Computer Games Began When?

One of the most popular games for having the name of the 'beginning' of computer games is that infamous game from the 70's, pong. But was this really how the world of xbox and playstation got spinning? After some much needed research its weird to find that there's more to it than that white little ball bouncing back and forth between the paddles....a lot more
lets go back in time 50 years

Tic -Tac-Toe, the earliest computer game was made in 1952, its creator A.S. Douglas, a PhD professor at University of Cambridge created this as a result of his studies on human-computer interaction. The game itself wasn't actually intended for use on a computer, instead a EDSAC vaccuum-tube computer was used, and unlike modern day consoles, it was played on using a cathode ray tube display. This was followed by Steve Russel, producer of the first game created with the intention of being played on a computer, and his game SpaceWar! His game was designed around a MIT PDP-1 mainframe computer

And this leads to the questions of who actually created computers for fun over their more conventional purposes? The obvious answer in terms of background is scientists, but i believe that they weren't just scientists, more people using the skills they have to think 'outside the box' and create machines that no one else would have conceived. They were pioneers, with their experiments testing early computers to their limit of capability and as a result produced what was the beginning of an entire franchise.

I think this stirkes me as significant as again not just their background, but also their mindset towards making these games again shows the early signs of what people in the modern gaming industry still have. The way they were trying to test out the current technology to its limit and produce what others havent yet. It deosnt matter if its 1952 with an EDSAC vaccuum-tube computer or 2008 with an xbox 360, this is still the way designers think! Althought the technology has come a long way since the days of SpaceWar! the ideas of pushing the boundaries to a new level on consoles hasen't. Because of this their first experiments are still much like the gaming industry of today, and i beleive this is what is significant about the people that created these games, their ideas and thought processes are still pursued and used today.

And this brings me onto my personal gaming history,which undoubtedly will grow as this course goes on. I was a keen gamer from an early age and despite that fact im not lucky enough to still possess any working old school consoles i still have fond memories of playing them. The earliest games i can recall playing go back to that of my Amiga, with games like James Pond and Lemmings, that back in the good ol' days fitted nicely onto a floppy disk. Although back then my young brain hadnt the capacity to figure out how the darn lemmings got successfully from the start to the finish in one piece, I still found it entertaining to play as i watched them come to a gruesome but yet strangely cute death. This i think was followed by the golden era of Sega Megadrive and the likes of streets of rage and shinobi, but more about all that later on i guess...

Toodles for now people