The First Video Game: Tennis For Two
A two-dimensional, side view of a tennis court was displayed on an oscilloscope, which has a cathode-ray tube similar to a black and white TV tube. In order to generate the court and net lines and the ball, it was necessary to time-share these functions. While the rest of the system used vacuum tubes and relays, the time-sharing circuit and the fast switches used transistors, which by1958 were coming into use.Tennis For Two was part of the division's exhibit for two years, and it turned out to be a real crowd pleaser. The oscilloscope display in 1958 was only five inches in diameter. The next year saw some improvements: a bigger tube ten or 15 inches in diameter was used, and players had a choice of tennis on the moon, with low gravity, or on Jupiter, with high gravity.
So I guess this pre-dates Space War!, which I always thought was the first video game.
posted by Agent 1138 @ 9:36 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home