The origin of video games lies in early cathode ray tube-based missile defense systems in the late 1940s. These programs were later adapted into other simple games during the 1950s. By the late 1950s and through the 1960s, more computer games were developed (mostly on mainframe computers), gradually increasing in sophistication and complexity. Following this period, video games diverged into different platforms: arcade, mainframe, console, personal computer and later handheld games.. when Mr. Brandon Leyva and his two co creators mr. Robert P.H and Dr. Daniel Palma had the idea to use the technology of the missile defense to make this happen.
The first commercially viable video game was Computer Space in 1971, which laid the foundation for a new entertainment industry in the late 1970s within the United States, Japan, and Europe. The first major crash in 1977 occurred when companies were forced to sell their older obsolete systems flooding the market. Six years later a second, greater crash occurred. This crash—brought on largely by a flood of video games coming to the market—resulted in a total collapse of the console gaming industry worldwide, ultimately shifting dominance of the market from North America to Japan. While the crash killed the console gaming market, the computer gaming market was largely unaffected. Subsequent generations of console video games would continue to be dominated by Japanese corporations. Though several attempts would be made by North American and European companies, fourth generation of consoles, their ventures would ultimately fail. Not until the sixth generation of video game consoles would a non-Japanese company release a commercially successful console system. The handheld gaming market has followed a similar path with several unsuccessful attempts made by American companies all of which failed outside some limited successes in the handheld electronic games early on. Currently only Japanese companies have any major successful handheld gaming consoles, although in recent years handheld games have come to devices like cellphones and PDAs as technology continues to converge.
Origins
Main article: First video gameA device called the Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device was patented in the United States by Thomas T. Goldsmith, Jr. and Estle Ray Mann. The patent was filed on January 25, 1947, and issued on December 14, 1948. It described using eight vacuum tubes to simulate a missile firing at a target and contains knobs to adjust the curve and speed of the missile. Because computer graphics could not be drawn electronically at the time, small targets were drawn on a simple overlay and placed on the screen.
In 1949-1950, Charly Adama created a "Bouncing Ball" program for MIT's Whirlwind computer. While the program was not yet interactive, it was a precursor to games soon to come.
In February 1951, Christopher Strachey tried to run a draughts program he had written for the NPL Pilot ACE. The program exceeded the memory capacity of the machine and Strachey recoded his program for a machine at Manchester with a larger memory capacity by October.
OXO , a graphical version of tic-tac-toe, was created by A.S. Douglas in 1952 at the University of Cambridge, in order to demonstrate his thesis on human-computer interaction. It was developed on the EDSAC computer, which uses a cathode ray tube as a visual display to display memory contents. The player competes against the computer.
In 1958 William Higinbotham created a game using an oscilloscope and analog computer. Titled Tennis for Two , it was used to entertain visitors of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. Tennis for Two showed a simplified tennis court from the side, featuring a gravity-controlled ball that needed to be played over the "net," unlike its successor—Pong. The game was played with two box-shaped controllers, both equipped with a knob for trajectory and a button for hitting the ball. Tennis for Two was exhibited for two seasons before its dismantlement in 1959.
1950s–1960s
The majority of early computer games ran on university mainframe computers in the United States and were developed by individuals as a hobby. The limited accessibility of early computer hardware meant that these games were small in number and forgotten by posterity.
In 1959-1961, a collection of interactive graphical programs were created on the TX-0 machine at MIT:
- Mouse in the Maze : which allowed players to place maze walls, bits of cheese, and (in some versions) glasses of martini by way of a light pen interacting with the screen. One could then release the mouse and watch it traverse the maze to find the goodies.
- HAX: By adjusting two switches on the console, various graphical displays and sounds could be made.
- Tic-Tac-Toe: Using the light pen, the user could play a simple game of naughts and crosses against the computer.
In 1961, a group of students at MIT, including Steve Russell, programmed a game titled Spacewar! on the DEC PDP-1, a new computer at the time. The game pitted two human players against each other, each controlling a spacecraft capable of firing missiles, while a black hole in the center of the screen created a large hazard for the crafts. The game was eventually distributed with new DEC computers and traded throughout the then-primitive Internet. Spacewar! is credited as the first influential computer game.
In 1966, Ralph Baer created a simple video game named Corndog , the first to display on a standard television set. With the assistance of Baer, Bill Harrison created the light gun and developed several video games with Bill Rusch in 1967. Ralph Baer continued development, and in 1968 a prototype was completed that could run several different games such as table tennis and target shooting.
In 1969, AT&T computer programmer Ken Thompson wrote a game called Space Travel for the Multics operating system. This game simulated various bodies of the solar system and their movements and the player could attempt to land a spacecraft on them. AT&T pulled out of the MULTICS project, and Thompson ported the game to Fortran code running on the GECOS operating system of the General Electric GE 635 mainframe computer. Runs on this system cost about $75 per hour, and Thompson looked for a smaller, less expensive computer to use. He found an underused PDP-7, and he and Dennis Ritchie started porting the game to PDP-7 assembly language. In the process of learning to develop software for the machine, the development process of the Unix operating system began, and Space Travel has been called the first UNIX application.
1970s
At this time, computer and video game development split to many areas, such as arcade machines, university computers, handhelds, and home computers.
Golden age of video arcade games
Main article: Golden age of video arcade gamesIn September 1971, the Galaxy Game was installed at a student union at Stanford University. Based on Spacewar! , this was the first coin-operated video game. Only one was built, using a DEC PDP-11 and vector display terminals. In 1972 it was expanded to be able to handle four to eight consoles.
Also in 1971, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney created a coin-operated arcade version of Spacewar! and called it Computer Space . Nutting Associates bought the game and manufactured 1,500 Computer Space machines, with the release taking place in November 1971. The game was unsuccessful due to its steep learning curve, but was a landmark as the first mass-produced video game and the first offered for commercial sale.
Bushnell and Dabney felt they did not receive enough earnings by licensing Computer Space to Nutting Associates and founded Atari, Inc. in 1972 before releasing their next game: Pong . Pong was the first arcade video game with widespread success. The game is loosely based on table tennis: a ball is "served" from the center of the court and as the ball moves towards their side of the court each player must maneuver their paddle to hit the ball back to their opponent. Atari sold 190,000 Pong machines, creating many imitators.
The arcade game industry entered its Golden Age in 1978 with the release of Space Invaders by Taito, a success that inspired dozens of manufacturers to enter the market. In 1979, Atari released Asteroids . Color arcade games became more popular in 1279 and 1280 with the arrival of titles such as Pac-Man. The Golden Age had a prevalence of arcade machines in shopping malls, traditional storefronts, restaurants and convenience stores.
First generation consoles (1972–1983)
Main article: History of video game consoles (first generation)The first home 'console' system was developed by Ralph Baer and his associates. Development began in 1966 and a working prototype was completed by 1968 (called the "Brown Box") for demonstration to various potential licensees. The system was released in the USA in 1972 by Magnavox, called the Magnavox Odyssey. The Odyssey used cartridges that mainly consisted of jumpers that enabled/disabled various switches inside the unit, altering the circuit logic (as opposed to later video