Author: Ian Blake Added: November 4, 2008
As an avid retro-gamer, for quite a long time I've been very interested in the history of video games. To be more specific, a subject that always intrigued me was “Which was the first video game ever made?”... So, I begin an exhaustive investigation on this matter (and making this article, the first in a series of articles that will cover in detail all video gaming history).
The question was: Which was the first video game ever made?
The answer: Well, as many other things in life, there is no specific answer to that question. It depends on your own definition of the phrase “video game”. For example: When you refer to the phrase “the first video game”, do you mean the first commercial video game, 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 some way were the beginners of the video gaming industry. You will notice that these original video games were not created with the idea of getting any profit from them (back in those decades 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 above the imagination of over 99% of the population back in those days. But thanks to this small group of geniuses 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 I present the “first video game nominees”:
1940s: Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device
This is considered (and has been documented) as the first electronic game device ever made. It was created by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann. The device was assembled in the 1940s and submitted for an US Patent in January 1947. The patent was approved December 1948, which also makes it the first electronic game device to ever receive a patent (US Patent 2,455,992). As mentioned in the patent, it was an analog circuit device which used various knobs to control a dot that showed in the cathode ray tube display. The video game was created after how missiles were displayed by radars in the World War II, and the object of the game was just 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 CRT display. Because of this, only the actual “missile” appeared on the display. All other graphics including the target were showed on screen overlays manually placed over the display screen. It is rumored that Atari’s famous video game “Missile Command” was created based in this gaming device.
1951: NIMROD
NIMROD was the name of a digital computer device from the 1950s. The creators of this computer were the engineers of an UK-based enterprise called Ferranti, with the purpose of showing the device at the 1951 Festival of Britain (and later it was also showed in Berlin).
NIM is a two-player mathematical strategic game, which could be originated in the ancient China. NIM game rules are easy: There are a certain number of groups (or “heaps”), each containing a certain number of objects (a common starting array of NIM is 3 heaps containing 3, 4, and 5 objects respectively). Each player remove objects from the heaps in turns, as long as all removed objects in a turn are from a single heap and at least one object is removed. The player who takes the last object of the last heap loses, 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 the game of NIM, which makes it the first digital computer device to be specifically created for playing a game (however the main idea was to show and illustrate the computer performance, rather than to entertain and have fun with it). Since 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”)
This was a digital 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 one more time it was not made for entertainment, it was part of his PhD Thesis on “Human/Computer Interaction”.
The rules of the game are those of a common Tic-Tac-Toe game, player against the computer (no 2-player option was available). The input method was a rotary dial (similar to the ones in old telephones). The output was showed in a 35x16-pixel CRT display. This game was never very famous because the EDSAC computer was only found at the University of Cambridge, so there was no way to install it and play it in other places (until a long time later when an EDSAC emulator was created available, and by then many other excellent video games where available as well…).
1958: Tennis for Two
“Tennis for Two” was created by William Higinbotham, a scientist from the Brookhaven National Laboratory. This game was made as a way of entertainment, so visitors at the laboratory had something funny to do during their wait on “visitors day” (finally!... a video game that was created “just for the fun of it”…) . The electronic game was pretty well designed for its era: the ball was affected by several factors like gravity, wind velocity, position and angle of contact, etc.; 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 once again, many others were against the idea stating that “it was a computer game, not a video game” or “the output device was an oscilloscope, not a “raster” video display… so it does not counts as a video game”. But well… you can’t please everyone…
It is also rumored 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 contributions of J. Martin Graetz, Peter Samson, Alan Kotok, Wayne Witanen and Dan Edwards from MIT. By the 1960s, MIT was “the place to be” if your plan was to do computer research and development. So this group 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 thinking about what kind of hardware testing programs would be designed. As soon as they found out that a “Precision CRT Display” would be part of the hardware for the system, they instantly decided that “some sort of visual/interactive game” would be the demo-ware that would be perfect for the PDP-1. And after some discussion, it was quickly decided to be a space battle game of some sort. After this decision, all other ideas started coming out pretty quick: like game rules, designing concepts, programming ideas, etc..
So after approximately 200 man/hours of work, the first version of the game was at last finished. The game showed two spaceships (affectively named by players “pencil” and “wedge”) targeting missiles at each other with a sun in the middle of the screen (which “pulls” both spaceships with its gravitational force). Each spaceship was controlled by a set of console switches (for rotation, speed, missiles, and “hyperspace”). Each spaceship have a limited amount of fuel and missiles, and the hyperspace option was like a ”emergency exit”, in case everything else fails (it could either “save you or break you”).
“Spacewar!” was an instant hit between MIT computing enthusiasts, and soon they started programming their own changes to the game program (like real star charts for background, center star “on/off” option, angular momentum option, disable background, among others). The game code was ported to several other computer platforms (since the game required a video display, a hard to find option in 1960s systems, it was mostly ported to newer/cheaper DEC computers like the PDP-10 and PDP-11).
Spacewar! is not only considered by many as the first “real” video game (notice that this game does have a video display), but it also have been proved to be the true antecessor 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, both arcade games and console video games were written in another page of the history of video games (so come back for more 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?... If you ask me, I think all these games were revolutionary for its era, and must be credited as a group as the starters of the video gaming revolution. Instead of trying to decide which one was the first video game, what should be important is that all these games were created, and that’s the bottom line. Like Stephen Russell, creator of Spacewar!, said: “If I hadn't done it, someone would've done something equally exciting if not better in the next six months. I just happened to get there first”.
Ian Blake is a freelance writer and blogger from the Planet Earth. You may read similar articles at his History of Video Games Blog located here ---> http://www.retro-videogames.com
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