's Resolve
Knight of Dawn
Light of Day
Marble Titan
Master Decoy
Mounted Archers
Oracle en-Vec
Orim's Prayer
Orim, Samite Healer
Pegasus Refuge
Quickening Licid
Sacred Guide
Serene Offering
Soltari Crusader
Soltari Emissary
Soltari Foot Soldier
Soltari Lancer
Soltari Monk
Soltari Priest
Soltari Trooper
Spirit Mirror
Staunch Defenders
Talon Sliver
Winds of Rath
Worthy Cause

Altar of Dementia
Booby Trap
Bottle Gnomes
Coiled Tinviper
Cold Storage
Cursed Scroll
Echo Chamber
Emerald Medallion
Emmessi Tome
Essence Bottle
Flowstone Sculpture
Fool's Tome
Helm of Possession
Jet Medallion
Jinxed Idol
Lotus Petal
Magnetic Web
Metallic Sliver
Mogg Cannon
Patchwork Gnomes
Pearl Medallion
Phyrexian Grimoire
Phyrexian Hulk
Phyrexian Splicer
Puppet Strings
Ruby Medallion
Sapphire Medallion
Scalding Tongs
Scroll Rack
Squee's Toy
Static Orb
Torture Chamber

Ancient Tomb
Caldera Lake
Cinder Marsh
Forest (4 versions)
Ghost Town
Island (4 versions)
Maze of Shadows
Mogg Hollows
Mountain (4 versions)
Pine Barrens
Plains (4 versions)
Reflecting Pool
Rootwater Depths
Salt Flats
Skyshroud Forest
Stalking Stones
Swamp (4 versions)
Thalakos Lowlands
Vec Townships

Ranger en-Vec
Segmented Wurm
Selenia, Dark Angel
Sky Spirit
Soltari Guerrillas
Spontaneous Combustion
Vhati il-Dal
Wood Sage

Tempest-style phreaking of your monitor can actually produce an AM broadcast. Quoting mr. Eric Thiele, the "Eliza for Tempest" program author:

All electronic devices send out eletromagnetic waves. So does your monitor and your monitor does it all the time at very high frequencies. High enough for your short wave AM radio. All you have to do is display the "correct" image on your screen and your monitor will emit the "right" signals. Tempest for Eliza displays pictures on your screen, one for each note in the song.

This method takes advatage of the background EM radiation from your monitor to disrupt other communication. Unfortunlately, most new monitors are too shielded to sabotage unwanted radio transmissions, but it can still be fun to experiment with.

This program is available for download here: http://www.erikyyy.de/tempest/

/me downloads a 26 kilobyte .zip and converts it to .deb for xmame. l33t 0-DaY WaR3z!

An arcade game released in 1980-1981 by Atari. Designed and written by Dave Theurer.

This game is one of the earliest "more addicting than drugs" games. The gameplay is simple enough, and the whole game experience is just simply hypnotic.

Tempest is a space game, somewhat similar to Space Invaders hit game but the action is shown from a different perspective. The game has just simple vector graphics and fairly simple sound effects.

You pilot a C-shaped space fighter that I personally like to call the "spider". Each level is a "tunnel" or "tube" of sorts; There are different shapes of the tunnels. Your fighter moves along the rim closest to the player. Space monsters (most common variety of which in the earliest levels is shaped like bow tie) crawl along the edges of the tunnel, and you move on the top of the tunnel and shoot the enemy as they approach. There are also other hazards, like spikes you must avoid when moving to the next level!

Your armament includes the zappers (known elsewhere as lasers), and, of course, the dreaded SuperZapper (known in other circles as smart bomb) that you can use once per level.

(Personally, I got the game from "Microsoft Arcade" collection, supposedly a 100% conversion of the game...)

The arcade game (revision 3) runs on Our Holy 6502 (with clock speed of 1.52 MHz - slight overclocking here? =) and has two "Pokey" sound chips.

MAME is pretty nice with this game because it gives antialiased vectors! ooo k3wl! =) I've been told this game rocks even harder than usual when played with LaserMAME.

Sources: http://markn.users.netlink.co.uk/Arcade/tempest.html, information given by MAME.

My God! It's full of vectors!

Tempest is pretty much the end all, be all of vector arcade games. This is the the single most collected vector game among hard core collectors, although Asteroids is technically a little more common. This 1980 title was Atari's first color vector game. It was designed by Dave Theurer. It seems that Dave had the idea in a dream, he dreamed about monsters crawling up from a hole in the ground. But Atari wanted a 3-D monster game, they ended up with Tempest, which isn't quite 3-D, but is certainly stunning, even by today's standards.

The first prototype version of Tempest was entitled "Aliens". It was wickedly difficult and not quite complete. Soon after came Vortex which was a lot like the final version of Tempest, with only minor changes. There were then three distinct software revisions of the Tempest that actually shipped. I personally cannot tell the difference between the three versions, but apparently the differences were large enough that Clay Cowgill created a Tempest Multigame kit just so Tempest owners could toggle between the various versions (and prototype versions), on a single machine.

