By Leonard Herman, Jer Horwitz, Steve Kent, and
Skyler Miller
In 1949, a young engineer named Ralph Baer was given an assignment
to build a television set. He wasn't supposed to build just any
television set, but one that would be the absolute best of all
televisions. This was not a problem for Baer, but he wanted to
go beyond his original assignment and incorporate some kind of
game into the set. He didn't know exactly what kind of game he
had in mind, but it didn't really matter because his managers
nixed the idea. It would take another 18 years for his idea to
become a reality, and by that time there would be other people
to share in the glory, like Willy Higinbotham, who designed an
interactive tennis game played on an oscilloscope, and Steve Russell,
who programmed a rudimentary space game on a DEC PDP-1 mainframe
computer. And then there was also Nolan Bushnell, who played that
space game and dreamed of a time when fairground midways would
be filled with games powered by computers.
Today, with interest in classic games gaining steam once again,
players of video games are reminded of the rich history of the
industry. Crave's Asteroids 64 is a modern version of a game that
came out in 1979. And the original Asteroids was merely an updated
version of Nolan Bushnell's Computer Space, which was really a
jazzed-up copy of Steve Russell's Spacewar. Space Invaders, Centipede,
Frogger, and Pong are once again on store shelves, and Pong is
but a polished variant of the game Willie Higinbotham displayed
on his oscilloscope.
The history of video games is not just about people. It's also
about companies and ironies. Atari was an American company with
a Japanese name, and the Japanese company Sega was started by
an American. Magnavox, the company that started it all, is owned
by Phillips, a company that is over a century old, and Nintendo,
the company that made video games popular again, is just as old.
And who would have ever thought Sony, the company that invented
all types of electronics, from transistor radios to video recorders,
would release a video game console that would become its top-selling
product of all time?
In today's world, where video games are often cited as a source
for teenage violence, it's interesting to see that the first home
console also had a light rifle as an optional peripheral.
The world of video games continues to evolve. By reading about
the past, perhaps you'll also get a glimpse of the future. Source:
Game
Spot |
