The Earliest Documented Video Game 28
AsiNisiMasa writes "The first documented video game was created in 1952 by a scientist who felt the need to give his work relevance to society. It was called 'Tennis for Two' and took up about as much room as one would expect. The article at Brookhaven History comes complete with several pictures and even video: 'A two-dimensional, side view of a tennis court was displayed on an oscilloscope, which has a cathode-ray tube similar to a black and white TV tube. In order to generate the court and net lines and the ball, it was necessary to time-share these functions. While the rest of the system used vacuum tubes and relays, the time-sharing circuit and the fast switches used transistors, which by 1958 were coming into use.'"
Interesting I guess, but... (Score:1, Funny)
very cool (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:very cool (Score:5, Informative)
Much much more complex than pong. But then again even in normal video game terms, pong wasn't first. I believe Spacewar was, though I'm not sure how complex that game was.
Re:very cool (Score:1)
Re:very cool (Score:3, Informative)
Paddles [atariage.com]
Re:very cool (Score:2)
All used an analog dial without stops, also known as a "paddle".
Re:very cool (Score:2)
OK, this depends on how you want to define "normal" video games:
First mass manufactured arcade videogame - Computer Space (Nutting Associates)
First mass manufactured home game console - Odyssey (Magnavox)
First hand-made dedicated videogame - Tennis for Two (Willy Higginbotham, Brookhaven National Laboratory))
First game program (that I know of) - Checkers (A. L. Samuel, IBM)
Not just old school - old news too :P (Score:1, Interesting)
Don't be hatin' (Score:2)
Up, Down, A, B, A, B, Start (Score:4, Funny)
(and yeah, it may not be new news, but lighten up. At this point, anything besides another 360, PSP or Hot Coffee lawsuit story is a breath of fresh air).
It was 1958. (Score:1)
Ahem. Carry on.
Re:It was 1958. (Score:3, Informative)
Tennis for two was not the first video game, as is widely believed.
Re:It was 1958. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It was 1958. (Score:1)
FTFA (Score:2)
Ho ho ho...
Re:FTFA (Score:2)
In the book Game Over...? (Score:2)
Re:In the book Game Over...? (Score:1)
Re:In the book Game Over...? (Score:1)
Old News (Score:1, Interesting)
I always thought is was that gravity game (Score:2)
Is this true? I am sure the real first computer game was nothing like what we imagine, it was perhaps a 'numebr guess' game or something.
o.0
Re:I always thought is was that gravity game (Score:1)
That came slightly later in 1960 on the PDP-1.
A noughts and crosses/tic tac toe game on the EDSAC [pong-story.com] system, was possibly the first ever computer game, created in 1952 by A. S. Douglas at the University of Cambridge, though not really a true video game like Tennis For Two,
even earlier (Score:2, Informative)
Video games go back even further. Patent 2,455,992 (i.e. the Goldsmith patent) is called _Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device_. It was filed on Jan 25, 1947 and granted on Dec 14, 1948. From it:
"This invention relates to a device with which a game can be played. The game is of such a char
what about the EDSAC OXO program (Score:1)
I teach a class on videogame history, and this game of knots-and-crosses [pong-story.com] (OXO) in 1952 appears to be the earliest well documented computer game.
You can even download a simulator [warwick.ac.uk] and play/modify it.