I' Quenta en' Computer Tyalier, Kirma Er: 1950’s – 1970’s

The History of Computer Games, Part One: 1950’s – 1970’s

 
Computer games actually stretch back a lot farther than I had originally thought, holding their origins with Alexander “Sandy” Shafto Douglas, who created a graphical version of Tic-Tac-Toe in 1952. Douglas created the game after writing his PhD in human-computer interaction at the University of Cambridge. Six years passed and William Higinbotham created his game called ‘Tennis for two’.A few more years later, now 1962, Steve Russel created a game entitled ‘Spacewar!’. The game consists of two players flying spacecrafts around a planet trying to shoot each other, a simple enough concept. The game shows its age not only from its graphics but even more so when you consider the computer it was created on was the size of a car; the PDP-1.

As you can see the growth of computer games at this point is slow, having a game produced every few years. In 1972 Nolan Bushnell created one of the most iconic games in history; Pong. The game is very simple; players protect their side from a dot that bounces about the screen using their ‘paddle’, which is displayed as a simple white rectangle; the rectangles movement is limited to vertical pan. Also in 1972 Magnavox created the first home games console titled the ‘Magnavox Odyssey’, which was invented by Ralph Baer. The Odyssey wasn’t popular by today’s standards; it wasn’t until Pong was available in the home that computer games became popular. Pong was created just a year after Bushnell and Ted Dabney made Computer Space, which was the first arcade game ever made. The same year Pong was made Bushnell and Dabney started Atari Computers and re-released Pong as the first commercially available game for the home in 1975. 

Because of Pong’s popularity Magnavox had to cancel the Odyssey and released a simpler console, the ‘Odyssey 100. This ‘simpler’ console only played Pong and Hockey so along side the 100; they released a ‘higher end’ 200 version. Though the 200 only added on screen scoring for up to players and also a third game; Smash. Atari released their equivalent console at practically the same time through the department store chain, Sears.

1975 marked the end of the first generation of computer games, with the second welcoming a new console; the Fairchild Video Entertainment System (VES). Fairchild released the VES a year behind Atari and Magnavox, but the VES used single ROM cartridges which allowed games to be run from the cartridge itself, apposed to previously just activation a game preloaded on the console. RCA (Radio Corporation of America) and Atari release their own cartridge based consoles soon after.

Only two years after consoles began being produced for the home, manufacturers sold their inferior consoles for a loss in an attempt to clear stock, causing Fairchild and RCA to completely abandon their consoles. This left only Atari and Magnavox producing home consoles.
And that concludes the 1950 – 1970’s Computer games history.

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