The Birth of Video Games and
Computer Games
: The Late 1940's and 1950's
Reader notes : There
are numerous debates over who created the "first video
game", with answers depending on how the term is defined.
The evolution of video games represents a web of different industries, including
scientific, computer, arcade and consumer electronics.
We
have attempted, after days of research and study, to present what we think
is the most accurate recounting of early video game
history
The foundation
for the first video games were created
by using early CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) technology that
was based in US missile defense systems developed in
the late 1940s. Some of these programs were
later adapted into other simple games during the 1950s.
By the late 1950s, more computer video games were developed
by defense contractor workers, while gradually increasing
in their sophistication and complexity.
The earliest known instance of an
interactive electronic game was first created
in 1947 by both Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr.
and Settle Ray Mann, and entitled as
the "Cathode Ray Tube
Amusement Device", which in reality was the
first missile simulation game, and inspired by the radar
displays from World War II and were shown on early cathode
ray tubes. A patent for this game device was applied
for in January 1947, and U.S. Patent # 2,455,992 was
granted in December 1948. The
game used analog circuitry, not digital circuits to
control the CRT beam and also position a dot on the
screen. Screen "overlays" were used for the missile
targets, since screen graphics at the time were not
advanced enough to be drawn yet.
 In
1950, Charly Adama created the
"Bouncing Ball" video game program for
MIT's Whirlwind Computer, the very first
computer to
display real time video, which was first demonstrated
in April 1951 after being developed in the late 40's.
This was the first computer capable of displaying real
time text and graphics on a video terminal, which at
this time was a large oscilloscope screen. The Whirlwind
was also the first computer to use core memory, which
permanently stores binary data on magnets within a wire
grid. While "Bouncing Ball"
was not
interactive, it was the precursor of games to come.
In February
1951, Christopher Strachey, a British
computer scientist, and
one of the founders of denotational semantics, as well
as a early pioneer
in programming languages, designed a Checkers
(Draughts) computer
game program to run on the Pilot ACE computer,
which was one of the
first computers built in the UK at the National Physical
Laboratory (NPL) .
The rotary phone dial shown at center was used to make
game moves.
In May
1951, the NIMROD computer, created
by the major UK electrical engineering and equipment
firm Ferranti International
was presented
at
the Festival of Britain. Using a panel of lights
for its display, it was designed exclusively to play
the game of NIM; this was the very first
instance of a digital computer designed specifically
to play a game in recorded history.
The picture at left shows a live game demonstration
at the festival in 1951.
NIM, which
is a ancient (dating back to at least the 16th Century)
two-player mathematical game of strategy, in which players
take turns removing objects from distinct heaps.
NIMROD could play
either the traditional or "reverse" form of the game.
On each
turn, a player must remove at least one object, and
may remove any number of objects provided they all come
from the same heap. NIM is a simple game, where
you start with a number of piles of tokens. Each player
in turn takes one or more tokens from any one pile,
and the game continues until the last token is taken
from the last pile.
 In
1952, "OXO", a computer program
for Tic-Tac-Toe (also known
as Noughts and Crosses) was created by Alexander
S. Douglas
as illustration for his Ph.D. thesis on "human-computer
interaction"
for the University of Cambridge. OXO was
the first digital graphical simulation game, and ran
on the EDSAC Computer at Cambridge,
which used a cathode ray tube as a visual display for
programs, in
one of the world's first 'stored-program" computers.
OXO is often
cited as the first true computer game. In OXO
the player played
against the computer. OXO did not obtain widespread
popularity
because the EDSAC was a computer unique to Cambridge.
Click Here For A Computer
Simulation Of The OXO Computer Console
In 1958, a video
game called "Tennis for Two"
was developed
at the Brookhaven National Labs (BNL) by
American physicist William A. Higinbotham
on an analog computer,
which simulated a game of tennis or ping pong on an
oscilloscope. It is important in the history of video
games as being one of the first electronic games to
use a graphical display. Tennis for Two is widely
regarded as the predecessor of PONG the first
and one of the most recognized video arcade games of
all time,
though there was never any direct connection between
these games
Higinbotham, a physics graduate of
Cornell University, who also worked at Los
Alamos on the Manhattan Project, who also
had a love for pinball machines,
wanted to develop an interesting exhibit for a upcoming
open house event at
BNL that would both entertain and engage people at his
new place of work,
where he was the head of BNL's Instrumentation Division. He learned that
one of Brookhaven's computers could calculate ballistic
missile trajectories
and he used this ability to form the game's foundation
and development.
