Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Games Entertainment

40th Anniversary of Video Games 222

Posted by CmdrTaco from the don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it dept.
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.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

40th Anniversary of Video Games More

40th Anniversary of Video Games

Comments Filter:

  • 40th anniversary... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Thursday February 28, 2002 @09:58AM (#3083696)
    ...for small values of 1962...

  • 1952? (Score:4, Funny)

    by NoBeardPete ( 459617 ) on Thursday February 28, 2002 @09:58AM (#3083697)
    Don't you mean 1962? I mean, if there's no violence before 40 years ago (1962), then it also holds that there's none before 50 years ago, but I still think you goofed there.
    • 1962? And sex wasn't invented until the following year, according to the poet Philip Larkin.
    • Pre 1962 violence was caused by comic books. Before those were widespread, I blame billiards and/or ice cream sold on Sundays.

    • Re:1952? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Mezzrow ( 469345 )
      I can vouch for the no-violence before 1952 theory. I've watched several Fred Estaire/Ginger Rogers movies on AMC that date to the era, and apparently, no matter how extreme the difference between people, they always settled their problems through dance, not violence.

      I think violence was invented around the same time as color. I wonder if there's a connection?
      -Mezz

      • Re:1952? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Thursday February 28, 2002 @01:28PM (#3085057)
        > I can vouch for the no-violence before 1952 theory. I've watched several Fred Estaire/Ginger Rogers movies on AMC that date to the era, and apparently, no matter how extreme the difference between people, they always settled their problems through dance, not violence.
        >
        > I think violence was invented around the same time as color. I wonder if there's a connection?

        Of course there's a connection. Back then, all the good guys wore white and the bad guys wore black.

        Rendered in black-and-white, shattering the Lone Ranger's cranium with a railgun would make it look like he was a bad guy. And chainsawing a bad guy, well, how could you tell the difference between the gibs soaking into his shirt and what he was already wearing?

        In black and white, the gibs look like crude oil, or little globs of asphalt. Lame. There was no point to violence until we had color to see the gibs!

        Back on topic, the thing I liked most about Cinematronics' arcade release of Spacewar was that you got gibs. Sure, they were just little bent vectors indicating damaged spaceships, but hey, it was all we had, and we liked it!

        Come to think of it, the thing that amazed me about Williams' Defender wasn't just a control panel from hell (5 buttons and a joystick), but the beautiful explosions - when you blew up the bad guys, you got to see chunks of their ships flying all over the screen, with great "skizz-chungachungcasplorrzzzz" sound effects to go with it. Nothin' like smart-bombing four pods and huntin' down the stragglers...)

        Final note on gibs and video games - Williams/Midway's 1990s-era homage to Defender and Stargate was called Strike Force. Awesome soundtrack and spectacular effects when blowing up the aliens. If you enjoyed Defender and can no longer find Strike Force in the arcades, you owe it to yourself to find it emulated.

      • Re:1952? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by schlach ( 228441 )
        I think violence was invented around the same time as color.

        You should read Marvin's [oldmanmurray.com] History of the Human Experiment [amazon.com]. It's a breath of fresh air next to the popularized bunk taught in our public schools nowadays.

        Notable milestones:
        • AD 1354: Gravity is introduced to the West, pioneering the gravity/mead trade routes
        • AD 1803: Industrialization allows the mechanization of textile, farming, and prostitution industries
        • AD 1952: Colorization of the world; Invention of Violence
        • AD 1958: First video game written by Higinbotham. Cites the recent invention of "Violence" as inspiration
        • AD 1969: Lunar landing televised
        • AD 1982: Man actually walks on moon
        • AD 2004: Revealed that same company owns both Coke and Pepsi, Republicans and Democrats
        As you can see, Violence was actually a prerequisite for Video Games, not the other way around.

        Just checked the amazon link, and realized that the book actually won't be published for another forty years. Still, definitely worth a read.
  • 1952? Wouldn't that be 50 years?

  • tennis for two (Score:2, Insightful)

    by RootPimp ( 230121 )
    I thought that was the first video game, created at Brookhaven Labs
  • Videogames were a novelty. Now-a-days it has become an essential part of every-day computing and has become a major infulence in harware design.

    I remember telling my mom when I was a kid that videogames made me smarter... maybe she believes me now.

