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Videogames: In the Beginning
evanak (Evan Koblentz) writes "Last year, at the PhillyClassic videogame event, I noticed a teenager wearing an ironic t-shirt. His shirt showed an original Nintendo controller and said 'Know your roots.' Sadly, it's not just modern youngsters who are unaware of their technological roots -- sometimes even we self-proclaimed adult über nerds are equally unaware. Regarding videogames, this is especially true, and now industry pioneer Ralph Baer is trying to rectify the situation. His attempt takes the form of a sincere autobiography, although with mixed results. The book is titled Videogames: In the Beginning." Read on for the rest of Koblentz's review.
Videogames: In the Beginning
author
Ralph Baer
pages
260
publisher
Rolenta Press
rating
8
reviewer
Evan Koblentz
ISBN
0964384817
summary
Autobiography of the inventor of home videogames
According to Rolenta publisher Lenny Herman (the author of Phoenix: The Fall & Rise of Videogames), Baer became interested in documenting his own experiences a few years ago, when the mainstream media began heaping praise with increasing frequency on Atari founder Nolan Bushnell.
Baer begins his story as expected: a detailed explanation of why he, not Bushnell, should be called the father of videogames. Baer, as Slashdot readers probably know, invented the prototype console that eventually became the Magnavox Odyssey. He explains that he suggested building a game feature to differentiate Loral Electronics' high-end televisions in 1951, but that his idea was declined by management; that he got serious about the idea and built his first prototype while working at defense contractor Sanders Associates in late 1966; and that Bushnell attended a demonstration (and signed the guestbook) in 1972 before founding Atari and consequently building his own version of Pong.
That's fair, and if Baer were to conclude the first chapter with the book's subtitle -- "the inventor of home videogames" (note the qualifier of "home" vs. "all") -- then it would be an acceptable story. However, he takes the argument into a different and surprising direction. He asserts that everything before his time -- such as Willy Higginbotham's 1958 oscilloscope-based tennis game at Brookhaven National Laboratory and MIT hacker Steve Russell's Spacewar from the 1960s -- were not "real" games simply because they used non-standard screens and weren't commercially viable. (But so what? They were no less entertaining. By common sense, and not a console purist's definition, a "videogame" is a game played on a video screen, period. I'm sorry if Bushnell gets credit for the invention of practical, home videogames where Baer rightfully deserves it, but that's no reason to indict the whole history of creative computer science.)
Happily, the Baer drops the matter after the first chapter, and continues telling the story of his adventures working with Sanders and Magnavox. Better yet, it turns out that these adventures are fascinating and worth reading no matter when or what Baer originally invented. Among the technologies he helped to develop were methods for delivering game content over cable television networks, the use of cartridges for storing game data, interactive videotape and videodisk systems, instant-replay features for sports games, and methods for drawing on the screen. He also invented the famous electronic Simon toy. For most of this time, he made a living by designing military simulators for Sanders Associates. In addition, for most of these issues, Baer includes not just prose about the how and why, but also detailed and full-color technical notes, illustrations, and even schematics. There are also sections focusing on the business issues he faced while trying to get Magnavox and other large corporations (such as Coleco and Nintendo) interested in his unproven ideas, which of course were correct, or else you wouldn't be read this. Another section of the book deals with lawsuits involving Bushnell.
Baer has two more treats for us before closing his autobiography. First, he includes eight appendices, focusing on the Simon and other toys; a television games chronology; a Magnavox timeline; notebook entries from 1966-1972; patents; schematics and experiments; timelines of all of his projects sorted by date and category; and a bibliography. Second, for hands-on readers, there is an optional CD available for $10, which includes the necessary information for building your own Brown Box prototype and with video of Baer demonstrating how to play it. (My review copy didn't include the CD, so I'm basing this on what's stated in the book and on an email from the publisher.)
Overall, I recommend checking out this book. There are other videogame histories, but none so thorough from the perspective of a pioneer who actually lived it. If you can get past the controversial first chapter, you will find a great tale of ingenuity, persistence, ambition, and justice, along with some very cool technological insights. Or, as summarized by Steve Wozniak on the back cover, "I can never thank Ralph enough for what he gave to me and everyone else." Game on!
You can purchase Videogames: In the Beginning from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
According to Rolenta publisher Lenny Herman (the author of Phoenix: The Fall & Rise of Videogames), Baer became interested in documenting his own experiences a few years ago, when the mainstream media began heaping praise with increasing frequency on Atari founder Nolan Bushnell.
Baer begins his story as expected: a detailed explanation of why he, not Bushnell, should be called the father of videogames. Baer, as Slashdot readers probably know, invented the prototype console that eventually became the Magnavox Odyssey. He explains that he suggested building a game feature to differentiate Loral Electronics' high-end televisions in 1951, but that his idea was declined by management; that he got serious about the idea and built his first prototype while working at defense contractor Sanders Associates in late 1966; and that Bushnell attended a demonstration (and signed the guestbook) in 1972 before founding Atari and consequently building his own version of Pong.
That's fair, and if Baer were to conclude the first chapter with the book's subtitle -- "the inventor of home videogames" (note the qualifier of "home" vs. "all") -- then it would be an acceptable story. However, he takes the argument into a different and surprising direction. He asserts that everything before his time -- such as Willy Higginbotham's 1958 oscilloscope-based tennis game at Brookhaven National Laboratory and MIT hacker Steve Russell's Spacewar from the 1960s -- were not "real" games simply because they used non-standard screens and weren't commercially viable. (But so what? They were no less entertaining. By common sense, and not a console purist's definition, a "videogame" is a game played on a video screen, period. I'm sorry if Bushnell gets credit for the invention of practical, home videogames where Baer rightfully deserves it, but that's no reason to indict the whole history of creative computer science.)