 Higinbotham
developed Tennis for Two in just a couple
of weeks after his initial idea, and debuted the game
at Brookhaven's open house in October, 1958.
In this first historic video game, a "tennis ball",
or blip of light, bounces off a horizontal line
at the bottom of a tiny five-inch diameter oscilloscope
screen, with a vertical line in the center of the screen
representing a tennis net. Players controlled the game
with a small box equipped with a dial and a push button
(the first game controllers)
 Players interacted with the "ball" using one of the
two analog aluminum game
controllers to click a button to hit the ball and use
a knob to control the angle.
Hitting the ball also emitted a sound. The controller
device was designed in
about two hours and was assembled within three weeks
with the help of
Robert V. Dvorak. Excluding the oscilloscope
assembly, the all of the game's circuitry took up
approximately
the space of modern
microwave oven.
 "Tennis For Two"
was regarded as
a huge hit during its initial showing on October 18,
1958 at BNL facility (shown at left). Hundreds
of visitors waited
for hours in line to play his new invention, and due to the game's popularity,
an upgraded version was shown the following year, with
enhancements including a larger screen and different
levels of simulated gravity. After
the event is concluded, Higinbotham doesn't bother trying
to copyright his
very unique creation, because he thinks nothing will
ever come of it...
Click Here For Video About
The History Of "Tennis For Two' |
Video Of Restored Game
In Use
In
1959, a collection of interactive
graphical programs were created
on the TX-0 experimental computer at MIT. These included
Mouse
in the Maze
and
Tic-Tac-Toe. Mouse in the Maze
allowed users
to use a light pen to place maze walls,
dots that represented bits of cheese,
and (in some versions) glasses of martini.
A virtual mouse represented by a dot
was then released and would traverse
the maze to find the objects. Tic-Tac-Toe
used the light pen as well to play a
simple game of checkers and crosses
against the computer.
The Early Era of Video
Game and Video Arcade Games Development : The 1960's
 In
1961, a group of students at MIT, including
Steve Russell, programmed
a game titled Spacewar! on the DEC PDP-1,
a new computer at the time.
The game pitted two human players against each other,
each controlling
a spacecraft capable of firing missiles, while a star
in the center of the screen created a large hazard for
the crafts. The game was eventually distributed with
new DEC computers and traded throughout the primitive
new "Internet". Spacewar ! is one of the first
influential computer games.
Click Here For A Video
Clip Of A Restored "Spacewar!" Video Game In Use
 Meanwhile in the
mid to late 1960's, the roots of modern day gaming,
including the first home video game console were slowly
taking place..
Ralph Baer, who has frequently been called
the "Thomas Edison of
the Video Game" was working for a small electronics
company in the Bronx called Loral back in 1951, and
while discussing designs for a
new premium TV set with other colleagues, Baer suggested
a new feature that might be included in the set to distinguish
it from the competition by adding some sort of "interactive
game" to the TV.
 Fifteen years later
in 1966, while sitting bored at a bus
stop, Ralph Baer rekindled his idea for an interactive
video ‘game’ machine. Refining his ideas into a four-page
document,
Baer wrote down various types of games that he
thought would be feasible, such as action games, board
games, sports games, chase games and others. The games
would appear on either Channel 3 or 4, which he called
Channel LP for "Let's Play!" Later that year,
he drew an elementary schematic of a two-player game
that he called a Chase Game. The game consisted
of two squares (spots) that could be moved on the screen
in both directions by two players.
Baer, who in 1966 was working at military electronics
contractor Sanders Associates in New Hampshire,
engaged his co-worker Bill Harrison in
the pursuit of his project, and started and lead the
development of the
first "Brown Box",
the first
home video game console and video game system, as well
as creating a simple video game named Corndog,
the first video game ever to display on a standard television
set.