    • Re:Back Then (Score:2, Insightful)

      by maddugan ( 549314 )
      Everything I needed to know, I learned playing video games:

      Knock over everything, you never know what will hide a power-ups.

      Pick up everything that isn't nailed down, its bound to be useful later. Horde

      Save often.

      Don't just look straight ahead, look up, down, and all around.

      Use the right tool for the job

      Use items together to make new items

      exploit your opponents weakness

      Learn from your opponent's stratagy

      Don't give up

  • * Unfortunately, there was no violence before 1952
    * 40th Anniversary of Video Games
    And I was thinking we live in the year 2002 right ?!
    1952+40 != 2002 last time I check.
    Or video games are 50 years old or even in 1962 there was no violence...

  • Unfortunately? (Score:4, Funny)

    by image ( 13487 ) on Thursday February 28, 2002 @10:01AM (#3083714) Homepage
    Unfortunately, there was no violence before 1952, because we all know that violence is caused by video games.

    As opposed to fortunately?

    Drink your coffee, Taco.

  • Man hours spent (Score:4, Funny)

    by pitabutter ( 234478 ) on Thursday February 28, 2002 @10:02AM (#3083719) Homepage
    Good lord knows how many man hours have been spent in dimly lit rooms since video games hit the scene. WHat the hell did people usd to do? Work?
    • I think that instead of playing video games of going to war, they actually did.
    • ..."very interesting to consider how quickly the popularity of video games grew, because, essentially, Spacewars was spontaneously generated."

      Let us be careful and not speculate with such statistics. Sure video games are all the rage today. But remember, the same things happened with the Disco craze back in the 70s and look how popular all of that stuff is today. </joke>

  • Similar games (Score:4, Informative)

    by hardburn ( 141468 ) <`ten.evac-supmuw' `ta' `nrubdrah'> on Thursday February 28, 2002 @10:04AM (#3083731)

    There was a Java emulator of the PDP-1 around, where you could play a game which was exactly like the orginal spacewars except for a few lines of code. The KDE game KSpaceDuel [azweb.de] is also an acceptable alternative.

  • Spacewar running in a Java emulator (Score:5, Informative)

    by alanw ( 1822 ) <alan@wylie.me.uk> on Thursday February 28, 2002 @10:05AM (#3083735) Homepage
    is available from MIT [mit.edu]

    If your want to download it, read the README carefully.

    • Wow, that star's gravity is quite strong. I spend more time trying to thrust away from it than I do aiming and firing.

      Of course, I have never played SpaceWar! before so maybe that was the game designer's intent. Pretty impressive for the first video game ever, though.
    • The README [mit.edu] stated that:

      Spacewar! is in the public domain, but this credit paragraph must accompany all distributed versions of the program.

      However, it comes with a typo:

      We typed in in again...

      According to the requirement, we must pass it on with the typo, forever.....gotta be careful when writing similar README. :)

  • Cool, computer golf anniversery coming soon too (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CDWert ( 450988 ) on Thursday February 28, 2002 @10:05AM (#3083736) Homepage
    This is cool, I am the first generation out from this and remeber reading the articles and seeing the picture in wonder.

    My father wrote a computer Golf game, we belive the first, in 1965, he had a couple of national news stories on it and I have a tape of the last show (nice shirt dad, and hair, and suit...lol).

    It was fairly sophisticated taking into account wind and other varibles, could be played on any termina, (paper out back then) I actually spent many hours 'online' clicking though the old paper tape to load and run it on a timeshare (what a waste of then limited resources :)

    I still have the cards, paper tape, and somewhere I think the latter magnetic tape it was transferred to eventually, What should I do with all this stuff, pretty boring in itself. Should I donate it somewhere , where ?
    • You should post the video on a website with some background info. If you don't have the bandwidth I'm sure people would be willing to donate some hosting, I for one will.
    • Try Home of the Underdogs(www.theunderdogs.org), out of Hong Kong. From there it will percolate throughout the abandonware community.

    • GPL it and set up a page with all of the things you've got (history, the video, etc.). Search engines will pick it up, and you never know who will find it while investigating history. (I love doing that kind of thing and finding a page about something like that would make my day. I'll bet a lot of others feel the same way, too.)