The last Tempest version of note is Tempest Tubes which is an alternate level version of the original. You can upgrade (or downgrade, depending on how you look at it), your Tempest machine to Tempest Tubes by swapping a few ROM chips on the Tempest ROM board.

The game

Tempest is a spinner game. You control a little yellow shooter that gets to move around on the outside of a tunnel. The tunnel falls away from you in a vanishing point perspective. Each level presents you with a different tunnel, that has a different shape to it. Some of them aren't even proper tunnels because they do not actually connect (some are just lines, et cetera).

The bad guys start at the bottom of the tunnel and quickly work their way up towards your shooter. You have to blast them before they get to the top. Once an enemy reaches the top it will start moving around up there, you can still shoot them, but it is much harder to do so without them hitting you first.

Your weapons are a blaster and a superzapper. The blaster just shoots like any normal video game laser. The superzapper is different though. You can use it twice on each screen. It will kill all the enemies the first time you use it on any given screen. The second time it will only kill some of them.

Some of the enemies leave green lines behind when they move. You have to dodge these lines in the little warp sequence between each level. This is usually easy to do, but sometimes it seems like nearly every tunnel segment has a green line on it, which makes it quite a bit harder to pick the correct one.

The Machine

Tempest was available in three different dedicated cabinets. An upright, a cabaret, and a cocktail. The cabaret was an ugly little abomination, and I shall never mention it again. The others are described below.



The cocktail version was a black square table with a woodgrain top. It had red lines and instructions underneath the glass, with player control panels on either side. For some reason the monitors on these were installed butted up against one side, instead of centered. I am really not sure why they did that, but it must have been a space issue of some sort.

Both the cocktail and the upright used a color X-Y monitor. These are notorious for early failure, but they can usually be repaired if you are willing to spend a lot of money on them.

Where to play

You can play Tempest on the Sony Playstation with the Arcade's Greatest Hits: Atari Collection 1 disc. Or you can download the MAME emulator and play it that way. When using MAME you might have trouble controlling the game with the mouse, try using a trackball instead (or a real spinner if you have one). The reason is that you can't continually move the mouse in one direction without picking it up, and you will get blasted if you stop to pick up the mouse.

Let me guess, you probably want to add a Tempest machine to your arcade game collection. Well first thing you should do is go to the bank and take out all your money. Then go online and select one of the many Tempest games that are always available. Try to find one in your area, because shipping can be expensive. Then pull out that $1000+ that the seller wants! Upon receiving your Tempest game you should immediately have the monitor checked out by a knowledgeable technician. Have him do whatever fixes or upgrades it needs, and pay him his $300+. Then you can sit back and cry at your empty wallet, but smile at your shiny new Tempest machine that will hopefully last a few years before the X-Y monitor gives out again.

Ludwig van Beethoven's 17th piano sonata in D minor, named Tempest by the editor. This was the only tragedy Beethoven wrote for piano, in its form. As with the rest of Beethoven's music (save the 6th symphony), it was written with no topic, about nothing. Just music.

It's indeed a melodramatic piece, beautiful nonetheless. It begins with a slow, calm arpeggio of an A major chord in the lower registers. Three memorable, tranquil notes preface an intense break into storm. These three notes reminded me of teardrops the first time I heard the song. The first movement ends with a tremolo of the lowest octaves on the keyboard, like distant thunder.

The second movement is another gorgeous adagio, as Beethoven is known for. The most memorable piece of this movement is the short alternating bass notes that make up a drone during the second theme.

The third movement is perhaps one of the most moving piano pieces Beethoven has ever written. It's meter is 3/8, and has an underlying beat about the tempo of a quick waltz. The way it loses hold of the meter, gains it back, and tosses it around is perhaps the most entrancing piece of this movement. For weeks after hearing this, I couldn't rid my own compositions of the powerful chord progression used in the primary theme.

The Tempest is one of the most beautiful piano sonatas due to Beethoven, and is definitely worth listening to. A public domain copy can be found at:


Tem"pest (?), n. [OF. tempeste, F. tempete, (assumed) LL. tempesta, fr. L. tempestas a portion of time, a season, weather, storm, akin to tempus time. See Temporal of time.]


An extensive current of wind, rushing with great velocity and violence, and commonly attended with rain, hail, or snow; a furious storm.

[We] caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled, Each on his rock transfixed. Milton.


Fig.: Any violent tumult or commotion; as, a political tempest; a tempest of war, or of the passions.


A fashionable assembly; a drum. See the Note under Drum, n., 4.



Tempest is sometimes used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, tempest-beaten, tempest-loving, tempest-tossed, tempest-winged, and the like.

Syn. -- Storm; agitation; perturbation. See Storm.


© Webster 1913.

Tem"pest, v. t. [Cf. OF. tempester, F. tempeter to rage.]

To disturb as by a tempest.


Part huge of bulk Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait, Tempest the ocean. Milton.


© Webster 1913.

Tem"pest, v. i.

To storm.


B. Jonson.


© Webster 1913.
