History of Video Games - The First Video Game ever made?
Posted: Monday, July 21, 2008
by Ian Blake
Retro Video Games
As an avid retro-gamer, for quite a long time I've been very interested in the history of video games. Even more specifically, a subject that I am very passionate about is "Which was the first video game ever made?"... So, I begin a deep investigation on this matter (and writing this article, the first in a series of articles that will cover in detail all video gaming history).
The answer: Well, as a lot of things in life, there is no easy answer to that question. It depends on your own definition of the term "video game". For example: When you refer to the term "the first video game", do you mean the first video game that was commercially-made, or the first console game, or maybe the first digitally programmed game? Because of this, I made a short list of video games that in one way or another were the beginners of the video gaming industry. You will notice that these original video games were not created with the idea of making them profitable (back in those years there was no Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Sega, Atari, or any other video game company in existence). Actually, the sole idea of a "video game" or an electronic mechanism which only purpose was "playing games and having fun" was impossible to conceive by more than 99% of the population of that era. But thanks to this small group of innovators who walked the first steps into the video gaming revolution, we can enjoy many hours of fun and entertainment today (keeping aside the creation of millions of jobs during the past 4 or 5 decades). Without further ado, here are the "first video game nominees":
1940s: Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device
This is considered (with official documentation) as the first electronic game device ever manufactured. It was created by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann. The device was developed in the 1940s and submitted for an US Patent by January 1947. The patent was granted December 1948, which also makes it the first electronic game system to ever receive a patent (US Patent 2,455,992). As described in the patent, it consisted of an analog circuit device with an array of knobs used to control a dot that showed in the cathode ray tube display. The video game was created after how missiles appeared in WWII radars, and the object of the game was simply to control a "missile" that should hit a target. In the 1940s it was extremely difficult (for not saying impossible) to show graphics in a Cathode Ray Tube display. So, only the actual "missile" was showed on the display. All other graphics including the target were showed on screen overlays manually placed over the display screen. It is rumored that this gaming device was the inspiration of Atari's famous video game "Missile Command".
1951: NIMROD
NIMROD was the name of a digital computer device from the 50s decade. The designers of this computer were the engineers of an UK-based enterprise called Ferranti, with the purpose of displaying the computer at the 1951 Festival of Britain (and after some time it was also presented in Berlin).
NIM is a two-player numerical game of strategy, which is believed to come originally from the ancient China. NIM game rules are simple: There are a certain number of "heaps" (groups of objects), and each group contains a certain number of objects (a usual starting array of NIM is 3 heaps containing 3, 4, and 5 objects each). Each player remove objects from the heaps in turns, but all removed objects must be from a single heap and the amount of removed objects is not 0. The player to take the last object of the last heap is the loser, but there is a variation of the game where the player to take the last object of the last heap is the winner.
NIMROD used a panel full of lights as a display and was designed and made with the sole purpose of playing a game called NIM, which makes it the first digital computer device to be designed exclusively for playing a game (however the main idea was to show and illustrate how a digital computer works, rather than as a way of entertainment and having fun). Because it doesn't have "raster video equipment" as a display (a TV set, monitor, etc.) it's been said that it does not qualify as a real "video game" (an electronic game, yes… a video game, no…). But once again, it really depends on your point of view when you talk about a "video game".
1952: OXO ("Noughts and Crosses")
OXO was a computer-programmed version of "Tic-Tac-Toe", created for an EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) computer. It was designed by Alexander S. Douglas from the University of Cambridge, and once again it was not made for entertainment, it was part of his PhD Thesis on "Interactions between human and computer".
The rules of the game are those of a regular Tic-Tac-Toe game, player against the computer (no 2-player option was available). The device used as input was a rotary dial (like the ones in old telephones). The output was showed in a 35x16-pixel cathode-ray tube display. This game was never very popular because the EDSAC computer was only available at the University of Cambridge, so it was not possible to install it and play it in other places (until a long time later when an EDSAC emulator was created and distributed, and by that time many other great video games where available also…).
1958: Tennis for Two
This game was created by William Higinbotham, a scientist from the Brookhaven National Laboratory. It was made as a way of entertainment, so laboratory visitors had something funny to do while they were waiting on "visitors day" (at last!... a video game that was created "just for the fun of it"…) . The electronic game was very well designed for its era: the ball behavior was modified by many factors like position/angle of contact, wind speed, gravity and so on; you had to avoid the net as in real tennis, and many other options. The video game hardware also had two "joysticks" (two controllers with a rotational knob and a push button each) connected to an analog console, and an oscilloscope as a display.
