I was there in '62. Didn't help write spacewar, didn't help run the model railroad club, but I got a chance to PLAY spacewar. When I ended up at the University of Minnesota, and had a CDC 3100 to play with, I wrote my own version. Had to make joysticks too, of course, and eventually the other physicists had me modify the joysticks so they could 'fly' equations around in parameter space. An emulator is on the internet at www dot masswerk dot at/spacewar/minnesota/ I also remember a paper-tape-eating typewriter in the next room that somebody had 'programmed' to play tic-tac-toe.
I read the "Hackers" by steven levy and loved it. It formed a inspiration for me. Specially, the spirit of mit hacker in 50's like him, Samson, Kotok, and many other.
And so, a brand-new entertainment medium was born. Whether Spacewar! counts as the first "true" video game or not depends on who you ask, but considering the fact that it inspired the first commercial video game, Computer Space, it's definitely one of the most historically significant games of all time.
I was there in 62 we were a fledgling startup company called dragon balls. We introduced a demo model of what would in later years be called donkey Kong Albeit ours was a rather primitive version. Our motto at dragon balls was think with big balls My supervisor who was screwing the ceo’s hot young wife Patricia said I had potential I remeber the tape punch streaming cards we used. The machine our company had was run by gears levers and water. It was a mechanical computer running on simple logic schemes I remeber hours of coding lol
I was there in '62. Didn't help write spacewar, didn't help run the model railroad club, but I got a chance to PLAY spacewar. When I ended up at the University of Minnesota, and had a CDC 3100 to play with, I wrote my own version. Had to make joysticks too, of course, and eventually the other physicists had me modify the joysticks so they could 'fly' equations around in parameter space. An emulator is on the internet at www dot masswerk dot at/spacewar/minnesota/
I also remember a paper-tape-eating typewriter in the next room that somebody had 'programmed' to play tic-tac-toe.
I played Spacewar on a PDP12 1977 Audie Murphy Memorial VA Hospital.
I read the "Hackers" by steven levy and loved it. It formed a inspiration for me. Specially, the spirit of mit hacker in 50's like him, Samson, Kotok, and many other.
These are the grandfathers of video games.
I love seeing how this amazing industry that I greatly enjoy began! +1 for showing VCS Space Invaders & HALO as well. :)
instablaster
And so, a brand-new entertainment medium was born. Whether Spacewar! counts as the first "true" video game or not depends on who you ask, but considering the fact that it inspired the first commercial video game, Computer Space, it's definitely one of the most historically significant games of all time.
This is excellent stuff! Thanks for posting!
Amazing story, thanks!
I was there in 62 we were a fledgling startup company called dragon balls. We introduced a demo model of what would in later years be called donkey Kong
Albeit ours was a rather primitive version. Our motto at dragon balls was think with big balls
My supervisor who was screwing the ceo’s hot young wife Patricia said I had potential
I remeber the tape punch streaming cards we used. The machine our company had was run by gears levers and water. It was a mechanical computer running on simple logic schemes
I remeber hours of coding lol
Considering MIT's federal tech connections, I wonder if JFK ever played a round of this.
Probably not.
так вот откуда это все началось