CHVG: 1972 - Pong

Chronological History of Video Games:
Pong becomes the first smash hit (1972)
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The original Wii Sports!

The first really big year in the history of video arcade games was 1972.  This was because one game went what today we might call "viral"... an action-sports title, the original Wii Sports, a head-to-head competitive bout to the death... Pong!  Basically two paddles, one on each side of the screen, roughly simulating a paddle sports game like ping-pong.  (Oh? So that's where they got the title?)  

But Pong didn't come out until November of 1972, so let's backup a bit and talk about events leading up to its debut.  First, in May of 1972, the Magnavox TV company was debuting in various shows its new TV video sports game they dubbed Odyssey!

The Magnavox Odyssey...  not Homer's.

The Magnavox Odyssey was a creation of Ralph Baer's, but marketed by Magnavox.  It was the first video game console.  It wasn't programmable, but had a finite number of games stored in its circuitry.  These included ball & paddle games, chase the spot type games, and a few light gun games where you shoot at a blip on the screen. To switch between games, you inserted a little card into the system (almost like a cartridge) that changed the jumpers to the game you wanted to play.

Nolan Bushnell founded Atari in July, a name he took from the traditional strategy game of Go.  Originally he liked the word "Syzygy" for his company, but that was already taken.  Because "Atari" was something similar to a check in Chess, Nolan thought it had a good strong feel to it.  I think he picked well.

So being in the video game industry, Nolan obviously attended trade shows and conventions, and was able to view the Magnavox Odyssey on display in Burlingame, CA.  He says he wasn't all that impressed with it, honestly.  Looking at the games on the Odyssey, seems like a fair assessment.  It basically just had some paddle games and the ability to shoot a video blip with the light gun.  But at some point Nolan thought the concept of a ping-pong game (similar to what he saw on the Odyssey) could make a decent video arcade game.

Nolan turned to a new engineer Atari had hired, one smart, enterprising Al Alcorn.  The concept of a ping-pong game was shared with Al, and given to him to complete to get some experience in creating games.  There were other, more difficult games in the concept phase like driving games and such, but this was a good, easy starting point.

The story has been told many times elsewhere, but although Nolan Bushnell signed the guestbook, and did see the Odyssey's ping-pong game, what Al Alcorn created was a far superior game for a few reasons:

Nolan to the right of Pong, and Al Alcorn far right.



1. SOUND.  Al found sounds that already existed in the different transistors, and basically added those to various gaming events.  The ping-pong sound of the blips helped name the game, and I think sound added to the experience without a doubt.
   
   
2. Only VERTICAL movement.  The simplicity of two paddles that could only move on the vertical plane was a limiting factor that I believe aided gameplay.  Magnavox had vertical and horizontal movement, and even a ball control knob... it was just unwieldy.  Was almost like playing a game that didn't have rules.
   
   
3. NO "english"... but different bounce angles.  Again, that ball control know which they called "English" on Odyssey was silly.  Pong made a far superior game by changing the angle of the ball return based on where it hit the paddle.  Closer to the center - more direct return.  Closer to the edges - a much steeper angle of return.  So now you had some control over the direction and angle of return if you could fine-tune where the ball hit the paddle.  Excellent!
   
   
4. SCORE.  Pong actually put the score on the screen, and let you play to a score of 11 to win the game. Seems rudimentary, but the Odyssey did not have on-screen scoring.  Had to do all that manually.
   
   
5. SPEED UP gameplay.  If the rally continued, and the angles of the return were steep a few times... the game actually got faster.  This was necessary to test the limits of players skills, and make the game more exciting.  Without this speeding up, the game would've been far less entertaining.

So there you go.. not enough credit given to Al Alcorn and Nolan Bushnell for these innovations.  Magnavox eventually sued Atari for patent infringement... and I feel there were enough changes with Pong to win the lawsuit.  But then again -- there was very little established yet around what was and wasn't protected by law.  Atari settled out of court and kept on making Pong.

About 2500 PONG units are produced before the end of the year, making as much as $40/day in their locations, an extremely high coin-drop.  It's success spreads quickly! 

For a game this rudimentary and basic, it's importance is justified.  Pong launched the video game industry by being the first big success in commercial arcade games.  Pong accompanies Dragon's Lair and Pac-Man as one of the three Video games on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., U.S.A.

MOVIE:  A Pong unit appears in the 1974 movie 'The Parallax View' and in the 1975 movie 'Rancho Deluxe'.

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STAR TREK

What?  There was supposedly a Star Trek game way back in 1972?  Ah, but wait... it isn't really a "Star Trek" game, it appears it's just a bootleg clone of Computer Space (see 1971 article).  Apparently the Borg have already begun trying to assimilate the arcade world, making a homogenous mess.

I need to point out that this must be where Star Trek's long-standing tradition of sucking at video games begins.  It's a long streak, unbroken for many years.  Great times.   

It appears there was another STAR TREK game sort of coming into its own in 1972.  This one is a strategy/tactics game written for the computer mainframe systems of the day and mostly accessible only by college students at these universities.  The text version actually becomes quite popular, being re-created on many systems and home computers over the years.  The Borg Star Trek game... not so much.

