Was born the first video game properly designed for play

In 1952 in the laboratories of the University of Cambridge A.S. Douglas, as an example for his doctoral thesis, created OXO, the transposition of the trio computer game. This is usually considered technically the first video game as it used a cathode screen for display [5]. His purpose, however, was not to entertain users but to complete Douglas’s thesis. In 1958 the physicist Willy Higinbotham of Brookhaven National Laboratory, noting the lack of interest that students had in the subject, created a game, Tennis for Two, which had the task of simulating the physical laws that could be found in a tennis match: the medium used was an oscilloscope. This is remembered as a university experiment rather than a game. In 1961, six young scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) manage to give movement to bright dots on the screen of a PDP-1: Spacewar! Was born, the first video game properly designed for play that history can remember. But the great development of video games will only take place in the second half of the seventies.

1. This game had very little success and its sales

In 1952 in the laboratories of the University of Cambridge A.S. Douglas, as an example for his doctoral thesis, created OXO, the transposition of the trio computer game. This is usually considered technically the first video game as it used a cathode screen for display [5]. His purpose, however, was not to entertain users but to complete Douglas’s thesis. In 1958 the physicist Willy Higinbotham of Brookhaven National Laboratory, noting the lack of interest that students had in the subject, created a game, Tennis for Two, which had the task of simulating the physical laws that could be found in a tennis match: the medium used was an oscilloscope. This is remembered as a university experiment rather than a game.

2. It was not until the end of 1973 when Space War

Russel’s Space War, on the other hand, was a real video game based on vector visualization (it was the first attempt at dynamic simulation that history remembers). But due to the complexity of the project and the high development costs on the PDP-1, as well as the difficulty of adapting this video game on computers with more “affordable” costs, it was not until the end of 1973 when Space War reached the general public as a game. hall (coin-op). This game had very little success and its sales did not cover even a third of the production costs. The first man who instead conceived the idea of ​​video games, in the sense that he would later be known, with normal living room TV screens, was Ralph Baer. The concept of a player, a game, a television, and a box connected to it in which to place video games belongs to him.