Interesting video re the World's first computer game

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=03e_1224859275

The beginning :nod:

 

It's interesting but the title is incorrect as it's neither the first computer game, nor the first video game, the first first I can think of is the first computer game using a CRT screen that was available to the public. The first "Computer game" was technically way back in 1912.

 

1912? Really? What the hell was that then? I thought the first computer (per se) wasn't built until the 1940s?

 

Well there are mechanical and analogue computers which were around before digital ones.

 

Yeah, but I still wonder what you meant about the 1912 'game' ?

 

Me too? Any details to pass on?

 

the first video game ran on a steam engine in the 1800s....
Built by Doc Brown who also made the first fridge.

 

The first video game was made by Neanderthals, scratched onto Antelope hide with a microprocessor made out of hummingbird bones. It ran seven hundred trillion polygons per second.

 

What was the first "Video game" made in 1912?

Fun with simple arithmetic?

 

Actually, I believe OXO predates this, having been written for EDSAC at Cambridge University in 1952. Tennis For Two was 1958. The first video game is said to be the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device from 1947. These (and of course Spacewar!) are early examples of video games. However, this thread seems to have got lost along the way....

Jamtex said COMPUTER game, not video game. The above are video games, requiring a graphical output. However, computers are just calculators in effect, and early computers were just counting machines. Therefore, you could have a counting game on a mechanical computer, technically. However, I think he is referring to El Ajedrecista, the first automated chess simulator... basically a robot programmed to play chess. It was first publically shown in 1914.

 

Abacus is soooo fun!

 

Give Retro a coconut, yep El Ajedrecista the first computer game in the world as the mechanical computer ran a simple algorithm which would play a rook and king endgame against a human controled king. It was smart enough to tell you if you made an invalid move.

Even before tennis for two there are at least 8 documented examples of computer / video games.

Tennis for two like the Magnavox Odyssey does lack any computer control so scoring or any gameplay has to be done by the people playing. First true video game would be Space War in 1962 (Which is the date that Steve Russell himself told me that a fully working version of Space War was done).

 

Ooh! I like coconut! :icon_bigg

You knew Steve Russell? That's pretty cool! Shoulda got one - they're worth several grand now ;-)

...oh wait, they were several hundred thousand back then!! ;-) Hehe, never mind!

 

El Ajedrecista - never heard of it before. I now have visions of a silvery Kasparov with laser eyes a la 'Metropolis' playing a blinding game!

I suspect the reality was somewhat less theatrical and more wires, tubes and lights.

Okay, so what officially is the first 'video' game rather than 'computer' game?

 

The first true video game would be Space War in 1962, which is the date that Steve Russell himself told me that a fully working version of Space War was done. Nice fella! Very friendly.

(Now read Jamtex's last post.)

 

And if you look in previous posts he said

"The first video game is said to be the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device from 1947"

So, I am wondering whether there is any agreement in the gaming community as to when the first term 'video game' could be coined?

I read his previous posts and I was wondering why Space War ('62) is consider the first 'true' video game and not the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device from 1947?

What did the CRTAD lack that it doesn't get the accolade, or was it purely the type of device the 'game' was running on?

(Thank you Alchy ;-) )

 

I'm a dick, sorry Parris. Over to Jamtex.

 

No worries. I could look it up on the Net myself, but I have grown a healthy disrespect of anything posted on the Net as the BBC video is evidence of. Someone says 'Here is THE first!' and clearly it's not.

 

Parris, I think Jamtex's argument was that the computer didn't keep score and therefore didn't end the game. Personally, I would contest this ruling it out as being a video game. Just because it didn't score doesn't make it any less a video game. It is run on a computer and output on a video monitor (whether that's an oscilloscope or a full-picture CRT) that is controlled by humans. In my book, that's a video game! I guess you could dismiss it as a tech demo

Here's Ej Ajedrecista:



It was I who mentioned the CRT Amusement Device, not Jamtex ;-) It is argued that it is not a video game as it does not draw graphics, but uses overlays. That said, it still displayed a form of video output on the oscilloscope. Other than those I mentioned, there were several made between CRTAD and Spacewar!, such as Bouncing Ball on the Whirlwind and Christopher Strachey's draughts simulator, both finished in 1951. I mentioned Noughts and Crosses (or OXO) for EDSAC - some say this was the first graphical computer game. It has even been said that Ralph Baer was the inventor of the video game - whilst he did not accomplish it until after Spacewar!, he in fact came up with the idea in 1951, apparently.

So, if you want to play it safe, you'd say Noughts and Crosses (aka OXO) was the first video game. It displayed graphics on a screen and had a form of artificial intelligence.

However, if you're asking when the term video game was coined, that is an entirely different matter.....

 

Thanks for that Retro. Right, cleared up a lot. However, when did 'video game' (the term) get coined and / or applied to a "game" then?