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Anatomy of the First Video Game, Born 1958

Posted by timothy on from the go-ahead-and-present-your-counter-theories dept.

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.'"

13 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Writing quality? by stonecypher · · Score: 3, Informative

    The prefix "gyn" means female. Maybe you meant "ginormous", but even so...

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    StoneCypher is Full of BS
    1. Re:Writing quality? by CRCulver · · Score: 5, Funny

      Come on now, don't get hysterical.

    2. Re:Writing quality? by middlemen · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That error came about because the editor probably hasn't had access to a vagyna in a long time...

    3. Re:Writing quality? by lgw · · Score: 4, Funny

      Agreed! Clearly "hugantic" is the preferable adjective.

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      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    4. Re:Writing quality? by mrsteveman1 · · Score: 4, Funny

      With all the rental services around now, that's inexcusable.

    5. Re:Writing quality? by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Informative

      True. He should have used gargantuan,after all you so rarely get to use it in a sentence.

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      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  2. Where can I download the emulator? by erroneus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sounds like a great game!

    And I don't want to play pong tennis. I want the whole analog computer emulated in some way and the oscilloscope's vector graphics too.

  3. Nope, it was the second video game. by Dzimas · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've seen this story bouncing around the media all week. It's wrong. The first video game was Sandy Douglas' Noughts and Crosses, which took advantage of a 35×16 pixel CRT connected to the EDSAC mainframe at the University of Cambridge in 1952. Unlike Tennis For Two, the computer was digital and you played against the computer - a far more sophisticated effort, actually.

    1. Re:Nope, it was the second video game. by Neon+Aardvark · · Score: 5, Informative

      And your suggestion is in turn the third oldest according to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_video_game"

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      Azural - instrumentals
  4. Re:Thank you, captain obvious. by khellendros1984 · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's not a Game Boy you put in your pocket. It's a series of tubes. No, literally, I mean it.

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    It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
  5. Games as inspiration by PhotoGuy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I remember the first computer I ever saw, on display in a mall, circa 1975-76. Some homebrew thing, probably about as beefy as a VIC-20. It was playing the old "guess the card" game: think of a card? Is it red? Is it a spade? Is it higher than 8? And so forth, guessing your card fairly quickly (basic binary search).

    At 9 years old, I thought that was pretty cool. My dad bought me a few computer mags of the day (Creative Computing and the like), and I got the gist of basic. I remember writing out my first "program" in a Hilroy scribbler, trying to clone what that computer did. Basically 52 or so IF/ELSE statements for every case. Brute force, but hey, I was 9. When I learned that I could use variables to reduce it to a few lines of code, I was hooked; there was no going back.

    Got my first computer, an Exidy Sorcerer (Z-80, 1Mhz or so), and had a great time learning the ins and out, writing and selling a few games, pimping it out, and pushing it to the limits. Even got a job (at 11) working on an APL Interpreter for the Z-80. (I was basically paid in hardware :).

    On through the PC generation, university, 286, 386, a career in programming, emergence of the Internet, founding a .COM (worth $100M on paper at one time, whoo hoo, damn paper :), and two more subsequent companies.

    But it all really started seeing that 8080 play a simple game of "guess the card." If it weren't for seeing that, and getting inspired, who knows where the career might have led.

    I'm not sure if today's games could inspire kids in the simple way that old game did for me. The skills and techniques involved in a modern rendered game are so far beyond the grasp of the average kid, the inspiration might be lost, requiring too great a leap to "get it."

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    1. Re:Games as inspiration by Kirth+Gersen · · Score: 3, Insightful

      PhotoGuy:

      I'm not sure if today's games could inspire kids in the simple way that old game did for me. The skills and techniques involved in a modern rendered game are so far beyond the grasp of the average kid, the inspiration might be lost, requiring too great a leap to "get it."

      I read a sf story about 25 years ago about a human expedition to a planet with a humanoid civilization at a roughly mediaeval level. They identified a native scientist who was on the brink of discovering Newtonian mechanics, and became highly concerned that if he observed any of their post-Newtonian gadgetry it would make him doubt his whole line of research.

      Children's games used to embody mechanical principles by necessity. Now, computer games link action and effect by completely arbitrary rules. We are teaching children to inhabit an entirely magical world.

  6. It's not a _video_ game by Casandro · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It'S not a video game, it has nothing to do with video. It's just an analog computer game, that's all. No video involved. And computer games are in fact probably even older, even digital ones.