      • Well the problem here is twofild, I dont mind doing it but have no way of reading the data off the tape or cards, and wonder who else may.

        The second is (i dont remerber at the moment) the system it was meant to run on is long sice extinct, as well as (im thinking it was fortan, about 90% sure) has to be significantly different than it was in 65.

        Making most of the code obsolete, I tried, (back when I could still read tape) to convert it over to run on my CPM systems, but gave up deeming a rewrite was neccesary.

        If it still had value (other than antiquity value) I would GPL it. But alas I cannot read cards or tape and have no desire to decode cards by hand, been there done that.
  • ...does anyone have a version that will run on a modern machine? I'd love to while away a day setting the one ship into a permanent orbit around the planet and zapping it with the other. :)
    • I think there's a KDE version, kspaceduel IIRC. I think it comes with the standard KDE games distribution.
    • Yep, There is a Mame rom out there. I just had to check to see if I had it and it works and it does. I remember the arcade version where there was no controller but keypads for controlling and moving the ship. One of my favorite games at the time. Right before night driver..... Puro
  • It blows my mind to imagine how far gaming will go in the next 40 years. I'd say I can't wait, but I'm sure there will be so many interesting steps along the way. Who thinks 3D is overrated and we're gonna see some totally unexpected forms of games come out that aren't entirely headed toward VR/HoloGaming? :)
    • Well, 3D isn't overrated as such, but yes, I think a lot of new technologies will show up that will add value and flash to our games. Academic conferences on computer graphics, visualization and computer vision are ripe with ideas and technologies that are slowly being introduced into gaming as well.

      Take volume graphics and voxels, for example. At a conference (I think it was early 2001), I watched a presentation showing how a team had put together a video with the most accurately rendered nebula I'd ever seen using volume graphics and voxels (run a Google search). Amazing detail. The only drawback? Computational cost. But PCs being what they are, and GPUs having come a long way... That's just one of the techs I see being included in games soon.

      What about computer vision, which is more my kind of field? Interactive games, anyone? We know when you smile, we know when you growl, we know when you frown in thought. Not that the latter will have too much application in UT-style games, but...

      My point is basically to agree with the original poster: Many new technologies will grace our games without causing a huge paradigm shift (i.e. a change from the mouse/keyboard/screen/joystick setup).
    • Please don't knock 3D, it happens to be my preferred state of perceiving this world. Thanks.

  • kids today play too many video games... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bje2 ( 533276 ) on Thursday February 28, 2002 @10:10AM (#3083760)
    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 [timeforkids.com] 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....
    • Don't you watch Futurama? Once we're all immortal heads-in-jars, those of use who've developed our time-wasting skills on video games will have a massive head-start in one of the only forms of entertainment left to us! You damned sports-playing jocks will be left in the dust!!

      MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

      You know, either that or we're conditioning ourselves to be obese slugs that never have to leave our warrens, just being constantly plugged into Hyper-Reality (TM) and having our nutrition and good feelings piped in intravenously.
      mmmmmm.... intravenous feel-good

    • Agreed (Score:1)

      by .sig ( 180877 )
      I remember when I was growing up (a long long time ago...) when the Atari 2600 was released, and later the original NES. If it had been up to me, I probably would have been sitting at the TV all day long playing games; however, my parents wouldn't go for that. (Maybe they knew I needed to get outside occasionally, or maybe they just wanted to get rid of me for a few hours)

      Anyway, I feel that was the best thing they could have done. I'll be the first one to testify as to how addicting video games can be, which is why even now I can rarely play a game for more than an hour or so without forcing myself to get up and walk around for a bit to detach. There's nothing wrong with getting into a game, but getting so involved that you don't get out and do other things is not good for you.

    • Might have worked for you, but my time spent playing video games, taking apart my consoles and controllers for my consoles and putting them back together, along with learning how to use computers back before it was just a simple point and click to get things done in windows gave me a huge jump start in the industry. As such I'm currently making the same salary as each of my parents who have been in thier jobs for 25+ years each. And I'm only 24.

      I've seen others who were the sports players and jocks working the counter at the local mini-mart. They are still single and still acting like they are in high school. I'm married with my first kid on it's way.

