This nOde last
updated May 16th, 2001 and is permanently morphing...
(5 Ak'bal (House)/5 Aq'ab'al (Foredawn) - 83/260
1962 - SpaceWar!
students Slug Russell, Shag Graetz, and Alan Kotok wrote SpaceWar!, considered
the first interactive computer game. First played at MIT on DEC's PDP-1,
the large-scope display featured interactive, shoot-'em-up graphics that
inspired future video games. Dueling players fired at each other's spaceships
and used early versions of joysticks to manipulate away from the central gravitationalforce
of a sun
as well as from the enemy ship.
Spacewar! was conceived
in 1961 by Martin Graetz, Stephen Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen. It was first
realized on the PDP-1 in 1962 by Stephen Russell, Peter Samson, Dan Edwards,
and Martin Graetz, together with Alan Kotok, Steve Piner, and Robert A
Bushnell builds his first videogame, Computer
Space. This commercial version of 'SPACEWAR' proves
to be far ahead of its time.
The complex rules and abstract nature of the play mystify and
intimidate players. It flops. 1971 Shortly after Bushnell unveils
'Computer Space.' another M.I.T. student named Bill Pitts produces
his own 'Spacewar' variant. GALAXY GAME is even less successful;
the prototype was the only version ever put together.
'Spacewar' was programmed
by MIT student Steve Russell in 1961 for the DEC PDP-1. The game had a
cult following at MIT and circulated computer labs across the country before
Bushnell would play it in a research lab while an undergraduate at the
University of Utah in 1965. Bushnell later released his coin-op version
through Nutting Associates as 'Computer Space' in 1971.