Happily, the Baer drops the matter after the first chapter, and continues telling the story of his adventures working with Sanders and Magnavox. Better yet, it turns out that these adventures are fascinating and worth reading no matter when or what Baer originally invented. Among the technologies he helped to develop were methods for delivering game content over cable television networks, the use of cartridges for storing game data, interactive videotape and videodisk systems, instant-replay features for sports games, and methods for drawing on the screen. He also invented the famous electronic Simon toy. For most of this time, he made a living by designing military simulators for Sanders Associates. In addition, for most of these issues, Baer includes not just prose about the how and why, but also detailed and full-color technical notes, illustrations, and even schematics. There are also sections focusing on the business issues he faced while trying to get Magnavox and other large corporations (such as Coleco and Nintendo) interested in his unproven ideas, which of course were correct, or else you wouldn't be read this. Another section of the book deals with lawsuits involving Bushnell.
Baer has two more treats for us before closing his autobiography. First, he includes eight appendices, focusing on the Simon and other toys; a television games chronology; a Magnavox timeline; notebook entries from 1966-1972; patents; schematics and experiments; timelines of all of his projects sorted by date and category; and a bibliography. Second, for hands-on readers, there is an optional CD available for $10, which includes the necessary information for building your own Brown Box prototype and with video of Baer demonstrating how to play it. (My review copy didn't include the CD, so I'm basing this on what's stated in the book and on an email from the publisher.)
Overall, I recommend checking out this book. There are other videogame histories, but none so thorough from the perspective of a pioneer who actually lived it. If you can get past the controversial first chapter, you will find a great tale of ingenuity, persistence, ambition, and justice, along with some very cool technological insights. Or, as summarized by Steve Wozniak on the back cover, "I can never thank Ralph enough for what he gave to me and everyone else." Game on!
You can purchase Videogames: In the Beginning from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
"If Pacman had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
Are there any people out there who reminice once and a while about the days of playing Doom over IPX with 3 other players on various BBS's over 14.4K and having rocket wars? I found those days especially fun, even tho technology is so much better today.
Will check this book out. And hey!! Wher's my Atari!!??
Java Oracle Linux Enthusiast
Bought it at Target, you know, ground zero of everything geek-chic.
i don't know how the 'know your roots' t-shirt is ironic. i mean, it's not like everybody is 40 years old and still playing pong. 'your' would imply that the roots he is 'knowing' are relative to his own life, not that of some intelevision spaz touting the depth of burger time gameplay.
Let's get it out there and just start complaining about kids these days and how we started...
Atari 2600 and Space Invaders (I chewed the controllers)...
Tandy II TRS-80 (didn't have the tape deck so I couldn't save my programs and it had no monitor - it hooked to a television)
No punchcards to complain of, but I do recall playing with an abacus when I was in kindergarten...
(re: subject)
I have a videogame collection with close to 1000 original game carts and systems as well as thousands more in emulation. When younger kids/relatives come over they don't even know how to USE a NES/SNES let alone an Atari or the likes, but once I brief them they all love them. TAZ for Atari 2600 is one game that holds up so well it is amazing, or Warlords.
The "roots" of gaming were FUN games, easy play, and great simple control. Gaming really needs to get back to its roots and stop trying to be the next multi-billion hollywood-like crap industry.
Music has been turned artificial, movies have followed suit, I guess games are next. When people will wake up and stop accepting this crap is beyond me. People have no "soul" anymore, they want fluff with no real substance, typical disposable society.
Ask a teenager to hum or whistle their favorite song... they can't do it because there is nothing but a catchy hook, it's empty. Same thing with games, they have tons of flash and glitz but no soul and it isn't getting any better.
The only hope is that the Nintendo Revolution claims to simplify the controller so that even a mom can play, with this simplification of controller should force game developers to go back to THEIR roots and begin to produce fun and enjoyable games with some heart put into them.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
I can still vividly recall playing Pac-Man and Scramble at the local roller rinks, and Donkey Kong and Defender at the front entrance of the local grocery store. I would scrape together all the change I could find just on the off chance my parents would let me hit the arcade at the mall, just to take a whack at Tempest or Spy Hunter.
:D
Space Invaders, Lunar Lander, Omega Race... Rush N' Attack, Yie Ar Kung-Fu, P.O.W.... Ladybug, Tapper, Mappy... yeah, I know my roots.
And thanks to the joys of emulators, I can go back to my roots any time I want!
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
And if you're in Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry has a great exhibit for a couple more weeks, "Game On". It's a hands-on exhibit and historical/cultural look at video games. From the Museum's website...
"Forty years ago, video games didn't exist. The Nintendo Company made playing cards, Sony made black and white televisions and Sega imported instant photo booths. Families played games by rolling dice or dealing cards."
Cool Exhibit!
Quomodo cogis comas tuas sic videri?
I brought Steve Russell's Spacewar to Sanders in the early 1970s, and installed it on the PDP-1 in the basement. When Nintendo was contesting the Magnavox patents they couldn't find any evidence that Baer had seen or played Spacewar, but the possibility does exist, since they were in the same building at the same time. Does he say in his book whether or not he ever encountered Spacewar>
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Sadly, it's not just modern youngsters who are unaware of their technological roots
Um, he's only a teenager, those are his roots.
Last year, at the PhillyClassic videogame event, I noticed a teenager wearing an ironic t-shirt. His shirt showed an original Nintendo controller and said 'Know your roots.'
I hate to be picky*, but there's nothing wrong with that T-Shirt at all. It is not, as the reviewer implies, suggesting video games started with Nintendo, merely that the wearer's experience of video games started with the NES. Of course, without knowing the person wearing it there's no way to know if it's accurate or not, but you can't assume it isn't simply because it's a NES pad on the front.
* Actually I love being picky. Can't smoke, can't drink, drugs are out, what's left if I can't pick holes in topics on the net?
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Equally saddening is how few so-called "music lovers" know their real music roots and theory. Even the older ones are guilty of this.
...is J. C. Herz's Joystick Nation. It was published in 1997 so is pretty dated by now but it's still a fun read about the history of video and arcade games.
Want to improve your life? This guy will show you how!
www.klov.com
www.vaps.org
There is nothing like classic video games and pinballs. MAME is great, but still can't capture it completely. I am glad I got to grow up during the great era of arcades.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Well, if we believe what the police in Utah say, that's what a rave is... Especially the munching pills part.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Seriously what theh heck is wrong with saying your roots are in Nintendo? What I would take this shirt to imply would be that Nintendo were the ones who inovated video games largely back in the early ninties and late eighties. They made gaming incredibly fun, and that's where video gaming really started to take off. Contrast the fun early nintendo and super nintendo games with the crap that Sony is pushing no where most games sell because of pixelated breasts, blood, and by playing to the lowest common denominator. It's one of the reasons I still have yet to own any Sony playstation product. And actually might never. Also one of the reasons I refuse to buy just about anything from Sony.
