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Videogames Turn 40

Posted by Zonk on from the oh-man-we're-all-old-now dept.

May 15th marks the 40 year anniversary of the first games hooked up to the television. An article on the 1up site tells the story of Ralph Baer, Bill Harrison, and Bill Rusch working at the Sanders Associates company on a little game called Pong. They go into a great deal of detail on the development of the console, going so far as to include a number of the group's original notes on the project. "Baer kept the tiny lab, a former company library in Sanders' early days, locked at all times. Only two men had keys: Baer and Harrison. The room would remain the base of operations for their controversial video experiments for years to come -- experiments that, had they been known about widely at the time, might have garnered intense ridicule from other employees of the prominent defense contractor. Pursuing them was an utterly audacious move."

4 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. You can view our Ralph Baer Interviews by Nick_Allain · · Score: 5, Informative

    My buddy recently interviewed Ralph Baer at his home in NH. The interviews are online at http://blip.tv/file/158121/ and http://blip.tv/file/188528/. He's definitely an old school computer guy who would take designing circuits over programming any day.

  2. Video game used to teach lesson on .. by iknownuttin · · Score: 5, Funny
    gambling.

    My Father bought us the Atari system and we would play the "Tennis" game. I would bet my allowance and I would win several games. Each time my Dad lost, he would say, "How about double or nothing?"

    I would always respond with "Yes!"

    All of a sudden, my Dad would become great at video tennis and win. I lost everything, but kept my original allowance. Eventually, I gave up gambling with him and to this day I don't like to gamble. Educated risks, yes, but no gambling.

    --
    I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
    1. Re:Video game used to teach lesson on .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      i find it rare that i am actually moved by a comment, but yours did just that.. mainly, because things like that don't happen often anymore (real, concrete, needful values taught using technology and videogames as a catalyst).

      look at what has become of games?
      banal and needlessly vulgar.
      i used to be really good at counterstrike (1.4+ and source..).. i mean really good.. good as in admins kicked me constantly under suspicion of cheating. i found maybe 3 people each month that could school me, and when i did, i was awestruck. anyway, i digress. i stopped playing cs because one day my 5 year old sister was behind me, without me knowing it, then i heard her say something to the effect of 'shoot him! kill him!' or something equally as disturbing. i wondered 'how the hell does she have any idea what the object of this game is at her age?'...before that, the only game she had seen me play was mario.

        ive come to the conclusion that we're desensitizing ourselves and our children to violence and vulgarity, and this is something i could have never pictured myself saying even 5 years ago. sure, as 'mature adults' we can play stuff like CS / GTA and clearly distinguish between game life and real life, between what is proper to do in real life, and what is funny to do in videogames (funny, simply because its so far off course with what would be done in real life), however, i do not believe that children are as capable of this advanced level of discernment. it seems as if though we have recreated the roman arena on our screens. sure, people aren't actually dying, but hey, to some degree i bet the spectators didn't consider the gladiators 'people' in the normal sense. (in other words, i bet if a tons of villagers were going about their everyday tasks, and a tiger suddenly appeared and killed one of their fellow villagers, im sure there would have been a sense of grief, loss, and sadness in general amongst them. yet, these same villagers would have cheered on the death of another human to the very same tiger inside of the arena.)

      people are quick to become infuriated if someone offers a contradictory opinion to theirs on various topics and quickly say "don't force your opinions on me!", yet, look at what we do to the upcoming generations-- are not all our examples left to inspire, influence, and mold the future generations, for centuries to come, long after our deaths?

  3. Pong TV by mgabrys_sf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    First system I had back in 76 was a Odyssey 300 Pong system. Interesting thing at the time, the RF adapters back then were wholesale FCC fraud (something in common with Apple's first RF modulators). Basically, no FCC violations occured - until the consumer hooked them up. We were living south of St. Louis in St. Genevive MO at the time where to pull in TV - you had to have a very tall tv antenna. Once that system was hooked up - we were spraying PONG TV on channel 3 to the entire town - or a sizable portion of it from our 2 story high aerial.

    I didn't discover this until kids were asking me in school "who was on the left". I replied that was my brother. "He was kicking your ASS last night dude". I replied "wait - you weren't around yesterday - hell I didn't even know you knew I had a system!". After he told me he was watching us on tv I rode after school on my bike - several miles from my house - to his and wached my Odyssey (which I left on) beaming in crystal-clear to his tv.

    I have no idea what our ratings were, but given the state of mid 70s television - I wouldn't be surprised if our audience-share wasn't substantial.