Click Here For A Video Clip Of A Ralph Baer & Bill Harrison
Playing with the "Brown Box"
Later in 1967, with the assistance of Baer,
Bill Harrison created the first light gun and
developed several video games with Bill Rusch.
Baer
went
on in 1967 to demo the world's first playable
video game on a TV set:
The Chase Game, consisting of two squares
chasing each other, while continuing
his game development, and in 1968 the first video
console game prototype was completed that was able to
actually run several different games such as table tennis
and target shooting, all combined into one unit
As a footnote to this era and Baer's work, in
1971, the "Brown Box" video game console
prototype was refined and officially licensed to
Magnavox,
and after being renamed the Magnavox Odyssey,
the first home video gaming console for televisions,
which was released to the public in 1972.
Baer also later created the first light gun
and game for home television
use, sold grouped with a game expansion pack for the
Odyssey known
as the Shooting Gallery. The light gun Baer
came up with was the very
first mass-produced gaming peripheral for a video game
or video console.
Click Here For A Early
Television Commercial For The Magnavox Odyssey
The Golden Age Of Video Arcade Games | 1970 - 1985
The Early 1970's saw the creation of today's
multi-billion dollar worldwide market for Video Games,
the establishment of the Arcade Gameroom and
origins of the Digital Out-Of-Home Entertainment
Industry.
The
"Galaxy Game" is the earliest known coin-operated
video arcade game.
It was first installed in September, 1971 at
Stanford University in the Tresidder Union
building, two months before the release of Computer
Space, the first mass-produced video arcade game.
The Galaxy Game was programmed by
Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck.
Like Computer Space, it was a yet another version
of the existing " Spacewar ! " video game created
in the early 1960s.
The
game cost around $20,000 to build, using a DEC
PDP-11 computer and
a vector display terminal. The game cost 10 cents to
play, or three games for
25 cents. Only one unit was built initially. In 1972,
improved hardware and processing power and allowed the
expansion from four to eight consoles, allowing users
to play against each other. The game remained popular
on campus, with wait times for players as much as one
hour, until it was
removed in 1979 due to damage to the game monitor screens.
Also
in 1971, Nolan Bushnell and
Ted Dabney co-created a coin-operated
video arcade game version of Spacewar! and called
it Computer Space.
Nutting Associates bought the game rights and manufactured over 1,500
Computer Space machines, with the release taking
place in November 1971.
The game was unsuccessful due to its steep learning curve, but
it was a
landmark in the industry formative years as being the
first mass-produced
coin operated video arcade game, and the first offered
for commercial sale.
Bushnell and Dabney then went on to found the storied
Atari, Inc. in 1972
before releasing their next game that would change everything
: Pong
Click Here For A Video
Clip Of The "Computer Space" Video Arcade Game
In Use !
In 1972, PONG, a tennis sports
video game featuring simple
2D graphics is released and becomes the first commercially
successful coin operated video arcade game in history.
PONG quickly became a huge hit and its
success led to the
start of the modern video game industry as we know of
today
 PONG was
developed by Atari Inc., founded in June 1972 by
Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, and the actual
game was created by
Allan Alcorn from ideas by Bushnell who was influenced
by an electronic ping-pong game already on the market
in Magnavox's Odyssey home console game.
Alcorn had
no experience creating video games, but because of his
experience with electrical engineering and computer
science, he was asked by Bushnell
to create
a simple video game with one moving spot, two paddles,
and digits for score keeping as a training exercise
to "warm-up"
to designing future video games
Click Here For A Video
Clip Of The "PONG" Video Arcade Game In Use !
 Three months
into development, Bushnell told Alcorn he wanted
the game to feature realistic sound effects and a roaring
crowd. Dabney also wanted the game to "boo" and "hiss"
when a player lost a round. Alcorn was running out of
room on the circuit board and did not know how to create
such sounds with digital circuits. After inspecting
some of circuits, he discovered one could be
used generate different tones for the game's sound effects.
To construct the prototype, Alcorn purchased a black
and white television set from a local store, placed
it into a 4 foot high wooden cabinet, and then soldered
the wires into boards to create the necessary circuitry,
and PONG was born! The PONG prototype
impressed Bushnell and Dabney so much they felt it could
be a
very profitable game, and decided to test its marketability
in public.
