1. History of Video Games
By: Héctor Muñoz-Avila
Sources:
• Gamespot.com
• investor.about.com
• emuunlim.com
• designboom.com
• Wikipedia
• my own

2. Introduction
• Some ideas in the 1948
• First video game:
– Tennis game in an Oscilloscope
– Space game on DEC-1
• Current videogames:
– Half Life 2
• In between:
– Space Invaders: http://www.spaceinvaders.de/

3. Chess Origins
• 1769 Fake chess machine
• 1952 Turing design a chess
algorithm
• 1956 Maniac versus Human

4. Origins of Some Companies
• 1889 company create card game:
• 1932 COLECO (short for Connecticut Leather Company
• 1947 Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Company:
• 1954 David Rosen makes machines for GI’s in Japan
Sony
Nintendo (“leave luck to heaven”)
(Service Games) SEGA

5. Other Origins
• 1951 Ralph Baer (@Loral) suggest adding game
to TV
– May be considered the inventor of video
games
– Only until 1967 he realized his dream of an
“intereactive television”
• 1952 A.S.Douglas (@Cambridge): Interactive
Tic Tac Toe
• 1958 Willy Higinbotham (@brookhaven national
laboratory): Oscilloscope

6. Other Origins (II)
• 1961 Steve Russell (@MIT) creates space war
“If I hadn't done it, someone would've
done something equally exciting if not
better in the next six months. I just
happened to get there first.
- Steve Russell

7. Space War Legacy
1971 Bill Pitts and
Hugh Tuck formed
Computer Recreations
Galaxy Game
Cost: $20K
Play cost: 10 cent
Built: dozens
1972 Noland Bushnell
and Ted Dabney
(@Nutting Associates)
Galaxy Game
Built: 1.5K 1972
PONG
Built: 10K
“Breaks down”

8. Early Games
• Pong (http://www.apn.gr/pong.html)
• 1972 Magnavox builds Odyssey

9. Early Stages: 1976-1977
• COLECO builds TELSTAR
• Cartridges are born (Fairchild Camera & Instrument: Channel F)
• Atari bought by Warner Communications ($28M)
– Atari releases first console (later known as Atari 2600)

10. Early Stages 1977-78
• Nintendo releases Othello (http://www.mattelothello.com/)
• Taito creates Space Invaders!
– Midway bought license
• Apple and Atari release PCs
– But Atari is seen as a gaming company

11. The Golden Age 1979-1981
• Atari releases Asteroids!
• Frogger, Konami/Sega, 1981
• Pac-Man, Bally/Midway, 1980
• Donkey Kong, Nintendo, 1981
• Namco releases Pac-Man, 1982 (+300K machines sold)
– Own television show
• US Army commissions Atari for a tank simulation game
– Start of a long enduring activity (Lehigh included!)
• Nintendo releases first console in 1981
• http://www.tripletsandus.com/80s/80s_games/

12. The Great Crash 1982-1984
• The Commodore 64 PC is released
• Coleco releases the Adam PC
• Too many competitors small and large saturate the market
– 1982 Warner Corp. stock fell 32% after Atari
announces les-that-expected sells of consoles
– Atari sold to Jack Tramiel (owner of Commodore)
– New company: Atari Corp. pulls from Console market
• Bright spot: Nintendo releases famicon does well in Japan

13. The Return of the Video Games 1985-1988
• Nintendo releases NES
– Met with skepticism by market observers
– Turns out to be an instant hit
– Legend of Zelda
• http://www.nintendoland.com/zelda/home.htm
• Apple releases the Mac, Atari releases 520ST
– Who won?
• Tetris is released!
– http://www.miniclip.com/tetris.htm
• Coleco files for bankruptcy
•1985 MS releases
Windows
•PC as a gaming
platform

14. The Story Continues
• 1989 Nintendo releases Gameboy, Sega releases
Genesis
• 1991 Nintendo releases SNES, Sega releases Sonic
• 1993 32-bit consoles
– Nintendo releases Mortal Combat!
• 1999-2001 Playstation 2, Gamecube, Xbox

15. What’s Left?
• PC Games
– We will cover these in coming classes but by
Genre:
• FPS
• RTS
• RPG (including MMO)