A History of Games- Part one: 1950s - 1970s

The history of computer games…well I’m not going to pretend I have great knowledge of the history of video games. By my Knowledge I believed that the first computer game was the tennis like game called Pong. But as of two hours ago, after a bit of research I’ve found that not only do computer games go as far back as the 1940s and Pong was a developed variant of a previous game which was created 14 years before and was known as ‘Tennis for Two’.

According to the supreme knowledge base of wiki and other websites it can be said that the history of computer games started in December 14, 1948 with Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann idea/patent of "cathode ray tube amusement device". So it was only a patent for a computer game where a person can use knobs and buttons to manipulate a cathode ray tube beam to simulate firing laser beams at "air-borne" targets, but at least the base idea of computer games was there. I do find it kind of amusing that the first idea for a computer game was basically a shooter. Just shows that deep down all men are like Michael Bay with a obsession with guns and explosions.

classic Michael bay!!!!!!!

In 1958 William a. Higginbotham, comes up with the idea is to use a small analogue computer in the lab to graph and display the trajectory of a moving ball on an oscilloscope, with which users can interact. After three weeks they manage to make the idea reality and they name the game system Tennis for Two. In basic terms it was side-view tennis game, where the ball bounces off a long horizontal line at the bottom of the oscilloscope, and there is a small vertical line in the centre to represent the net. And apparently the game was simple, but fun to play.

Spacewar! Developed in 1962 at MIT by Stephen Russell, it is classed as the first influential computer game. The Idea of the game was to have two human players against each other, each controlling a spacecraft capable of firing missiles, while a star in the centre of the screen created a large hazard for the crafts. Spacewar originally ran on a PDP-1 computer which was apparently the size of a large car. I can imagine being a student at that time and finding it hard to persuade your parents to bring Spacewars and PDP-1 down in the car to have in your accommodation while at university. I bet people were glad when the game was eventually distributed with new DEC computers and traded using the primitive version of today’s Internet.

                 

Then later in 1971, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney took the idea of Spacewars and created one of the first coin-operated arcades. However I’m guessing to copyright issues the game was called Computer Space.  After being released in November 1971 it came apparent that the game was too difficult due to its steep learning curve and was deemed unsuccessful, but this was said to be a landmark as the first mass-produced video game and the first offered for commercial sale.

After the not so successful ‘Computer Space’ and arcades machines becoming a hit, with the creation of ‘Pong’ in 1972 which is classically known by the sound the game makes when the ball hits a paddle or side of the screen, The arcade scene became a whole lot more crowded, between 1971 and 1973, with 30 videogames being produced for the arcade by 11 manufacturers. With the advances in computer technology the arcades later became developed into the more advanced games we were used to playing at the age 6, such as Time crisis and Metal Slug 2.