      Basically what I'm getting at is that no matter what you do with your life, if it's what you really want, and you work at it and you are HAPPY (thats the Key IMO) with how things are going, there is no reason to say "Oh My God! Look at that guy playing Football out there, He is going to be way better than me because I enjoy playing Madden 2003 more than I enjoy playing Hold Icepack on knee for 5 hours!"

      As I was told by my parents, life is what you make of it. There is no one to blame but yourself if you find yourself in a place you are unhappy being.
      • i'm not saying that you have to be a jock...personally, i am a software engineer (although i did play soccer & baseball in high school)...i'm just saying kids should spend less time playing video games, and more time interacting with other kids, and using their own imaginations...i just sited the sports i played as a kid as an example from my life...i didn't mean to say that sports is the only option to video games...

        • Myself, I spent a lot of time with my friends playing video games when I was younger. Since there were only 2 controllers (NES anyone?), you had to take turns and there was a lot of interaction with other kids when you didn't have a controller in your hands.

          If you go back even further, I remember playing Warlords on the Atari 2600 with my family probably once a month and playing games on the good ol' C64 with my aunts and uncles at my Grandparents house every Sunday.

          That's not to say I didn't go outside and play on my swing set with my friends (*nostalgia for the swing set*) but whether online or offline, practically my whole life with the exception of school has been one big game.

          Now I'm much more mature and I play Live Action Roleplaying games. Wait...

      • You sound like me...

        I'm 30, married with 2 kids and I've been a gamer since about 1980. I remember with much love the time I spent from, say, 1983 to 1986 on my C64 and Atari 130XE. I had a bunk bed and the computer was on the bottom bunk, closed in with a Transformers blanket.

        I came home from school at 3:30, got on-line (at 1200 baud) and stayed on until midnight. I took some breaks for friends and food, but this was my life as a junior higher with a computer.

        Now, I have a good-paying (for this market) job involving a little programming, web design and report/data analysis. I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for the 2600, NES, or C64... Of course, now I don't get 7 hours a day to play, but I do get about 2.

        GTRacer
        - The family that games together...

    • As a 32 year old(ancient) I was pretty much privy to the whol birth and existence of video games thing. I agree that kids spend too much time playing video games, but on the flipside at Blockbuster it is always the 20 somethings renting the games for the 2 day geekathons. As for computers in the old days. We had more fun with them because just getting them to do anything other than boot up was a challenge. WE hade to make our modem cable, hope that acoustic dialer did not get confused as a dog toy, and figure out how to get 40 bucks for that 10 pack of Verbatim floppies in the purple box. Before the internet we had users groups. I was in one when I was 15. We met in parks and drank beer, caused mischief, and occasionally talked about computers. Course I am from New Orleans and beer is assumed. Puto
    • Just to play devil's advocate for a minute....
      I, too, grew up in what seems to be the last generation before video games became such a "staple item" of childhood.

      I never did enjoy competitive sports though, and constantly fought pressure from both peers and teachers to play them. Until the end of high-school (and even in college, to an extent), I constantly witnessed favoritism towards those who were good at sports, and saw schools much more concerned with the quality of their sports teams than about the quality of their education.

      While it doesn't hurt to tell your kids to "get outside" once in a while, when it's a nice day and they're wasting it all indoors, I also don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that you don't see "leagues of 10+ teams" like you used to.

      Maybe kids are finally a little more free to choose their own interests, and to develop their minds outside of the classroom? Only a select few of those who excel at sports in school ever get to make a living from it later. By contrast, how many will find an interest in gaming (and by extension, computers) useful for a future career?
    • (Lots of idiotic assumptions below)

      Sure, it's fine for you Americans to yell at your kids to get them to go outside... But have you ever tried making a Tree Fort in -25C? Admittedly, it's nice during summer, and if we're lucky, it's on a Saturday.

    • "Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson

      This was actually taken from Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. I've forgotten which of the morally despicable collectivists says it, but it's not too far into it, at a party.

