This Week in Video-Game History wishes Steve Jobs and HAL Laboratory, Inc. a happy birthday. We also get to celebrate the launch of The Legend of Zelda as well as the premiere of the Famicom Disk System.

February 20

1987: Konami releases Contra as a coin-operated arcade machine.

February 21

1980: Japanese developer HAL Laboratory, Inc. is founded. They are best known as the creators of Kirby and the Mother (Earthbound) series. Their name comes from the HAL computer in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

1986: The world gets its first glimpse of Link as The Legend of Zelda goes on sale in Japan. This was a launch title for the Famicom Disk System that also released the same day.

1986: Japanese singer/songwriter Ai Kawashima is born. Many of her pieces are featured on their soundtracks. Most recently, she did the theme for Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon.

February 22

2005: Project: Snowblind is released. Early in its development cycle, it was originally intended to be the third game in the Deus Ex series. When Deus Ex: Invisible War did not make as much as expected, its sequel underwent several changes that put it into a separate universe.

2005: Ubisoft announces the ill-advised America's Army: Rise of a Solider. The American military sponsored the game in effort to lure more gamers into the army. The plan backfired after the game's poor reception and overall bland design.

February 23

2005: Altus announces that they will publish Samurai Western in the U.S.

February 24

1955: Co-founder and chief executive of Apple Inc. Steve Jobs is born.

1994: Sonic the Hedgehog 3 goes on sale in Europe.

2004: Puyo Pop Fever, the last game Sega developed for the Dreamcast, is released.

2005: Hironobu Sakaguchi, known as the father of the Final Fantasy series, leaves Square-Enix and joins Microsoft Game Studios. After this, he began working on Lost Odyssey.

February 25

2002: Jet Set Radio Future, the follow-up to the Dreamcast game Jet Grind Radio, is released on the Xbox.