I miss the days when i could play C64, Atari, Coleco and Intellivision until i had square eyes. Not a care in the world, as i was in the public school system.
videogame roots belong in a musuem
did you forget to take your meds?
I can't remember where I got it from (an online place) but I have a Roots shirt with an Atari controller on it. Bit better then the NES one and I'm fairly certain the NES one was a copy of the Atari shirt (I saw the NES one a few months after seeing the Atari one, but have never seen the atari shirt in stores.)
Jeez everyone knows that video games were invented by Al Gore!
Seriously though this story makes me think back on how much fun I used to have playing River Raid and PitFall (damn those alligators!)
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
Spacewar not a "real" game? What a crock! Here is Spacewar running on a PDP-11 emulator in a Java applet: :-)
http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/sp acewar/
It sounds to me that it's one of those "I invented the Internet" deals.
Sadly these guys were all beaten by a couple score of years by the table top gamers, and those beaten by centuries by Board games, and of course I'm sure there was cavemen who played "who can get hit the hardest" and they beat us all.
This book does sound interesting but the first chapter probably will throw most people, why don't people just accept they aren't the FIRST. There's only one, and it's likely to be an unstandardized and oddball chose, rather then a standardized idea. VMS and Unix easily predates Dos, tnd There's smaller OSes before that too, IBM is one of the first developers of computers, but hardly the first. Babbage is considered the creator of computers, but I'm sure even he stood on the shoulders of giants (while he was a giant himself too.)
I prefer my historians to be realistic, even if they do believe themselves to do great things, Carmack is a genius, and as long as he doesn't run around and say he single handly created the FPS (though he did a HELL of a lot for it) I'll applaud him, same thing with Gates admiting that he changed a fledgling OS into DOS, or helping to create Basic, no he didn't do it himself, but he did take a decent idea and make one of the first stardized "simplistic" programming languages.
Basically I just wish all these programmers or creators would just admit that they arn't the only person in the industry, admit what they did for the industry, and not they to make their accomplishment the only one in the industry, but then to make that wish I'd have to forget about human nature, and sadly I can't so I guess I understand the reasoning for it, but the wish will stay in my heart even if it's never spoken.
I have the same tshirt, because that's where I started gaming for the most part. :|
When I was your age, I decided not to walk to school uphill both ways 10km in the snow with no shoes to stay home and play games like Donkey Kong Mario Bros 1. Now all you wippersnappers play bling bling games like Quarter Life 2, and Battlefield 2-thousand or something. Hooligans I tell you.
Valkyrie is about to die! Wizard needs food -- badly!
The 1st video game for home use I remember was pong. I must have been 10 years old. The upgrade to that was tank. Now look at me. Running a clan and playing TO-AOT and CS:S. Yikes!!
I can see why he thinks the t-shirt is ironic - the shirt doesn't depict the earliest known example of video gaming, but I don't agree with his judgement.
If "roots" had to be the first known moment that a human did something (even if it was before your time), imagine the confusion. You couldn't say that your roots included MSDOS because the first computers did not run MSDOS. Would you have to say that the root was Babbage's mechanical computer, or would that be disqualified because it was never built?
It's a nonsense. If the person first played on the NES then the t-shirt is perfectly sincere.
As a senior project manager I am surrounded by 20-somethings who think that the world revolves around Halo and/or MechAssult...
Every once in a while I like to fire up either MAME or Stella (Atari 2600 emulator) to show them "the old days". I usually bring out Galaxian or Pac Man or Night Driver or Pitfall...
Oddly enough, some of these peeps have learned a bit and are enjoying using the emulators during break time.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
hackers conference.
I'm 25 (Born in 1980) The first game system I had was NES, in 1987. That is, I can't remember much before '86, and my parents didn't buy me Atari. So the NES really is the roots of my video gaming life. A teenager is probably beyond the original NES as far as roots go.
I've spent the last 8 years moving back and forth from college and various apartments... and 2 weeks ago, I dug my original NES out of the box, hooked it up, and played Metroid. It really was a blast from the past. It's been 15 years since I played it.
And if you really want a tribute to good ol' fashioned gossip and fan networks, think how fast the Justin Bailey code spread without the existene of the internet or BBS.
Those are roots.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
"We Didn't Stop Atari" By Francisco Rangel
l
(To the tune of We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel)
Harry Potter, Pokemon, Tomb Raider, Digimon
Monkey Island, Space Invaders, Super Mario
Maniac Mansion, Zero Mission, Mortal Kombat, Pole Position
Grand Theft Auto, Ninja Gaiden, Pong and Yu-gi-oh
Megaman, Depth Bomb, Asteroids, Robotron
Tetris, and Army Men, River Raid, and Suikoden
Castlevania, Kirby, Demolition Derby
Dragon Warrior, LEGO Racers, Yoshi's Island, Gauntlet
I really miss Atari. From when I was younger, Now the games are longer
So, I still play Nintendo. Like to keep it old-skool, 8-bit's always so cool
South Park Rally, Harvest Moon, Jungle Hunt and Zoo Tycoon
Double Dragon, Puyo Puyo, NBA Jam
Duck Hunt, Tony Hawk, Chrono Trigger, Chuck Rock
Q*Bert, Sonic, Worms, and Serious Sam
Half-life, Max Payne, Zak McKraken, and Bloodrayne
Onimusha, Sam and Max, Age of Empires, Golden Axe
Home run, Outer Space, Prince of Persia, Death Race
Alley Cat, Paperboy, Sinistar, SimCity
I used to love my gameboy
First they made it Color, Then they made is smaller
My portable companion
It has been enhanced now, So it's called "Advance" now
Bomberman, Burning Fight, Killer Instinct, Gyromite
Frogger, Basketball, Day of the Tentacle
Solitaire, and Sim Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark
Ice Climber, and Descent, and Unreal Tournament
There's Street Fighter, Zaxxon, Duke Nukem, Mafia
Need for Speed, Halo, Turok: Evolution
Rampage, Deus Ex, and that BMXXX
Metroid Prime and Fusion, Dance Dance Revolution
Genesis made by Sega. 16 bits of power Made Nintendo cower
They made Super Nintendo. Neither one was hated, Neither dominated
Leisure Suit Larry, Project Gotham Racing
Punchout, Zork, Doom, Zombies Ate My Neighbors
Legend of Kyrandia, DOA Beach Volleyball
Dig Dug, Nethack, Contra and Plaque Attack
Zelda, Moon Patrol, Battlezone and Star Control
Zero Wing, Baldur's Gate, FIFA Soccer 98
The 3D Revolution. First we saw Playstation, Our infatuation
N64 and Dreamcast. Came along to fight it, But they couldn't smite it
Splinter Cell, Ms. Pac Man, Donkey Kong is back again
Warcraft, Starcraft, Centipede, Xybots
Pitfall, Pengo, Burger Time, 3D Castle Wolfenstein
Ninja Turtles in Japan, Roger Wilco needs a tan.