    • You CAN take that too far, you know. I agree, kids spending 24/7 on video games aren't building any memories, aren't learning a lot, aren't developing themselves as well as they could. But don't completely cut them out. They're just one variety of toy - and kids need toys, they need to play. Hell, adults do too. ^_^ Ask any educator, play is a very important part of education and mental (and social) development. Though the case can be made that computer games aren't teaching social development. =P

      Give kids books and bikes and "Final Fantasy" and a Rubix Cube and Little League and Lego and a musical instrument and a foreign language or three and more books and movies and dodgeball and music and crayons, and turn 'em loose! The sky's the limit as long as they have sufficient opportunities to learn and grow. =)

      Of course, I'm biased. My dad's a hacker, and rather than spending our time playing catch, we spent it tinkering with DOS. =P But the memories are nice, all the same, and I learned a lot. Computer games are also a way to get kids interested in computers, which in today's and the future economy will be helpful to them in their education and the job market. Just something to keep in mind.

      -Kasreyn

    • Nonsense (Score:3, Funny)

      by cje ( 33931 )
      ...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...

      If kids don't know how to get to World 8-1 of Super Mario Brothers, then IMHO they need to spend more time playing video games because they are clearly out of practice. Really, all one needs to do is go to the hidden warp zone at the end of World 1-2, warp to World 4, then use the first warp zone in World 4-2 to warp directly to World 8. (Note: Do not confuse this with the warp zone at the end of World 4-2, which will only take you to World 5 and is virtually useless; you're looking for the vine hidden in the blocks near the first elevator.)

  • Googling [google.nl] for Spacewars turns up several results that say the game is from 1961, not '62. Is The Times Wrong?

  • Download your Spacewars (Score:2, Informative)

    by Sarin ( 112173 )
    How to celebrate it more than to actually mass-play Spacewars?

    "A DEC PDP1 emulator running the original version of Spacewar! is online Here [mit.edu]"

  • Ach! (Score:5, Funny)

    by merz ( 550238 ) <andy@@@fribber...org> on Thursday February 28, 2002 @10:13AM (#3083778) Homepage
    Willy: It's impossible for me to fire a pistol. If you'll check me medical records, you'll see I have a cripplin' arthritis in me index fingerrrs. Look at 'em! [holds them up] I got it from "Space Invaders" in 1977. Wiggum: Aw, yeah. That was a pretty addictive video game. Willy: [surprised] Video game?
    • IM-less-than-HO that's a tad ignorant. Violence is a product of misdirected anger. Anger is an emotion and therefore natural (not bad or evil). If you suppress anger it will come out in distorted ways whereas if you experience feeelings of anger when appropriate and own them it is unlikely to lead to violence. If, like kids who cannot be angry back at the source (usually their parents), you are left with residual anger it is better to find harmless outlets such as sport or video games to vent that anger. or you will bottle it up and end up taking it out on your own kids or other people. Whoa... I'm not ranting - just typing fast.

      Cancer is a disease - and cigarettes help it along.

  • And I thought I was old-school cause the first game I ever played was Combat for the Atari 2600...stuff like this really puts your position as a gamer in perspective. Wow.

    Let me ask you this...

    Has the RPG really evolved beyond Ultima? Has the shooter really evolved beyond Galaxian? Has the puzzle really evolved beyond Tetris, or the simulation beyond SimCity?

    Games may have changed in their outward appearance, but at their heart, they're all essentially the same.

    -Evan

  • A bit if an exaggeration (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TrollMan 5000 ( 454685 ) on Thursday February 28, 2002 @10:16AM (#3083788)
    It's very interesting to consider how quickly the popularity of video games grew,

    Wasn't it Pong [klov.com], developed around 1973 that really launched the popularity of video games? The first 20 years seemed to be an expansion of a glacial sort.
    • I guess it depends on what you mena by launching...

      Pong was the first video game that got widespread distrobution in arcades, bars, malls, etc - which exposed people to a new gaming experience. Bushnell's earlier game, Computer Space (?), with its weird fiberglass case, while earlier, didn't get as much distribution. (Although one of teh arcades at Ohio State had one, and sucked many of my quarters).

      Spacewar, otoh, required access to a crt and a copy of teh deck to run it. We had a version that ran on an IBM mainfranme (370?) that you could use to run teh ganme - as long as you didn't get caught by the system operator - after all, computers were SERIOUS tools, far too IMPORTANT to waste precious CPU time on games. Star Trek was another popular game - that could be played on teletypes or screens. It used an 8x8 matrix and ASCII graphics, but was fun none the less. Again, you had to avoid be caught by the "games police" who would even go to remote terminals to catch students playing games (although the advent of dial up access, even pre-PC days helped, for those lucky enough to have a modem and display terminal). Once we discovered that even a penny in an account would let you log in and play until you disconnected, we started marathon trek sessions with rotating players. It was also kind of net to log on afterward and see your account balance was $-10,514.34.

