Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
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In 1962
, the first modern video
game was invented by some hackers
at MIT. It was called
Spacewar!
, and
it ran on a DEC PDP-1, the world's
fi rst mini-computer, connected to a
CRT display. One of the game's de-
signers explained that the game was
born as a group sat around trying to
fi gure out what sort of “interesting
displays” they could create for the
CRT with some pattern-generating
software they had developed. “We de-
cided that probably, you could make a
two-dimensional maneuvering sort of
thing, and decided that naturally the
obvious thing to do was spaceships.”
The MIT hackers weren't the only
ones to invent
Spacewar!
. As Alan Kay
noted, “the game of
Spacewar!
blos-
soms spontaneously wherever there
is a graphics display connected to a
computer” (Brand 1974).
Why was
Spacewar!
the “natural”
thing to build with this new technol-
ogy? Why not build a pie chart, an au-
tomated kaleidoscope, or a desktop?
Its designers identifi ed
action
as the
In 1962
, I was given my fi rst computer. It was
a prize for a Halloween costume contest run
by the local hardware store. The manager
handed me what looked like a grey plastic
box, with the word “Eniac” embossed on it.
“It's a computer,” he explained. He demon-
strated its operation. First he showed me a
card with this question printed on it: “What
is the distance of the earth from the sun?”
He inserted the card into the plastic box
and turned a crank. A card was ejected from
the other side of the device that showed
the number 92,876,479.56. I was amazed.
“You see?” he said excitedly. “It can answer
questions. All kinds of questions. Here are
the questions, right here.” He brandished a
packet that presumably contained all of the
important questions one might ever want
to ask. “All you have to do is feed them into
the computer.” I took the card from him and
turned it over to discover that the question
was printed on the back. The plastic Eniac
had simply fl ipped the card over.
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