Post by kdog on May 23, 2015 20:00:20 GMT -6
Back in 1976, for Christmas, I received my first video game from Santa.
Spoiler Alert !!!! Do not read anymore if you believe in Santa Claus !!!!!
I found the gift a week earlier and was dying to try it out. On the morning of Christmas, in the wee hours of the morning, I silently sneak downstairs to retrieve the package, one of many that "Santa " had left for me. It was an Atari . It played Pong. I hooked it up to my little 13 inch black and white TV in my bedroom. Played it for a few hours, then returned it back downstairs next to the Christmas tree.
Yes, it was Pong.
But, do you know the history of how it started?
It's pretty cool to look back on something that is almost part of everyday life.
Pong Story
We have come a long ways from then. Grew up as a college student in the 80's using basic programming 8080 chips. Playing Tempest and Joust and so on evolving.
The last game I played was probably Halo or Black Ops, Max Payne, and Spore. LOL !
I just do Angry Birds now. Maybe it's just age or lack of equipment. Thinking the latter.
Spoiler Alert !!!! Do not read anymore if you believe in Santa Claus !!!!!
I found the gift a week earlier and was dying to try it out. On the morning of Christmas, in the wee hours of the morning, I silently sneak downstairs to retrieve the package, one of many that "Santa " had left for me. It was an Atari . It played Pong. I hooked it up to my little 13 inch black and white TV in my bedroom. Played it for a few hours, then returned it back downstairs next to the Christmas tree.
Yes, it was Pong.
But, do you know the history of how it started?
The video game history started in a strange and complicated way and it is important to avoid confusions with what happened in the 1950s and 1960s. The real video game history started with Ralph Baer as early as 1951. One very important thing to remember is how the video game has been defined in the 1960s before modern tehnologies allowed video games to be played on computers.
A video game is defined as an apparatus that displays games using RASTER VIDEO equipment: a television set, a monitor, etc. In the 1950s and 1960s, computers were not only exceedingly expensive, but used a technology that could not allow integrating them into a video game system. Only mainframes could allow playing a few games. These games qualified as COMPUTER games, not VIDEO games.
The video game history is often misunderstood, so we will explain what happened in the 1950s first, and then go through the real video game history which began in 1966.
A video game is defined as an apparatus that displays games using RASTER VIDEO equipment: a television set, a monitor, etc. In the 1950s and 1960s, computers were not only exceedingly expensive, but used a technology that could not allow integrating them into a video game system. Only mainframes could allow playing a few games. These games qualified as COMPUTER games, not VIDEO games.
The video game history is often misunderstood, so we will explain what happened in the 1950s first, and then go through the real video game history which began in 1966.
It's pretty cool to look back on something that is almost part of everyday life.
As early as 1951, a young 29-year old TV engineer named Ralph Baer worked at Loral, a TV company. His Chief Engineer, Sam Lackoff, asked him to Build the best television set in the world. Designing a TV set was an easy task for Ralph, and he wanted to add a new concept that his boss did not understand: playing games on the television set. The video game concept was born, but could not be implemented since the boss refused the idea. In September 1966, Ralph came back to his 1951 idea of playing games on TV sets and started building the first video game prototypes. Therefore, Ralph Baer is accordingly credited as the inventor of the video game.
1947, however, is believed to be the first year when a game was designed for playing on a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT). This very simple game was designed by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann. A patent application was filed on January 25th, 1947 and U.S. Patent #2 455 992 issued on Dec 14th, 1948.
The game was probably designed earlier in 1946 but since we do not know this for a fact, we will rely on the filing date of 1947. The system used eight vacuum tubes (four 6Q5 triodes and four 6V6 tetrodes) and simulated a missile being fired at a target. The idea was obviously inspired by radar displays used during World War II. Several knobs allowed adjusting the curve and speed of the moving point representing the missile. Because graphics could not be drawn electronically at the time, small targets drawn on a simple overlay were placed on the CRT by the builder of this game.
Since it did not generate video signals which were then sent to a raster scan display such as an ordinary TV set or monitor, it was not a video game. However, it is believed to be the earliest system specifically designed for game play on a CRT screen.
1947, however, is believed to be the first year when a game was designed for playing on a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT). This very simple game was designed by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann. A patent application was filed on January 25th, 1947 and U.S. Patent #2 455 992 issued on Dec 14th, 1948.
The game was probably designed earlier in 1946 but since we do not know this for a fact, we will rely on the filing date of 1947. The system used eight vacuum tubes (four 6Q5 triodes and four 6V6 tetrodes) and simulated a missile being fired at a target. The idea was obviously inspired by radar displays used during World War II. Several knobs allowed adjusting the curve and speed of the moving point representing the missile. Because graphics could not be drawn electronically at the time, small targets drawn on a simple overlay were placed on the CRT by the builder of this game.
Since it did not generate video signals which were then sent to a raster scan display such as an ordinary TV set or monitor, it was not a video game. However, it is believed to be the earliest system specifically designed for game play on a CRT screen.
We have come a long ways from then. Grew up as a college student in the 80's using basic programming 8080 chips. Playing Tempest and Joust and so on evolving.
The last game I played was probably Halo or Black Ops, Max Payne, and Spore. LOL !
I just do Angry Birds now. Maybe it's just age or lack of equipment. Thinking the latter.
We didn't see home video games until the late 90's and 2000's