      I'd say Spacewar and Star Trek were very influential in creating interest in video games, while Pong brought them to the masses.

  • NYT article without the reg. screen (Score:3, Informative)

    by thesolo ( 131008 ) <slap@fighttheriaa.org> on Thursday February 28, 2002 @10:18AM (#3083797) Homepage
    Right here:
    http://college.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://w ww.nytimes.com/2002/02/28/technology/28SPAC.html [nytimes.com]

    I'm not karma-whoring, I've already hit the cap.
  • according to this article, the creator of spacewar also wrote pong in 1970.....there's got to be a million copies/versions of pong out there for every platform avalible. including shockwave.

    i'm not sure if you'd even need shockwave to emulate this, but is there some sort of a shockwave/consolve version of this game "spacewar"? the article speaks of an arcade version, is there a MAME rom of this? this seems interesting enough to relive. i'd count spacewar as "abandonware [slashdot.org]" ;-)
    • according to this article, the creator of spacewar also wrote pong in 1970.....there's got to be a million copies/versions of pong out there for every platform avalible. including shockwave.

      There certainly are. But one interesting thing about Pong is that it was an analogue circuit, not a digital computer, so to "emulate" it you'd need to model the electronics, rather than simply (hah!) translate an instruction set as you would when emulating a computer.

      I don't know of any Pong simulators, only clones.
    • The original PONG didn't have any rom in it at all - in fact, it didn't use any ICs whatsoever. 100% discrete circuitry, much like the original Magnavox Odyssey. It's not really possible to emulate this. Later versions of PONG (all those millions of clones and 6-in-1 type games) had PONG on a chip - developed by GI iirc - which was basically the entire game logic and display routines in a nice tiny package. The units still tended to be large regardless.

      As for MAME, as arcade PONG can't be emulated, the best you can hope for is a simulation. This was included in MAME several (dozen) versions back, but removed by the project head, as he considered simulation not in tune with what MAME is about. I believe the code is still in there, and as MAME is open-sourced, you can just uncomment the relevant parts and compile it with PONG. There also are binaries floating around with this code still enabled. But as for 'officially'... sadly, it ain't there.

  • "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.

    "But can it run Linux?"
    • I had that same Compaq!
      Linux? I remember the day I loaded windows 3.0 on it.

      It was really more of a "luggable" than a "portable," though. It was from the It-has-a-handle-therefore-it's-portable school of thought, I guess.

  • spacewar links ahoy (Score:5, Informative)

    by kisrael ( 134664 ) on Thursday February 28, 2002 @10:33AM (#3083850) Homepage
    Spacewar! [mit.edu] is one of the grand-daddies of modern videogames, and a much deeper deathmatch than Pong. (I was amazed at how developed its deathmatch became when I read this old Rolling Stones article [wheels.org].) Written by MIT Hackers who were inspired by the space opera Fiction of E.E. "Doc" Smith [wheels.org]. Someone has an the original game [mit.edu] running on a PDP-1 emulator. There's a decent funny introduction at classicgaming.com [classicgaming.com] and a more comprehensive set of Spacewar! links [wheels.org] as well. (Possibly the most obvious sequal to Spacewar! was the brilliant Star Control series [classicgaming.com]. The first game added 12 new types of ships, each with 2 unique weapons systems, and the second created a whole universe to support it. Brilliant, brilliant stuff.)

    from my blog at kisrael.com [kisrael.com]
  • I remember an old tank shot them up that was a cocktail table kind of game. It was great for bars because you could put your beers down on the table top while you tried to chase your opponent around in a maze that you viewed from over head.

    All very low rez, but very cool. The head to head face to face competition with your opponent was particularly addictive. someone should do a higher rez version of this.

    • There is...

      it's called BZflag and is the best tank - kill everyone you can game ever made.

      oh and it's free, runs on everything but a MAC, and you can get it's sourcecode.

      bzflag.sourceforge.net -- go get it. it's fun.
      • The game i recall had an overhead feel like pacman, but it was tanks, etc with a more open maze with some areas with long lines of sight.