Hogan's Alley, Excitebike, Quest For Glory, Counter-strike
Ultima, 7th Guest, Quake, Joust, Everquest
Klax, Defender, Earthworm Jim, The Incredible Machine
Final Fantasy, and Loom, I have no space in my room
New consoles are arriving. GameCube, PS2, We've got Xbox,too
New consoles will be coming. But when these are gone
We will still play on and on and on and on...
http://www.bbspot.com/News/2004/06/stop_atari.htm
Technoli
How many other geeks out there find that the romanticized universes of games, books, and movies have affected their view of life and/or actions. For movies, this is to a lesser extent nowadays, as they are generally more sap and sex than anything.
Various women have mentioned that I tend to have an old-fashioned flair for opening doors or genteel conversion. Most of these mannerisms I've probably picked up from books, some perhaps from games. Does anyone else find this to be the case?
It's like a maze of twisty tunnels all alike.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Those "Know your roots" T-shirts can be had at Target for about $10. I have one, and wear it proudly.
For me, Nintendo IS where my gaming roots lie. NES was my first console, and I am still a die hard fan of it. I realize that there were consoles before it. And I realize some were popular. For me, however, NES is where it all started.
Old school spastacular gaming has no equal.
Laws are for people with no friends.
I don't know about you, but I found that the controller implied more that the shirt-owner's roots were founded in video games... hardcore geekdom founded in games and other such things (perhaps NES being the first of such).
R A L P H H. B A E R
I had an Odyssey, and let me tell you, it was pretty darn cool back in the day. I especially liked K. C. Munchkin, a superior home version of Pacman that had several improvements over the original game (you could create your own mazes, pretty advanced for those days). Of course, it had to be pulled because Atari or someone sued.
Another game that was cool was the Quest for the Rings, which had really great packaging. I also liked it as a game.
Oh, and there was some really bizarre game with monkeys that I liked, and a pretty good Donkey Kong knockoff.
Now I'm nostalgic... I wish they'd release one of those multi-game machines with Odyssey games in it.... I sold the whole kit for $25 to a guy who ran some kind of game store. Sob, I'll never be able to get Quest for the Rings back now...
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Our internet roots:
Internet History
Yes. And those days required--at least with me--to wait until 2 a.m. so both phone lines could be free for modem and talking. There was nothing like shouting out to your buddy to cover you while venturing across the surface.
Laws are for people with no friends.
>His shirt showed an original Nintendo controller and said 'Know your roots.'
Wish I still had my old t-shirt which showed the solution of a quadratic equation and had the same motto...
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
I still remember playing Trade Wars on local BBSs and Red Dragon as well. The fact that you could do things which impacted other player's games was amazing and I always remember dreading that I would log on and find that I was destroyed overnight.
When I found MUDs (Medievia was my main one), I was in heaven. I was simply amazed at what we could do and how you could interact with other players in real time. It didn't matter that there weren't any graphics, it was just simply amazing.
Ok, i assume that the offending controller on the t-shirt in question is the NES 8-bit controller. Even though there absolutely were gaming-systems before that time, the NES 8-bit is still seen amongst many people as a symbol of vintage gaming. Am i right?
I mean, how uncool would it be to have the phone-dial of the coleco vision on a t-shirt that said "know your roots"? People would be asking if you were referring to amateur radio, ATMs or perhaps early touch-tone phones..
You cant fight in here, its a war room!
I downloaded some "all in one" rom package years ago, a few thousand nes roms. Sad thing was: 8 of 10 were crap.
That's because they were crap back in the days too. Keep in mind that "a few thousand" games is way more than anyone actually played back in the days... hundreds of those are just pirate games released in china and such (There were only around 600 or so domestic releases). Forget about GoodNES sets, look at the games that were actually popular releases and the ratio is much better.
-"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -EH
If your experience halts upon the screen's surface, you need a little coaching.
0 0002HIK/ref=pd_bxgy_img_2/103-5231162-9433400?v=gl ance&s=music) at 50% the normal speed. You begin to see and appreciate all the "fun" interactions between the bits. The experience has time to dawn on you, and that makes all the difference.
Turn your attention to the interaction between screen elements (sprites) and their sounds. That's where the gameplay happens.
(You might have to get a real 2600 for this to work properly, but it's easy now, with the 2600 & more available at Wal-Mart & such)
The thing that makes new machines great - even the NES, is the incredibly simplistic graphics on the old systems. Inversely, the thing that makes the older systems *good* in the first place, is how inventively and captivatingly they work within the contraints of a tiny memory space, 2-axis, 1-button controls, and 480 lines of 60Hz video.
What your mind experiences as "gameplay" is a combination of the feedback from your hands/fingers on the control, the visual triggers from that blocky pixel bouncing into/around/over the static area. When the "blocky pixel" becomes a biplane-shaped sprite, and the static area a vaguely "barn-shaped" color area, and you have to use this little stick with one button to manoeuvre the "biplane" through the "barn", you have a Game.