In September 1972, Bushnell and Alcorn installed the
first PONG prototype at a local Northern California
bar called Andy Capp's Tavern, which was selected
because of the relationship the two had with the bar's
manager, Bill Gaddis. The PONG video game
was an instant hit at the tavern, and its popularity
continued to grow until a few days later, when the game
stopped working and Alcorn was called to fix it. Upon
inspecting the machine, Alcorn discovered it was not
broken as suspected, but because of its popularity with
the bar patrons, the coin mechanisms had jammed from
the avalanche of quarters pouring into the coin bucket
in the cabinet base, which caused a shutdown!
PONG went on from that point to be a great success
for Atari, Inc. and by 1973, the company had filled
over
2,500 orders, and in 1974 sold more than 8,000 units.
Atari eventually sold more than 35,000 units; however,
many more imitations were produced by competitors. Similar
games appeared on the market in months, but
Atari could do little against the competitors as they
had
not initially filed for patents on the solid state technology
used in the game. Many gaming experts and publications
consider PONG to be the one game which launched
the video game industry as a lucrative enterprise, and
PONG has been called one of the most historically
significant titles in video game history, and the starting
point of the "arcade phenomenon" and of digital out-of-home
entertainment.
Click Here For A Video
On Nolan Bushnell / The Founding Of Atari - Part 1
|
Part 2
| Part 3
The Golden Era of Video Games was a time
of great technical and design creativity in arcade games. Video arcade games were
designed in a wide variety of genres, while game developers
had to work within strict limits of available processor
power and memory. This era also saw the rapid spread
of video arcades and gamerooms across North America,
Europe and Japan. At the same time, video games started
to appear in supermarkets, restaurants, bars, pubs,
liquor stores, gas stations, bowling alleys storefronts
and many other retail establishments looking for extra
income and customer traffic. Very popular video arcade
games occasionally caused a crush of teenagers, eager
to try the latest in public video entertainment.
The two most successful arcade game companies of this
era were Namco (the Japanese company
that created Pac-Man, Pole Position, and
Dig Dug) and Atari (the US-based
company that first introduced video games into arcades).
These two companies wrestled for the number one and
two slots in American arcades for several years. Other
prominent gaming companies such as Sega,
Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, Taito,
Williams, Bally / Midway Manufacturing Company,
Cinematronics and SNK among others
also played major roles in the development of the Video
Arcade Game industry in the Golden Age.
 
 
 The Golden Era saw the development and experimentation
with new game hardware and human interface devices (HID)
in video arcade games. New games were created using
"vector display" monitors, which produced crisp lines
as opposed to older "raster displays", and new player
controls cropped up using more than joysticks and buttons
- Atari first introduced the trackball in the
1978 title Football and the first life-like
steering wheel appeared in Atari's Night Driver,
and Hogan's Alley by Nintendo introduced
the first light guns ever used in video games. Other
new game controls, such as pedals in racing games also
debuted in this era.
Atari Night Driver circa
1976
Nintendo Hogan's Alley circa 1984
Atari Football circa 1978
With the enormous success of the early video arcade
games, dozens of game developers jumped into
the development and manufacturing of video arcade games.
Some simply copied existing game ideas
and turned out successful imitators, while others tried
new concepts and defined new genres. Rapidly evolving
hardware allowed new kinds of games which surpassed
the capabilities of the earliest "shoot
'em up" type games. New arcade game titles introduced
new types of game play, where a player's skill,
timing and hand-eye coordination were more important
than just shooting things as fast as possible.
Midway
Asteroids, c1978 Midway
Space Invaders, c1978 Namco
Galaxian, c1979
Donkey Kong, c1981
The arcade game industry truly entered its "Golden
Age" in the late 70's and early 80's, with consumer
awareness and market penetration of video arcade machines
in bars, pubs, shopping malls, storefronts and restaurants
rising rapidly with introductions of such classic video
arcade machines like Asteroids,
Space Invaders, Galaxian, Donkey
Kong, and the timeless video arcade classic game,
Pac-Man.
