Week 2! let there be game! (1950-1970)

In the beginning there was man, then not much happened until one day a slightly more intelligent man created game!



Though the origins of games appear to be contradicting, inconsistent and generally impossible to determine what we do know is this.....



The surface was first scratched, so to speak, in 1952 when a gentleman going by the name of A.S. Douglas created, on the worlds first computer (EDSAC), a game of naughts and crosses. The game was created for Douglas's thesis on human-computer interaction. However this was unique and was not commercially available mainly for the simple reason it was only on the EDSAC, which incidentally was the size of a small country and thus not practical for the living room of most homes.



Following on from this in 1958 there came what is in some cases considered the first ever video game. Tennis for two (left) was created by William Higinbotham to prevent boredom of guests visiting the lab where Higinbotham worked, a clear example that computer games where being recognised as a form of fun and entertainment. Though it transpires this invention and realisation later became a regret of Higinbotham who wanted to be known for his work as a physicist rather than this, I suppose you could call, small side project.




Then came the big hitter, A space fighting game!!!!! in 1962 the future was now with the creation of spacewar! (right). Steve Russell a computer programmer gave us the true computer game experience enabling players to compete against one another assuming the roles of duelling spaceships, imaginatively known as the wedge and the pencil, the object of the game was to annihilate your opponent before they succeeded in annihilating you. with the inclusion of various options such as hyper space and a reasonable representation of physics it is quit a step from the earlier naughts and crosses giant computer considering as well spacewar was on the comparatively tiny PDP-1 computer.




This said it wasn't until 1972 when games where brought to the home. I give you the console ladies and gentlemen. Up to this point games were primarily created and available on military, scientific or academic systems including the aforementioned PDP-1 which was not a domestic computer. the worlds first console was brought to us by a pioneering man named Ralph Baer who way back 1951 had conceived the idea of incorporating games into a TV set he been requested to design by his boss. unfortunately his somewhat less pioneering boss did not approve the idea and it was subsequently scrapped. However our fearless hero, undeterred, 1966, OK, maybe a little deterred, resumes work on the now titled "brown box" which later (1971) became the odyssey (pictured right) the first commercially available home video games console. Given his fairly humble beginning's as a factory worker it is not clear what drove Baer to concentrate so much on the goal of bringing games to the masses over than the fact it appears Baer was very into progresion having attained an at the time unique degree in television engineering and never looked back goin on to sart his own company. I guess Baer saw the potential were others did not and now it is widely accepted that Baer is the man responsible creating and shaping the game industry we know today.



this brings us upto 1973 where the world famous "pong" was introduced, a game im sure most people had their first experience of games.



this however concludes this entry as we have now entered the 70's.