ProcTech SOL & Trek80 - yo, Bob Wood!

From: Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com>
Date: Sun Aug 16 20:19:31 1998

On Sun, 16 Aug 1998, Sam Ismail wrote:

> > Somewhat related point: the Nicolet monster I brought home a couple months
> > back came with tons of paper tape software, and had a considerable number
> > of games tapes. This for a computer that was intended strictly for
> > scientific use :)
>
> And my point was to mention that the games are from the 1972-1976
> timeframe.

But the Nicolet wasn't MPU-based, was it? There are plenty of games that
date back to the 60's (like the ever popular SpaceWar on the PDP-1), 50's
(Nim, tac-tac-toe, checkers), and I'd be astounded if there weren't
computer games in the 40's as well.

Perhaps the most surprising is that the first pong-like arcade game was
done in 1958:

<<
As far as I know, the first arcade game was created in 1958, by Willy
Higinbotham at the Dept. of Nuclear Energy in the US. He wanted to make
tours of the lab a bit more exciting, and so he made an analog computer
with two paddles and an oscilloscope display that let two players play a
sort of two-dimensional tennis (you got a side-view of the court).

To be more precise, the blueprints were made Oct. 1958, a date which has
been verified.

(source: _Creative_Computing_ October 1982, p. 190)
>>

Hey, John H.: any relation to Willy?

-- Doug
Received on Sun Aug 16 1998 - 20:19:31 BST