The release of Pac-Man (Pakku-Man, Puck-Man) by Namco
in 1980 (Bally / Midway in the US)
was so successful and caused such a sensation that
the game itself entered into mainstream popular culture,
and created what is now referred to as "Pac-Mania".
Immensely popular in the US from its original release
to the present day, Pac-Man is universally considered
as one of the classics of the video game medium, and
virtually synonymous with video games, and a important
icon of the 1980s pop culture. Pac-Man became
a truly global social phenomenon that also inspired
an animated television series and a top-ten hit single,
and Pac-Man, along with other popular video arcade
games from the Golden Era are often cited as
an identifying cultural experience of both Generation
X and late-born Baby Boomers alike - and
Pac-Man
is the only video arcade game from the era that
is
still in production today, and distributed by
Namco.
Original Pac Man Upright, Circa 1981
Original Pac Man Cocktail Table, Circa 1981
Puck-Man was developed over an eighteen month
period, beginning
in April of 1979 primarily by a young Namco
employee Toru Iwatani,
employing a nine-man team. The original title was pronounced
"Pakku-Man", a contraction of "Paku-Paku"
which describes the sound of mouth movement when widely
opened and closed rapidly. Although it is often
cited that the character's shape was inspired by a pizza
missing a slice, Iwatani admitted that it was
really a "half-truth", and the character design also
came from simplifying and rounding out the Japanese
character for mouth, "Kuchi", as well as the
basic concept of eating. Iwatani's efforts to
appeal to a wider audience beyond the typical demographics
of young
boys and teenagers eventually led him to add elements
of a maze.
When Puck-Man was first launched in Japan by
Namco in 1980, it received a lukewarm response.
But the following year, the game was picked up for US
market by Bally / Midway under the altered title
"Pac-Man". The name was changed from
Puck Man to Pac-Man because it was thought
that vandals might try to change the
letter "P" in "Puck" to an "F", forming a common expletive.
However, Puck-Man machines can still be found
throughout Europe today. Midway also decided to redesigned
the cabinet's artwork, as the Namco artwork for Puck-Man
was deemed more costly to produce.
When Pac-Man was released, most arcade
video games in North America were primarily space shooters
such as Space Invaders, Defender, or
Asteroids. Pac-Man introduced an element
of humor into video games that designers sought to imitate,
and appealed to a wider demographic than the teenage
boys
who flocked to the action-oriented games, and Pac-Man
succeeded by creating a new game genre in
the fast growing video arcade industry, and for the
first time, a game that really appealed to females.
 Pac-Man
is often credited with being a landmark in video game
history, and is among the most famous arcade games of
all time.
The character also appears in more than 30 officially
licensed game spin-offs, as well as in numerous unauthorized
clones and bootlegs. According to the Davie-Brown
Index, Pac-Man has the highest
brand awareness of any video game character among American
consumers, recognized by 94 percent of them
Pac-Man's success in North America took competitors
and distributors completely by surprise. Marketing executives
who saw Pac-Man at a trade show prior to its
release completely overlooked the game, while focusing
on a racing car game called "Rally-X"
as the game to buy that year. But Pac-Man quickly
became far more popular than anything seen before in
the game industry up to that point, and outstripped
Asteroids as the best-selling arcade game
of the time, and would go on to sell over 350,000 units
worldwide.
Pac-Man was so popular that there are several
anecdotes from the era that many game owners had to
empty the game's coin bucket every hour in order to
prevent the game's coin mechanism from jamming from
having too many coins in the receptacle. (Which also
first happened to the very first PONG game placed
on public display in California, which is a countlessly
retold story of legend)
Pac-Man went on to become an icon of video game
culture during the 1980s, and a wide variety of Pac-Man
merchandise was marketed with the character's image,
from t-shirts and toys to hand-held video game imitations
and even specially shaped pasta.
 Click
Here To Play The Pac-Man Arcade Game Online Here (Flash
Required)
Towards the end of the Golden Era, national
chains emerged such as Chuck E. Cheese's,
Dave and Busters and other similar
entertainment
center concepts that combined a traditional restaurant
and/or
bar environment with arcade games, and helped established
the rapidly growing "family entertainment center" and
digital out-of-home entertainment industries, that continue
to be successful to this very day.
|
){kind=small}
