This tale begins with Mr Christopher Strachey, a computer scientist of British descent born in 1916. It was in 1951 that Chris seemed to have enough free time and designed a game of draughts to play on the ACE - Or as Alan Turing described it, a "universal computing machine." Problems quickly arose when the ACE's memory burnt out, it just couldn't handle the complexity of a board game. However Strachey was more successful on his second attempt created on the Manchester Mark 1, which had a much larger memory capacity. He claimed that it could "play a complete game of draughts at a reasonable speed." This was quite revolutionary as people began to realize computers could be used for entertainment purposes.
Next came OXO (no, not like the gravy.) This was a computer-made version of the famous tic-tac-toe, or now more commonly known naughts and crosses. This was created by Professor Alexandor Shafto Douglas. Another British computer scientist. It was developed on the EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) in 1952. It was created to support his work on human-computer interactions at Cambridge University. Sadly it never had the chance to become popular as it was a unique computer to Cambridge Uni.
It seems that there wasn't much (or any) recorded information on the development in computer gaming between 1953 and 1957, however it was picked up once again in 1958 with the creation of "Tennis for Two" which was basically the original Pong. This was developed by the American physicist William Higinbotham. He heard that one of the computers at Brookhaven could "calculate ballistic missile trajectories" so of course, the first thing you would think to do with a missile tracking device is to play tennis on it. It is fairly logical. However, Higinbotham was always interested in entertainment and apparently had a love for pinball machines, I feel like I could relate well to this man. You interacted with the ball by the use of two simple controllers that controlled the movement of the "player" as I shall call them and a button to hit the ball. This was the first controller and the main reason why I find this man so amazing, as I have always found my games more enjoyable when using a proper big, chunky controller. Hence why I have never had much of an interest in the Wii or Xbox Kinect, as amazing as they are. This game became incredibly popular and hundreds queued for hours for a chance to play it.
Next and definitely of high importance came Spacewar! When you sit playing the new Halo or Mass effect. Or even when you hear an argument over "which game is better" simply announce Spacewar! Lets be honest, without it there would be no inspiration for such games, as this game, created in 1961 by the brilliant Steve Russell was something unique. It is in human nature to want conflict. We are a species who create war over the simplest things. We fight and some kill. So it makes total sense to create a game where we can kill without actually harming anyone (but this doesn't mean video games have no influence over crime in modern day society, because they do.) But it is still a lot better to do it on a screen than in real life.
Spacewar! was made on the DEC PDP-1 which took two players and made them fight each other whilst having to dodge obstacles... In space! It is considered one of the first influential computer games (taken from bmigaming.com)
It was then a whole five years until Ralph Baer began developing the Brown Box which I shall speak more of in my next blog. Baer wanted to create a machine that people could play games on, it would feature action, board, sports and chase games along with a variety of other games. He wanted these games to appear on Channel LP which stood for "Lets Play!" a common name now used through video walkthroughs. He also later created the worlds fist game that could be played on the television, called the chase game (Original, isn't it? Well actually, I suppose it is.) Then in 1968 the first console prototype was created, this ran several of his intended games. What I find most interesting about Ralph Baer is that he never came from a technology based background. He graduated from the National Radio Institute and later graduated with a degree in Television Engineering. He makes a good role model as someone who really pushed with his design and was successful enough to be named "The Father of Video Games." Not a bad title to go by in my opinion.
I apologize if this blog was a little tedious to read! I find it difficult to write a history of gaming blog without writing about... well, history. I hope you are all still alive and kicking after reading this, because I will warn you. there is more to come! :D
Now, time for a little break, which means a little treat. Where did i put my cookies?
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