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COMPUTER GAMING:

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HUNT THE WUMPUS (Basic)

One of the earliest text-adventure games ever created, written in basic for mainframe computers like the DEC PDP-1.  You are put into a maze of interconnected tunnels, with bats, pits, and the Wumpus beast.  You have to shoot arrows to kill the Wumpus before you die in a pit, or are eaten alive.  This simple game becomes a mainstay of early microcomputers, and gets printed in type-in listings of computer magazines.  It's a long, rich history, with many many variants and ports.

HAMMURABI: 
Another classic game that is hard to pinpoint its exact beginnings.  But certainly its worth noting here for one of the earliest versions, again pre-dating the home computer revolution.  Try your hand at managing a small kingdom for 10 years, buying & selling acreage and feeding those hungry peasants. It's a resource-management game, and will get re-imagined, and re-created on just about every platform to come for the next 20 years easily.  

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CONSOLE GAMING:

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Odyssey is commercially released in August of 1972.  Sales are struggling.  Supposedly 100,000 units are sold in that first year, but I believe its more like 100,000 units were distributed to dealers around the country, because its well-documented that sales were sluggish.  

In an ironic twist, it's the popularity of Pong that actually helps sell Odyssey systems, as people find out its the closest thing to being able to play Pong in your home.  But, since Atari didn't start shipping their production units of Pong until Nov. 29, 1972... I can't see how Pong got really popular until at least early 1973.  And that would mean Odyssey didn't start moving units faster until 1973.  Furthermore, sales figures for Odyssey were supposedly much lower in 1973, which to me indicates the dealers had to move all those initial 100,000 units before even starting to order more... and that took time.

The Magnavox Odyssey is an interesting system because it is the first console gaming system ever. I find the idea of little cartridges to trigger the right jumpers, and the fact that it even had a light gun is pretty remarkable. Unfortunately... without a CPU, there was no such thing as artificial intelligence.  Every single Odyssey game requires a 2nd person.  Whether it's moving a target, or a pong paddle pusher - nothing gets done without that 2nd player.  

Playing any 1st generation console is a challenge, as they are tough to find and can be quite expensive.  Mainly they only hold interest for a collector, a real classic game nut (who has to have them all) or a game reviewer wanting to review the oldest of all the videogames.  You can look up some pretty fun reviews of the "Odyssey 1" as its referred to on YouTube.  

CHVG: 1971

Chronological History of Video Games:

Early History of Video Games (1971)
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Look at that... cabinet!

COMPUTER SPACE

The "arcade video game" got its first actual commercial game in 1971... Computer Space. Nolan Bushnell was an engineer/entrepreneur who experienced Spacewar! while attending college, and was now involved with the arcade scene. He thought it'd be a hit if he could make Spacewar! playable in the arcades, alongside the other electro-mechanical games, pinball machines and more. The only problem was that it was still prohibitively expensive to setup a PDP microcomputer... it would never enough money to pay for the equipment.

The solution he came up with was a more simplistic version of Spacewar! that could run on dedicated transistors. (how this actually works is beyond me, since it has nothing to do with programming, and everything to do with engineering). Nolan called his game Computer Space (ironically, since he had just ditched the actual computer part of the design entirely). He made a deal with his employer, Nutting Associates, to produce and sell the game. They made about 1500 cabinets total, and it was such a futuristic and cool looking design they've become collector items, and have even made cameo movie appearances. (see links at end of article).

As a commercial endeavor, it wasn't a huge hit.  The usual reason you'll hear a lot of videogame history books is that the game was "too complicated."  Well, I'll have more to say on that front after we first take a look at the OTHER big arcade development of 1971.

GALAXY GAME

Resides in the Computer History Museum - Mtn. View, CA

Remember how Nolan decided it was too expensive to run Spacewar! commercially on that expensive PDP11? Well we actually have a glimpse into the road not taken with Galaxy Game. This was a version of Spacewar! modified for coin-operation at 10 cents a game, or 25 cents for 3 plays. It was installed at the Tresidder Union at Stanford University in September, 1971, beating Nolan's Computer Space into customer usage by a month or two.  

But, this was not a commercial product. It was only a prototype... a test market game if you will. Programmed by Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck, it ran on a single PDP11. Eventually it had two separate vector displays... two games running, and each one you could have 2 players competing head-to-head.

Th estimated hardware cost was around $20,000 in 1971 money.  At 10 cents a play, you'd make your money back after just 200,000 games... well, you'd also have to earn money for the rent, power, cleaning, maintenance and repairs.  So basically never.  

In June 1972 the hardware was updated... allowing four to eight consoles to run at the same time.  It was actually well-received on campus, much like Spacewar! had many fans in its time.  Galaxy Game remained on campus until May of 1979, with reported wait times of as much as an hour during its peak popularity.  

TOO COMPLICATED?

Was it really too complex?

