Anatomy of the First Video Game, Born 1958 137
afabbro writes "Fifty years ago, before 'Pong' and 'Space Invaders,' a nuclear physicist created 'Tennis for Two,' a 2-D tennis game that some say was the first video game ever. Built in 1958, it was 'gynormous.' 'In addition to the oscilloscope screen and the controller, the guts of the original game were contained in an analog computer, which is "about as big as a microwave oven."' 'We have to load it into the back of a station wagon to move it. It's not a Game Boy that you put in your pocket.'"
Writing quality? (Score:4, Informative)
The prefix "gyn" means female. Maybe you meant "ginormous", but even so...
Re:Nope, it was the second video game. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Anyone have more information? (Score:1, Informative)
You aren't, as such. Your controls are a potentiometer to set an angle, and a button to hit. You can hit the ball at any time that it is on your side of the court. There was a better article about it linked here about a year back, had a version that had been rewritten for modern machines and even network play.
Re:Technically it isn't (Score:3, Informative)
Man do you fail. "Vector" games used CRTs much like oscilloscopes. Some even used storage scopes. The video in video game does not need to be a raster display.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Anyone have more information? (Score:2, Informative)
[...] had a version that had been rewritten for modern machines and even network play.
http://gamersquarter.com/tennisfortwo/ [gamersquarter.com]
Re:Technically it isn't (Score:1, Informative)
This is so completely stupid and wrong.
A raster display on a cathode ray tube is created by scanning the electron beam in horizontal lines from top to bottom, while varying the beam intensity.
A vector display uses the electron beam to draw lines directly on the screen. They were popular in early CAD applications and Atari used them for several 3D games (e.g. Star Wars) because they were capable of much higher resolution than the raster displays of the time.
In other words, an oscilloscope is much the same thing as a TV - the difference is in how the electron beam is controlled. But all of this has fuck all to do with any definition of video game.