40th Anniversary of Video Games

CFN writes "According to this article in the New York Times (free registration...), this month marks the 40th anniversary of Spacewars, the very first video game ever created! It's very interesting to consider how quickly the popularity of video games grew, because, essentially, Spacewars was spontaneously generated. I guess there is something about blinking lights, flashing colors, and tinny sound effects that just appeals to the soul." Unfortunately, there was no violence before 1952, because we all know that violence is caused by video games. Oh, and I had a great version of spacewars that I used to play on a portable PC (Compaq with like a 5 inch green screen and a wopping 4 mhz!) when I was short. I loved that game.

Comments

kids today play too many video games...

[bje2]

this may seem blasphemous (sp?) to say here...don't get me wrong...i'm 22 and i personally love my PS2 & my PC...but when i was a kid growing up, i never had a console, and i think i was better off for it...sure i eventually had a game boy for a period of time, and i had the old apple IIc, but they weren't a nintendo, genesis, etc...and i think i turned out better off because of it...instead of being constantly inside trying to figure out how to get to world 8-1 of mario brothers, i was outside playing sports, riding my bike, building tree forts...kids today spend to much time playing video games, and not enough time experiencing interactions with real people...at a summer camp that i went to, they used to have enough kids interested in baseball, basketball, soccer, that they could field leagues with 10+ teams...now they're lucky if they get a half dozen kids interested in playing those sports....instead, everyone wants to spend their beautiful summer day inside playing on computers or something of that nature (i.e. Magic card games...)...kids need to be more active, and i know that when i eventually have kids, i am planning on strongly regulated the amount of time that they spend laying video games...it makes me upset to see the state of today's kids...it's leading to the "wussification" of our youth...when i head stories such as this one that talk about banning dodge ball, i think it's upsurd...

so, in conclusion, to those of you with kids, and those of you who plan to have them...don't let your them spend 24/7 trying to beat that the latest version of final fantasy...have them go outside...have them use their imagination...have them interact with others...

oh well...that was just my rant....