        In a way that was better because everyone could see where everyone was from the start. No hiding possible at all. Merely a matter of taste, but it provided a lot of fun.

  • Not the First Video Game (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The first video game, as in the first known usage of a computer and video to play a game, was actually built by Willy Higinbotham in 1958.

    See the link for the whole (fascinating) story - this man gave people the IDEA and the implementation for video games - it's time that he got his due share in video game history.

    http://www.pong-story.com/thefirst.htm

  • >Unfortunately, there was no violence
    >before 1952, because we all know that
    >violence is caused by video games.

    I think that you are wrong about that. EC Comics was driven out of business because they were charged with having the very same effect on children with their science fiction and horror comics.

    Basically, there has always been assholes out there trying to control what other people can read and do.
  • One of the main events IMO was when games like Zelda, Dragon Warrior, and Final Fantasy came out. Most of the games before these were mainly score breakers. You played and played for hours to see if you could get the highest score or get to the last level. Games like Final Fantasy added a broad story element to the game and when you beat the game it finished the story. Ahhh thank god for RPGS. :)
  • .... the first is the invention of the video game, and the second (according to the article) is the the world's first ban on staff playing video games during working hours. Didn't take long....
  • A previous slashdot story [slashdot.org] provided a link to a good article on The origin of Spacewar [enteract.com]. It's definitely worth a read.

  • Yay! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Thursday February 28, 2002 @11:17AM (#3084109) Homepage Journal
    Only 130 (give or take) more years before the "Pong" copyright expires! I can't wait for my great grandchildren to play this game once it hits the public domain!
  • Standing outside the skating rink.
    Arcade stand up version with green raster graphics.
    Some goof beside me getting ready to get smacked.
    He moved his ship in circles firing.
    I steadied my aim without a word and -BAM!-
    My first frag.

    Old-school like writing basic on a Trash 80.

    Yeah, I wonder if this is how people are going to talk about their first game of Quake or the days playing Evercrack twenty years from now.

    ________________________________________________ __
    • > He moved his ship in circles firing. I steadied my aim without a word and -BAM!- My first frag.

      ROFLMAO. Your comment on green rasters reminded me of green vectors.

      My funniest public frag was a game called "Cyber Sled", a first-person tank game with spiffy 3D graphics that often appeared as a head-to-head game.

      I grew up on "Battlezone", which used almost the same control interface. And which probably made me the oldest person in the arcade.

      I'd just finished watching some kid half my age beat two or three other players, and I figured I'd try my luck. The controls felt almost exactly like Battlezone's, and within seconds, I became one with my tank.

      To make a long story short, I not only fragged his ass, I fragged it consistently for the duration of our credits. I almost felt sorry for him as I strafed around a corner and lobbed that last missile up his azz. Most of the time, he had no idea what hit him ;)

      Everything I needed to know in life I learned while playing Battlezone.

  • Does anyone remember the mini-arcade games that Coleco made in the early 80's? I remember a few friends of mine had those when we were in grammar school. They looked pretty cool with the scaled down versions of the arcade housings. I think they made models for, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Zaxxon.
    • They also had a Dinkey Kong Jr. one. I had the Pacman, Donkey Kong, and DK JR ones. ehehhe Man I was the envy of all my friends..."WOW YOU GET TO PLAY AND DON'T EVEN NEED QUARTERS!!!"

  • The Times has it wrong (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Torgo's Pizza ( 547926 ) on Thursday February 28, 2002 @12:00PM (#3084450) Homepage Journal
    As some people have already pointed out, the first video game was created in 1958 by Willy Higinbotham. He was working at the US Government's Brookhaven National Laboratory. When the lab decided to have an open house, Willy decided to do something that people could interact with. He deced to graph the path of bouncing balls on an oscilloscope screen. With some quick study and hard work, by the time the open house occurred in October the game was complete.

