History of Video Games

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Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday January 20, 2002 @02:24AM from the something-to-read dept.

seer writes "There's a nice history of videogames over at GameSpot. It starts with pre-videogame activity in 1889 with the Marufuku Company (later Nintendo) and stretches to the recently released GameCube-DVD system." Hey, it's sunday. No reason to knock yourself out reading the works of ancient philosophers (unless you're taking Ancient Philosophers 230 and have an exam this week).

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Thanks emu programmers by elcairo · 2002-01-20 02:37 · Score: 5, Informative

Because they saved a LOT of the videogames story. Project like
mame,
uae,
mess is simply amazing,
and thanks to any others that contributes.
1. Re:Thanks emu programmers by Carrot007 · 2002-01-20 11:41 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The correct address for the MESS project is www.mess.org
  
  X.mame.net is justy the 'nix port's addy. much more info is at the real page.
  
  and mess really is goo, check it out!
  
  caroot007
  
  --
  +----------------- | What is the question!
Re:I really miss Intellivision :-( by billn · 2002-01-20 02:47 · Score: 3, Informative

Tron: Deadly Discs, and Motocross. Hell, even the AD&D game was decent. Emphasis was on game play, not snazzy graphics. The only major failing of the intellivision was it's tendency to overheat and die when I was soooo far into a round of Tron. You even got used to the controllers after a while.

--
- billn
Missing? by larien · 2002-01-20 02:53 · Score: 3, Informative

Hrm, they mention the C64, but completely miss out the humble Speccy and Amstrad C64. Worse still, they omit the Amiga and ST as well.
Still, it's interesting to see how many of these companies start out; Nintendo started out selling playing cards, moved to computer games and then went back to cards with Pokemon (gotta buy 'em all!).
My particular favourite line was regarding "Death Race 2000": "Public outcry against video game violence gains national attention". This in 1976...
Lack of Detail by karmma · 2002-01-20 03:05 · Score: 4, Informative

I was very disappointed by the lack of detail in the article. For example: "Magnavox licenses Baer's TV game from Sanders Associates." That's all it mentions about a critical milestone in video game history. While the article notes that Sanders and Associates was a defense contractor, it doesn't mention that the game was classified as Top Secret by the Pentagon for four years while the military pondered its usefulness for their applications. It also fails to mention that RCA had first dibs on the game before Magnavox, but refused when the terms involved the purchase of Sanders and Assoc. along with the game machine itself.

If you want an informative (albeit poorly edited, IMHO) book about the early history of video games, check out "ZAP! The Rise and Fall of Atari" by Scott Cohen.
Re:The neverending life of a microcontroller by Bender_ · 2002-01-20 04:36 · Score: 2, Informative

The processor in the original PONG machines were comparable to what is used in the Nintendo Gameboy, 20 years later

You are probabably referring the the Z80. The Z80 was developed years after the original PONG machine, and could therefore hardly been used in PONG. In fact the original PONG machine did not use any CPU, but was all hardwired. AFAIR most of the circuit is analog.
In my assembly class, people like to complain that the 68k chip we're programming is "outdated".

Maybe the fail to notice that the x86 instruction set architecture is several years older than the 68k, which is for sure the best processor of its time. Even the 68060 from 1993 is still a marvel from an architecture point of view.