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# Video game/History

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Video games probably began in 1958 when Tennis for Two, a precursor to Pong, was developed to entertain visitors to [Brookhaven National Laboratory]?.

In 1961, a group of students at MIT, including [Steve Russell]?, programmed a game called Spacewar? on the then brand new DEC PDP-1?. The game pitted two human players against each other, each controlling a space ship capable of firing missiles. A black hole in the centre created a large gravitational field and another source of hazard. This game was soon distributed with new DEC computers and traded throughout primitve cyberspace. It was the first widely available and influential game.

Pong? was developed in 1972 by Atari? and became the first successful console video game. The game is loosely based around tennis: Two players each control a "bat" which has the freedom to move up and down at their end of the "court". A ball is "served" from the centre of the court and as the ball moves towards their side of the court each player must maneuver their bat to "hit" the ball back to their opponent. It soon had many imitators and the coin operated video game craze began.

Colossal Cave (also known as Adventure) was one of the first adventure games.

Atari? [home computing]? (the 8-bit? era) [the great video game decline]? Nintendo [Game and Watch]? NES? [Super Mario Bros]? Game Boy Tetris SNES? Doom Sony PlayStation? Tomb Raider SEGA PlayStation2? Dreamcast? Xbox? Gamecube?

Everything listed on this page has to do with the history of consoles, but we're also using the word video game to apply to those played on computers. Request that someone add something about those!

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Last edited July 31, 2001 2:18 pm (diff)
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