Making the game "Fun" is another challenge altogether. You have a single channel, voltage controlled synthesizer with which to generate happy sounds, mean sounds, ambient sounds, and triumphant sounds. You have the stick with button. You have hardware limits in storage, code execution speed, etc. Line up alll those pieces, and because you had to make sacrifices, each interaction becomes something meaningful.
The best analogy I can come up with would be to listen to any of the meatier tracks on "I Care Because You Do" or "Drukqs - Disc 2" (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0
Why don't children play golf?
Because compared to blocks & mud, it's no fun. Why? Because there are too many rules and roadblocks, and paraphernalia. Freeze tag, go-fish, war, jumprope, hopscotch, etc, all have extremely low entry ceiling.
Fun games all have that quality - whether based on the meat-plane or in Cyberspace.
The ability to GET IN AND PLAY is what keeps your play center titillated. Q3 Deathmatch: Prime example. Ms Pacman, Donkey Kong, Mario, Poke(shudder)mon, Kirby, and the Prince in Katamari Damacy all know this.
Why else would the fundamental unit of computer logic be the Al-Gore-ithm?
Please, I built a PONG game because I got tired of plugging quarters into the machine at the bus station.
Besides, for ultra-low-tech, try "Operation!" (Bzzzt).
you're not a real gamer until you use EVERY key on the keyboard to perform vital functions... Netrek knew that all too well.. oh yeah and it was low quality graphics, high quality gameplay... team play and intelligent thought required... what a concept.
Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
Save yourself some money and actually GET a copy (since B&N is out...) by buying the book here: Videogames: In the Beginning
I read that subject too fast and thought it said "Hebrew PONG".
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
It's obvious why he denied those two games as being videogames. It's because his company, Magnovox, had a patent on game consoles. As long as Magnovox held on to the patent, anybody wanting to make a game console would have to pay royalties.
But of course, it is obvious that Tennis for Two and Space Wars are videogames. In fact, anybody who wants to play the origional Spacewar can do it here
He is sentient isn't he what about the early developements around Sirius where Glypglork the Wise made the first binker dong game? All hail Sirius!
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Every now and then I can find a kid (or a 20-year-old) who is shocked to discover that were video games in the "old days" (circa 1980s) when I was growing up. Sometimes I shock them by telling that mothers in my day actually kicked the kids out of the house to play out in the street during the summer because we had no video games. Kids these days...
but it wore out from putting too many quarters in the Ms PacMan machine at our military HQ, so I used it to clean the windshield of my first car.
Back in my day, I used to fix the C64 and Timex Sinclair games (they all had bugs) for all my neighbors, and hacked the LED version of Star Trek on our PET, which would only print out on our graph plotter.
And we liked it!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It had colored sheets to tape (!) to your TV to play different games. It didn't come with all the cards, but as far as I could tell it didn't have many features.
We'd play pong with manual scoring, roulette where you twiddle the dials and argue over which color the dot was on.
Amazingly enough, I look back fondly on this.
I'm not going to look for an emulator though.
...
OK, Here
Man, you really need that seminar!
"All your base are belonging to us"...
Yeah, my karma sucks....but so do the mods.
I'll go one better - Doom over a serial connection with each player in different rooms. That was deadly, having that thick serial cable sprawled across the floor between rooms.
I've really been in the mood for some of those old games lately. My wife (then fiancee) and I spent hundreds of hours in front of my 12 MHz 286 playing "Tank Wars" until all hours of the night. I've really wanted to play that lately. It was a hell of a lot of fun in its simplicity and ease of use. Unfortunately, it did not have proper clock/tick synchronization, so my AMD Athlon 64 3200 makes it jump to Ludicrous Speed, so it's unplayable as is.
But you're absolutely right that - even with the "simplistic" graphics and sound - they were FUN because they were forced to focus on gameplay. Only after 256-color games and 640x480 VGA graphics came into play was there an evident push to visuals at the expense of gameplay.
Fortunately, open source and freeware utilities like ScummVM are making it easier to play a lot of those older games.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
90% of everything is crap. And the corollary: the "golden age" looks so good because we only remember the 10%
While other console companies existed before Nintendo, they were largely unprofitable. Atari's abysmal failures in Pac-man and E.T. are just one example. In short, the entire console industry was about to be written off as just another fad. Nintendo's entry into the market was largely seen as suicide at best, according to many insiders. However, Nintendo did what Magnavox, Atari, and Colecovision could not: brought gaming into the mainstream and were comercially viable. To this day, some people call console gaming (regardless of platform) "playing Nintendo" just as some people call all sodas "coke".
While gaming would've carried if Nintendo hadn't existed, it would've been mainly on the PC/Mac in my opinion. So while Nintendo was not the first console, it's the landmark console through which all modern consoles trace their roots.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Click here to see old arcade center images. Seen on MAMEWorld.net.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
My younger brother got me a "Classically Trained" shirt from Hot Topic for xmas, but the nintendo console on the front has a green power light and a dark grey cartridge cover! Maybe it was to avoid copyright issues, but come on...
E M=229374&RN=344/
http://www.hottopic.com/store/product.asp?LS=0&IT
The arguments in the parent post and the, er.., "grandparent" are not really mutually exclusive. In fact, I'd say there's a lot of truth in both.
On one hand, I think that the older generation of games tend to decry the games of today as being derivative, uncreative titles that focus more on technology and graphics than gameplay. I think that this is a nostalgic view that glosses over a mountain of crap. In fact, I'd argue that the ratio good/bad games has remained relatively constant. You had franchises with too many sequels, and you had legions of copy-cat titles. It's just that people only remember Pac-Man and Galaga -- they dont remember Pac Man Jr., Super Pac Man, Pac-Man Pinball, and the legion of forgettable Galaga clones.
On the other hand, I think that it's true that video games are getting overly complex and overwrought, and that is part of the reason why development costs are spiraling out of control. The added competition in a larger game industry is part of the reason, but In general I think games are just getting too "big".
I think games like Kamitari Damacy are a model for what other games should be. KD is alot of fun, and easy to learn, but it isn't obsessively focused on realism and it was a relatively quick game to play (I finished it in a weekend). So, Konami was able to price it at $20 in the U.S. and it did quite well.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'll bet you find This a bit of a re-inactment then...