Many people consider "Tennis for Two" the first video game ever created. But as before, other people differ from the idea as they said that "it was a computer game, not a video game" or "the output display was an oscilloscope, not a "raster" video display… so it does not counts as a video game". But you know… you can't please everyone…
It's been said that "Tennis for Two" was the inspiration for Atari's world famous video game "Pong", but this rumor has never been supported by Atari representatives… as expected.
1961: Spacewar!
"Spacewar!" video game was created by Stephen Russell, with the help of J. Martin Graetz, Peter Samson, Alan Kotok, Wayne Witanen and Dan Edwards from MIT. During the 1960s, MIT was "the place to be" if your plan was to do computer research and development. So this half a dozen of ingenious guys took advantage of a brand-new computer was ordered and expected to arrive campus very soon (a DEC PDP-1) and started planning on what kind of hardware testing programs could be developed. When they discovered that a "Precision CRT Display" would be part of the hardware for the system, they all decided that "some kind of visual/interactive game" would be the demonstration software that would be perfect for the PDP-1. And after some discussion, it was soon decided to be a space battle game of some sort. After this decision, all other ideas started coming out very fast: like game rules, designing concepts, programming ideas, etc..
So after about 200 man/hours of design and programming, the first version of the game was at last ready to be tested. The game consisted of two spaceships (affectively named by players "pencil" and "wedge") targeting missiles at each other with a star at the center of the display (which "pulls" both spaceships because of its gravitational force). A set of control switches was used to control each spaceship (for missiles, speed, rotation, and "hyperspace"). A limited amount of fuel and missiles was available for each spaceship, and the hyperspace function was like a "panic button", in case everything else fails (it could either "save you or break you").
The computer game was an instant hit between MIT students and programmers, and soon they started programming their own updates to the game program (like real star charts for background, star/no star option, background disable option, angular momentum option, etc.). The game code was emulated to several other computer platforms (since it required a video display, a hard to find option in 1960s computers, it was mostly emulated to newer/cheaper DEC systems like the PDP-10 and PDP-11).
Many people consider that "Spacewar!" is not only the first "real" video game ever made (notice that this game does have a video display), but it also have been proved to be the true predecessor of the first arcade game, as well as serving as inspiration of several other video games, consoles, and even video gaming companies (can you say "Atari"?...). But that's another story, arcade games and console video games were written in another page of the history of video games (so come back for future articles on these subjects).
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So there they are, the "First Video Game" nominees. Which one do you think is the first video game ever made?... In my humble opinion, I think all previously mentioned games were pioneers of its era, and must be credited as a group as the beginners of the video gaming revolution. More than looking for which one was the first video game, what is really important is that they were created, and that's the bottom line. Like Stephen Russell, creator of Spacewar!, said: "If I hadn't done it, someone would have done something equally exciting if not better in the next six months. I just happened to get there first".
Written by: Ian Blake, The History of Video Games Blog
This Article has been viewed 5,102 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (6 total)Very Informative!!!
hi ian,i think this was a very well written and interesting article.i have 3 kids, so video games and computer games have been part of the life of this house for years, now. thanks for sharing, and i hope you keep writing,best regards,sue thom
Hi, I´m sending you a title wich i´m sure you never eard of. Back in 1993-95 i was part of the team wich created the first PC Portuguese video game and as it was only released in Portugal and Spain back then, despite the excelent reviews it got all over, remains to this day a good example of unknown video game history, i´m sure. GAMBYS was going to be released by Psygnosis at the time, but as we still had made the game in DOS, and we released it too late as at the time WINDOWS 95 was gonna be the new norm in operating systems, our own DOS video game project was a casuality of technology changes and remain stuck in Portugal and Spain untill today.
Please take a look at my new GAMBYS website at luisperes dot net, download the game and check it out as i would love to learn you opinion about this work of mine and of a small unknown team who created this lost piece of history in video games. ;)
Thanks
Luis Peres
yay thx man
Hi there,
The work that you've put into this list is great, and please do not think that I don't appreciate your work...
But I've got to say that in my point of view, the question "Witch is the first video game ever made?" does refer exclusively to witch game was first played on a screen, since the definition of video game is literally "game played on a screen", so I've got to say that is very easy to give that title to " Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device" since it is quite obvious that the game is played on a screen and that it has the first patent...
Cheers,
korreatreyu.
kinda i need the history of video games for a 8th grade school project pls help
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