THE HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES
In 1949, a young engineer named
Ralph Baer was given an assignment to build a television set. He wasn't supposed
to build just any television set, but one that would be the absolute best
of all televisions. This was not a problem for Baer, but he wanted to go
beyond his original assignment and incorporate some kind of game into the
set. He didn't know exactly what kind of game he had in mind, but it didn't
really matter because his managers nixed the idea. It would take another
18 years for his idea to become a reality, and by that time there would be
other people to share in the glory, like Willy Higinbotham, who designed
an interactive tennis game played on an oscilloscope, and Steve Russell,
who programmed a rudimentary space game on a DEC PDP-1 mainframe computer.
And then there was also Nolan Bushnell, who played that space game and dreamed
of a time when fairground midways would be filled with games powered by
computers.
Today, with interest in classic
games gaining steam once again, players of video games are reminded of the
rich history of the industry. Crave's Asteroids 64 is a modern version of
a game that came out in 1979. And the original Asteroids was merely an updated
version of Nolan Bushnell's Computer Space, which was really a jazzed-up
copy of Steve Russell's Spacewar. Space Invaders, Centipede, Frogger, and
Pong are once again on store shelves, and Pong is but a polished variant
of the game Willie Higinbotham displayed on his oscilloscope.
The history of video games is
not just about people. It's also about companies and ironies. Atari was an
American company with a Japanese name, and the Japanese company Sega was
started by an American. Magnavox, the company that started it all, is owned
by Phillips, a company that is over a century old, and Nintendo, the company
that made video games popular again, is just as old. And who would have ever
thought Sony, the company that invented all types of electronics, from transistor
radios to video recorders, would release a video game console that would
become its top-selling product of all time?
In today's world, where video
games are often cited as a source for teenage violence, it's interesting
to see that the first home console also had a light rifle as an optional
peripheral.
The world of video games continues
to evolve. By reading about the past, perhaps you'll also get a glimpse of
the future.