"All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors."
When I was a wee lad I had a friend with a near senile old grandfather - an ex-electronics tech with the Army. His routine was set - breakfast, go out into the garage and tinker with circuits, lunch, nap, more tinkering, supper, and then when the sun set - his self-built Heathkit HAM Radio.
:)
One fine day me and my buddy were happily playing 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' on his 2600 when the old man broke his routine enough to stick his head in and say, "Those things are just silly, really. Nothin' to 'em. Just a bunch of IC's..."
That led to a discussion on how 'foolish' those IC's were. "Nothin' to 'em!", he'd shout (making his antiquated hearing aid whistle and hum loudly). A little while later, he tried to show me why the transistor was better than ''em all'. It was amazing. He saw absolutely NO advantages to using integrated circuits. I think he sniffed at them because they represented something he couldn't fix - something he couldn't tear apart and trouleshoot. His biggest complaint was that the IC 'made people lazy'.
When I look at video games today and try and compare them with the past, I always keep his example in mind. As I get older, I see how easy and how tempting it is to shut off any advances simply because I don't understand them fully. It's scary out there after all.
As a critic of video games, I have to come up with something better than: "This game sucks because games like Defender had FAR more playability!" Even if that's my opinion (and it often is), I have to at least try and see things from an unjaded perspective. Most kids today don't know, don't WANT to know about how it was when you played 'Hunt The Wumpus' on punchcards.
There's something about being a kid and having those first experiences - whether it's Project Gotham, Metroid, or Asteroids - that make it special for you (if no one else). That's the kind of thing you can't explain to other people who haven't been there - and don't try. Education is one thing, getting lost or losing perspective in the past is another.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I too have that "know your roots" shirt. Even though my first game console was an Odyssy, I had to settle on that shirt. Meh.
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
When I read the word ironic I wanted to punch the author of the article in the face... ... If anyones sitting beside him, do us all a favour.
~My roots are Sega Genesis, playing Sonic.
And I definitely realize that the NES is most definitely not the 'beginning' of video games. However, the NES was my first game console, so I very much consider it to be the very definition of my video game 'roots'.
Yes, it's true that NES didn't exactly start it all, but the NES is ultimately what fished the industry out of the toilet.
Top of the list: Death of hardware
;)
Me and this guy from across town used to pound the living hell out of each other at 14.4K. At first, it was friendly rivalry but later, shit started getting abused.
The first casualty was my nice, almost new 500 MB hard drive. I still remember it: There I was, circling around back of the cathedral to take him out when all of a sudden I turn around and get a face full of rocket. Totally surprised (and pissed), I pounded my fist on the table screaming incoherantly (probably something similar to, "Son a BITCH!") and within my desktop I heard the scariest noise ever: 'whhhhiiiirrrrr... Click... whhhhhiirrrrr'. Yep. Destroyed my hard drive that day.
But my buddy did even better than that a few weeks later. I had helped him get a motherboard and processor but I had no case to donate. He ended up with this old Hyundai case. Man did that suck! Everything in the case was off by like half a centimeter (a Dremel can only do so much)!
Anyway, because of the sickly case design, he'd have to keep it open with a room fan blowing into the case to keep it from overheating. It was kinda comical and sad at the same time.
Now, how many of you remember that level with all the REALLY THIN walls you had to walk on with lava below? Well, I found out that the spawnpoints were such that he could not finish the level if I didn't want him to. I'd simply wait for him to get on those thin walls and blow him away.
After doing this (I'm not kidding) around 40 times, he texts me and says something like, "Godddamint chuk. if you fucking do that one more time im done." I'm sure you realize that this kind of message is the kind that almost insures his death. The funny thing was, he was on the walls again when I came around the corner, rocket launcher in hand. I fired off a round - purposely missing him and he got so freaked out that he fell off the wall into the lava.
{CLICK!}
Game over! I didn't find out what happened until the next day as he was too embarrassed and angry to talk to me. Apparently, when he accidentally fell off the wall in the game, his RL leg shot out and caught the 'case fan'. The case fan (with a nice, conductive metal grating) fell into his motherboard and shorted the whole mess out - EVEN his VESA (Whoa! 32-bit Trident chipest - hot stuff!) video card.
It was about that time that we both realized that maybe we were taking things a bit too seriously. Then Duke Nukem 3D came out... But that is a different story.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Now, those are the roots of video gaming.
(Or World of Atari?) back in Vegas in 1999, I was a volunteer who helped set up Mr. Baer's "Brown Box" unit for a speech he was giving later that day. Some components had small pink stickers on them. I asked about them and he said they were evidence tags from his court appearances.
We were setting up the prototype for the demo and we tried it out playing pong against each other for a few minutes.
Satisfied the machine was working properly, I got up to attend other matters. A small group of people who were watching said "You played Pong with Ralph Baer?" and I suddenly realized what I had just done - and on the original prototype too... It would have been a great moment to take a photo of it while it was happening and I even had my camera there.
Ralph Baer was quite entertaining and a rather nice guy to talk to.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
Really? I thought he did invent the FPS, but he never says so because he's so modest. Even though I hated Doom because my uncle would always come to our house and play it on our old 486 and I was around 4 and it scared the crap out of me.
All your base are belong to Wii.
In the mid-1970s a Houston UHF channel, 26 or 39 I think, had a telephone-based video game called "TV Kid Pow".
Kids sent in their phone numbers and the station would call a few "lucky winners" each day.
The winners would play a video game using their telephone: every time they said "pow" the game fired a bullet at the target. The more hits they got, the higher the score.
I think the weekly high-scorer got a special mention too.
Call it an early tele-computer-game if you will. I call it good marketing.
Now, had it been an ironed T-shirt, we'd really have a story here.
What's really ironic (or is it just coincidental?) is the fact that today I'm wearing my brand new "Classically Trained" t-shirt.
:)
I just bought it yesterday! What are the chances?
http://nerdfortress.com/
"Music has been turned artificial, movies have followed suit, I guess games are next. When people will wake up and stop accepting this crap is beyond me. People have no "soul" anymore, they want fluff with no real substance, typical disposable society." ...and modern dentistry keeps us alive at the price of people with artificially white teeth.