    The oscilloscope displayed a horizontal line along the bottom and a small vertical line that represented a net in the center. A 'ball' moved across the screen and bounced whenever it hit the horizontal line. There were two small boxes attached to the oscilloscope and each had a button and a knob. These were the rudimentary controllers for two 'players'. A player pressed the button when the ball was on his side of the net and this caused the ball to return to the opposite side. The knob controlled the angle of the return. The game couldn't keep score and players could compete as long as they wanted.
    -- from Phoenix: The fall & Rise of Videogames, Leonard Herman p. 6

    His game was a big hit with everyone that visited the labs. The following year, Willy used a 15 inch screen to demonstrate his game. He never thought of any commerical uses of his invention and it never left the lab. Interesting to note that if he did apply for a patent, it would have been owned by the US Government.

  • Space Wars in the original (Score:3, Informative)

    by maggard ( 5579 ) <michael@michaelmaggard.com> on Thursday February 28, 2002 @12:15PM (#3084575) Homepage Journal
    OK - as someone who has played Space Wars on a PDP-1 that was loaded off of paper tape and on the funky PDP-1 monitor* I can attest there was no "...blinking lights, flashing colors, and tinny sound effects."

    However there was a darn good game, astonishing for its era.

    For those that busy downloading Java PDP-1 emulators and seeing what all of the hoopla was about imagine for a minute it is back in 1962:

    • Computers are very impressive machines traditionally sold by IBM, costing enormous amounts of money, require special rooms and are serviced by a complete retinue of staff.
    • Outside the Cold War is heating up with the Cuban Missile Crisis coming in October, the novel Fail Safe [amazon.com] is becoming a popular read in techie circles, and Telstar 1 [nasa.gov] will be launched in July.
    • The PDP-1 [dbit.com], while a breakthrough product is still is an impressive beast the size of a good wardrobe and costing a large sum; something your parents would brag to the neighbors about your working on.
    • In order to play Space War you load it from a paper tape [dbit.com] and sit down in front of the futuristic round CRT [dbit.com] in front in a hexagonal case. This is likely the first time many folks have seen a "glass Teletype" and certianly a keyboard.
    • Of course frivolous uses of this very expensive technology for games aren't officially supported; the time could be better spent doing other things like calculating tables and performing other complex mathematical series. Of course later Space Wars is later shipped as a standard demo.
    • The images aren't the bitmapped displays so common today but instead vector images drawn out on this very high-tech oscilloscope with accompanying desk. It would look perfectly at home on a Star Trek set except the series won't air for another 4 years.
    • There is no sound, no mouse, no color display (color TV's are still a luxury) but there is a light-pen option and the first keyboard.
    Finally, check out Gordon Greene's great PDP-1 pages [dbit.com] from where I linked the images and especially look at the PDP-1 Handbook [dbit.com].

    * I loaded & played Space Wars at the former "The Computer Museum" in Boston Mass. USA where I was staff in '86-'87. Having grown out of DEC's in-house museum they had a working PDP-1 that was fired up occasionially for special occasions and large doners.

  • The problem with Spacewar (for PC) (Score:4, Funny)

    by The Panther! ( 448321 ) <panther&austin,rr,com> on Thursday February 28, 2002 @12:45PM (#3084759) Homepage
    ...was that it was a fantastic game before keyboards became commodity junk. On the old true-blue IBM PC or XT, you got a keyboard sturdy enough to dent a car if you swung it hard enough. Now they disintegrate from the wind resistance.

    My point being, in those days each key on the keyboard could be pressed independently and the computer could discern EXACTLY which keys were down or let up. Spacewar for PC (and myriad multiplayer games that came later, using a single keyboard) demanded good quality keyboards. My buddies used to sit in the computer lab and play it for hours, until they 'upgraded' machines. They had 'new style' 101 keyboards (88 was enough for me then), and a new strategy came about: hold down as many keys as you could so your opponent couldn't thrust or shoot; when they get frustrated because they're falling toward the sun, spin around and shoot as fast as possible.

    Most Spacewar games became shoving matches after that.
  • An interesting book I just finished reading was The Ultimate History of Video Games [barnesandnoble.com] by Steven Kent. It goes all the way back... actually beginning with the precursors to pinball in the 19th century, and telling the story of video games and similar amusements as a narrative up to the year 2001. I thought it was well-written, and contains tons of quotes from firsthand sources.
  • Spacewar (Java) [mit.edu]

    It doesn't seem to work on my browser. Good luck!

Slashdot Top Deals

Make sure your code does nothing gracefully.

Close