Week 2 1950-1970

When asked what the earliest game that people can remember is, most will say Pong or for newfags it would be the first Mario game. However there will be those that remember the good ole days of Tennis for Two.  Personally I would have said pong until a lil bit of research was conducted.

Only those who were there back in 1952 would be able to say about the Tic-Tac-Toe game that A.S.Douglas created. It was merely a single player game but it spurred the beginning of human interaction with computers.

6  years later, in 1958, William Higinbotham created Tennis for Two. One would assume he'd just finished the Tic-Tac-Toe game by this point and wanted a bigger challenge. This game was created for the Brookhaven National Laboratory to draw in a larger amount of visitors. It definitely worked and is now regarded as the first fun video game. From what I've seen and read this game is played using an analog joystick and a single button however I cannot understand the control as there is no player or bats on screen. Unfortunately, this game wasn't shown much (2 years) but did become a great inspiration for the brilliant pong.

Before that though, the Tech Model Railroad Club created the game known as Spacewars! in 1962 This group consisted of wayne witanen and j. martin graetz along with 25 year-old steve russell. The main objective of  the game was to kill or be killed as two spaceships fought to gather supplies for their dieing homeworlds (story get). Much like Tennis for Two, spacewars! did not seek a copyright or patent as their computers were too big and would cost far too much.

Four years after Spacewars! Ralph Baer worked on seven prototypes that worked with a TV called the Brown Box. (Not to be confused as a rubbish version of the new Orange Box). His first game was liscenced by Magnavox titled Chase. It was literally two dots chasing eachother. He was also the first person to create a Light Gun.

Even though it is a little beyond the realms of what was asked, I feel I should mention that pong was created in 1972.