Warlords is still a great game. Most of its era sucked. Same thing now. Whether it is the perceived coarsening of the culture, the quality of the video games or the quality of the toast: I'm sick of the whining. Games now, if not better on average (I'd argue they are), cover a wider range of possibilities from simple control greatness (Warning Forever) to insanely deep simulations (X-Plane) to frantic multi-player (UT2004). Random high quality examples only.
Unconnected to my bitching at the poster, I've got the July 1971 Analog which includes a many page article about Spacewar, written by one of the variant creators, Albert Kuhfeld. It's even got a flowchart of the game logic!
Showing the kids the history of games is a great service; it is a hobby and an industry without ties to its history. Just don't become mired in your own nostalgia. A dangerous narcotic, nostalgia.
Feeling so good natured I could drool
...you know the part that goes:
Oh, wait...
Know your roots indeed. Hmmm, I was born in Winnipeg, so my family's history must start there...
You seem to be conflating two separate issues: simplicity vs. complexity, and business vs. creative impulse or artistic integrity or what have you. You made an analogy to movies and music, but generally critics of recent popular music regard it as overly simplistic rather than overcomplex. (Did Mozart use too many notes?) There's lots of great sophisticated music that most people can't hum, and lots of insipid music engineered to be hummed. Very complex games, e.g. hardcore strategy games, aren't a mass market item -- they sell to a small niche of passionate enthusiasts, and are created by enthusiasts as well. The two qualities are pretty orthogonal.
Yes games used to be simple, fun and entertaining. However, everything was fresh and new. The more new "inventions" that come about the harder it is to be fresh and new.
Pac-man was an amazing success, for example, but that was in large part due to the fact it there was no established "maze game" genre, and no videogame previous to pac-man (to my knowledge) had such deep character development (interstitial "shows" at level completion, named characters with "personalities" etc). It was creatively brilliant but technically it was only an incremental step. After Pac-Man so many others tried to capitlaise but even if they were good games they are not remembered--I loved Ladybug, Lock-n-chase, Mouse Trap etc. but they are not memorable. And no, it isn't just because the good maze games got sued out of existence byt Pac-Man's publishers.
Your post complaining about the lack of "soul" and substance in videogames could've been written in 1983 or 1984 and been just as relevant. Home consoles were a huge craze and greedy publishers overwhelmed the creative forces. EVERYONE had to make video games because the industry had explosive growth. You then get brainless marketers trying to capitalise on it and the result is crap--it started with the crappy 2600 version of Pac-Man and the even crappier ET game--they were driven by the popularity of the arcade version and movie and no thought was put into their design--it's like they said "we need an ET game in 6 weeks so we can get it on all the toy store shelves in the country before the movie leaves theatres".
By the end of the crash games descended to the point of becoming knockoffs of previous hits, sequels and cheesy interactive commercials for movies and toys. Barbie game? He-man game? KOOL-AID MAN GAME?!....QUAKER OATS GAME??! (no I didn't make that last one up...some turd actually thought that was a good idea!).
It's starting to sound like history is repeating itself doesn't it? Games based on movies and movies based on games. Games that showcase other products. Toys based on games. The most anticipated games are very often sequels. All of the crap that brought down the industry in the 80s is starting to re-emerge. When it gets to the point where nearly all games are obviously thrown together (from a creative standpoint) to prop up the revenue stream of a franchise, and you cannot tell if the movie is a marketing tool for the game or vice versa you know there is trouble on the horizon.
It won't just keep getting worse though...these things are cyclical. Nintendo revivied the market with creatively and technically brilliant games. Although the quantum leap in the technical aspects of Super Mario would be enough to generate interest, it was really the creative brilliance in developing a wonderful story and cast of characters around Mario and the creative aspects of the design--hidden rooms and diversions and such--that made it a hit.
Something similar will happen again--a new "killer app" type of game that will spark interest again. However, in order to get noticed the market will have to stagnate and slump or crash so that such brilliance will get noticed amongst all the noise. Although the crash might not be as dramatic as in the 80s there WILL be a downturn guaranteed. The market is already looking a touch stagnant and you could say the "downturn" is already here--especially since many are waiting to see what the next-gen consoles look like. I think the "retrogaming" craze is actually another symptom of a downturn as gamers dust off REALLY old favourites for entertainment value.
Things could go a couple of ways--the new consoles could come out with exciting new games and revive the industry once again....or the consoles come out with merely prettier-looking, network-enabled versions of the same-old, same-old and Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft will be dealing with lacklustre debuts and slumping revenues as consumers let out a collective yawn and keep playing their existing systems.
If the latter happens
sys 64738
that command comes to my head every time I think about doing a c-64 reboot to launch summer games.
just a web application developer and instructor in Toronto, ON Canada
WTF? I'm 35. I remember Pong.
http://xs4.xs.to/pics/04481/p556222.gif
and they wonder why we were so excited over graphics so primative that the pixels were very large, the resolution was very low, the colors were limited to a few, and the graphics flickered because the 2600 could not draw more than three objects at once.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Along similar lines, although somewhat O.T....
Howard Scott Warshaw, who is one of the early Atari 2600/VCS programmers (Yar's Revenge, Indiana Jones, and, oh yes, E.T.) made a documentary series about Atari in those days, I found it immensely entertaining
http://www.onceuponatari.com/
Among the interviewees is Tod Frye, author of Pac Man for the VCS which is often credited with destroying Atari. That story is told (and myths debunked), along with many others.
I worked with Howard for a short while, but I have no financial interest in plugging this series, other than I loved it and think many slashdotters would as well.
What do you consider "pirating"? The vast majority of (if not all) Commodore games are abandonware: the manufacturers are either out of business or no longer sells and supports them. You can't buy them. You can't find them for sale anywhere. There is no company to make any serious profit from it. Sure, Activition and EA are still around, but I doubt sincerely that they're going to file a lawsuit or consider you a hard-core criminal if you download TEMPLE_OF_APSHAI.D64 - or was that Epyx? Either way, you get the idea.
I recommend c64.com among others. They've been around for many years.
On a somewhat related note, I just noticed that Shoutcast, the streaming audio division of WinAMP, has a few stations that are dedicated to remixed C64 songs. It's absolutely amazing how many people still are incredibly creative with C64 game music.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
...can sing "Pac Man Fever" from wrote memory!
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
What about modem wars at 300 baud on the C=64?
Baer says that only his games are valid "first games" because they were the first to utilize a regular television set. I call bullshit. Baer's notable work in no way invalidates the true videogames that came before his.
Doesn't "video" mean signals designed for a raster display, especially a television set?
When I was your age, I didn't have a choice; feet weren't invented yet. We had to walk on our ankles or not walk at all.
When I was your age, legs weren't invented yet. We had to walk on our hands and bottom. And all we had to eat was pie. Beef pie, apple pie, chicken pot pie (except pot was legal back then), and if you were rich, pizza pie.
Why isn't there a Weebles video game?
Tennis for Two and Spacewar were vector games played on an oscilloscope. (The concept would go on to be refined in Asteroids, Tempest, and every Vectrex game.) The typical definition of "video" implies the use of signals compatible with television sets, meaning raster graphics. Baer's company may have owned a patent on an electronic game that generates video signals instead of (X, Y, brightness) signals.
I'm of the opinion that Metroid on the GC is a perfect example of how games should be in this century. Fun, simple, great music that inspires.. and that's about it.
A real gamer does not need a keyboard. Just a simple stick and a single button, you insensitive clod!
Obviously, you must be new here.
I recall overhearing a few 10-year-olds in a Target around the time N64 came out (so I was perhaps 16. What I was doing in Target is anyone's guess). They were debating which system one should get, and I heard "SNES? That's a good beginner's system."
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
I used to have an Operation game that was partially broken. That is, the guy's nose would light up when the metal prongs touched the sides, but the "Buzz" sound did not work. Well one day we had some relatives over and I decided to make a bold dare with a younger cousin....
I dared her to place the metal prongs into a nearby electric outlet. Sure enough she did. The lights went out in the basement, followed by a shriek, and a few cool-looking blue sparks. My parents rushed downstairs to see what happened. They restored the power, and none of us said a word about the incident (thankfully.)
A few days later, I got the game back out and played around. Sure enough, it started buzzing like it was supposed to. True story.
Yes, I've bitched myself about controls that work only because you already know them, and because you know a lot of other stuff already.
;)
But just for fairness sake, I must say exceptions do exist.
"Give your wife/girlfriend the choice to use a GB/GBA/NES or a Dualshock 2/Xbox/GC controller and she will go with the one that is less intimidating every time unless she is a gamer too."
I actually one-upped that experiment by getting my grandma once to try Sierra's Emperor: Rise Of The Middle Kingdom. We're old woman which not only isn't a gamer, but is completely computer-illiterate. She doesn't own a computer, and never used one for anything.
You know what? She was actually doing a lot better than I expected. She did get confused between left and right mouse buttons, mostly because she didn't even hold the thing right. (Ok, Apple users can feel vindicated.) But we're talking someone who had never held a mouse before, so I'd say it's excusable. But still, she soon was placing farms and building roads like a pro. Well, better than I expected anyway.
Getting old mom to play Tropico was also a painless exercise. One go through the tutorial and... well, let's put it like this: according to dad, he hasn't seen warm food in the next two months
On the other hand, trying to get her hooked on a MMO just proved your point about too complex controls. Between moving in 3D, having to wrestle the camera, and use a bunch of different attacks and buffs, it was painful even for me to look at.
The Sims, on the other hand, was also no problem, although she didn't like the game anyway.
Consoles, on the other hand, I find to be less of a problem, actually. A modern controller might be "intimidating", but there are enough games where you don't have to use all 12 buttons. At any rate, I haven't had any problems getting both my parents hooked on Mario 64, at a time where neither had any experience with gamepads.
(Tangent: I wish someone made game designers try their usability just that way. Forget demographic studies on 16 year old hard-core gamers. Get an 80 year old grandma who's never played before, and see if you can teach _her_ your clever controls.)
So basically I'm guessing that it's simply a case of which games you've tried, rather than all new games being crap, and all old games being gold. Some games have good controls, some games have bad controls, and yes, a lot of them have controls that work only if you've spent the last 20 years getting used to them. Admittedly, the first category is also the smallest, but they do exist.
As for having a heart, soul and vision, that's IMHO a completely different topic. A game can have a great interface and still be a clone, or a game can be original and have a vision and still have a pure nightmare interface. But I've already ranted too much, so I'll skip that discussion.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
If you look at B&N (as suggested in the review), they have none for sale.
Amazon has one used book for sale.
Are they actually for sale anywhere?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
http://www.gameroommagazine.com/
Sherlock!
Not according to
this history.
Check 1.3.1 and search for Mucus Pig. B-)
I have 3656.9 Bogomips. How many Bogomips do you have?
Kids, Let me tell you about the beginning of video games. When pong first came out I begged my parents to buy it so they went to Radio Shack and bought me a little console you plugged into your television for Christmas. It displayed on the TV in black and white and came with two rheostat paddle controls. It also had a toy plastic gun with a photo-electric eye attached. Flip a switch and now I could play a solo version of "shoot the moving target".
Saturdays, our parents would take us out for pizza. Space Invaders and asteroids were the first video games I remember appearing in public venues. My brother and I were addicted. We wasted alot of time and money in those days.
Later the games became more sophisticated - Galaxian, Centipede, PacMan. Then mall arcades started to appear. My all time favorite game was Star Castle. Teens would flock there with rolls of quarters to play games while their parents shopped. You don't see those any longer.
An Atari home gaming system would set you back about $100 back then. My brother and I saved our allowance for several months and bought one. Of course we needed game cartridges which cost about $20 each. We had Donkey Kong, Frogger, Dungeons and Dragons, Mario Brothers, etc.
By the time the internet, email and gaming over networks arrived I had long since moved on to other things. I no longer play games but I still like watching over someone elses shoulder once in a while. I never cease to marvel at the blinding speed in technological advances that have occured only during my lifetime.