We'll see the first mega-hit of arcade games in 1972, Pong (it' really not a secret).  And that game was very simple... just a single analog knob for each player.  Thus the reasoning is always that Nolan Bushnell's Computer Space failed commercially because it was just too complicated.  But I don't think so.  I think it was just a boring game.  Have you watched game footage?  Example:

If it was so complicated, why was Spacewar! so popular?  Why was Galaxy Game so popular and remained so for years?  I've even seen Galaxy Game described as an instant hit.  How can you have an instant hit if the controls were so complicated!?  

No, I don't think the reason for its failure was simply its level of complexity.  I believe Computer Space just didn't hold enough interest for players to WANT to learn it.   This is proven again and again as games got more complex. Look at Defender (1980)!    It was a game with a myriad of buttons, an up/down joystick, and also incredible difficulty.  But because it had some whiz-bang action, a story and really fun gameplay, people learned it.  By far the most complex thing of its day, yet it was a HUGE success.

So, to me anyway, I think saying "too complicated" is just a cop-out.  Time to admit the game looked cool, was certainly a pioneer, but the gameplay lacked staying power. And that's okay.  It's part of a rich history now.

Unfortunately it's hard to play either of these games today.  You have to visit a museum to play Galaxy Game, and Computer Space is also more of a museum display than video game even in retro arcades.  Still.. I really like the cabinet for Computer Space, very slick!  Wish there were more out there, and would love to try the authentic experience.

MOVIE: A Computer Space unit appears in the 1973 movie 'Soylent Green', starring Charlton Heston. It appears briefly on screen being played by a woman while policeman Heston is visiting the apartment's owner.

MOVIE: A yellow Computer Space unit appears in the 1975 movie 'Jaws', during the arcade/beach scene (approximately 40 minutes from the beginning).

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COMPUTER GAMING:
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Ralph Baer's Brown Box (prototype) is picked up by Magnavox for exclusive manufacturing and distribution.  We are going to look at the very first home video game console coming soon.

OREGON TRAIL
 - Yes, this venerable game actually got its start in 1971, where you'd play by entering some commands into a terminal, and then a printer/teletype would print out some results, and you'd play on.  This really isn't anything like the classroom classic which was a school staple in the late 80's.  Text-only... printed out.  Imagine the trees destroyed by typing BANG! to hunt for food as the paper spooled ever onward.  

I remember playing what I thought was Oregon Trail in 6th grade.  My school had a Commodore lab, though... and looking into it I believe it was actually a knock-off from a type-in magazine listing called Westward Ho.  But yes, I love the constant evolution of Edutainment and hope to cover a lot more of it in the future.

CIVILIZATION / a.k.a. Empire

  - This was an early version of a management/economy simulation, written for the PDP 11/45 platform.  Naturally, as all "unpurposeful" data in the early computing days - it was deleted.  

And finally... 

The first emails were sent over ARPANET - and established the @ sign in email addresses.

CHVG: 1951 - 1971

Chronological History of Video Games:

Early History of Video Games (1951-1971)
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IBM Model 7030, also known as "Stretch."

Various types of graphics displays from many manufacturers were introduced in the mid-1960s, opening the door to new video effects. Thus, we find a video pool game developed at RCA (1967), a ball-and-paddle game by Ralph Baer at Sanders Associates (1967, later to become the Magnavox Odyssey home video game in 1972), a rocket car simulation by Judah Schwartz at MIT (1968), a graphic flight simulation by the computer firm Evans & Sutherland (1969), a lunar lander game at DEC (1969), and a device to permit computer output and standard television video on the same display at Stanford (1968).

Costing only a nickel a play, pinball games flourished as a source of cheap entertainment during the Depression and the Second World War, and they were popular enough that their prices rose to a quarter (today some even charge 50 cents or more). Other arcade games that were even closer to video games were electromechanical games like Sega’s first game, Periscope (1968), and Chicago Coin Machine Company’s Apollo Moon Shot Rifle (1969), which featured upright cabinets and game controls under a screen (but no video monitors). These games were coin-operated and relied on mechanical figures staged inside the game’s cabinet, some with mechanical sound effects as well. These games, perhaps more than any others, helped to pave the way for video games, which were, for arcade players, yet another technological development in the world of arcade coin-operated gaming.

Also in the late 1960s, both DEC and Hewlett-Packard started major marketing efforts to sell computers to secondary and elementary schools. As a result, both companies sponsored a number of small-scale projects to write computer games and simulations in various fields, many of which were released in the early 1970s. In DEC’s King game (later called Hammurabi), for example, players must decide how much land to buy, sell, and cultivate each year, how much to feed the people, etc., while dealing with problems of industrial development, pollution, and tourism.

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It's hard to pinpoint any true "firsts" when researching videogame history.  It seems like you can just keep going back and back, forever finding new items that "influenced" in some way the development of videogames.  And honestly, this period is the least exciting to me, if only because the games themselves were still just demo's and ideas mostly.  But, I think it's good to point out some of the influential and important milestones through the decades:

The "Nimrod" Computer

1951 - The "Nimrod" machine was on display at the World's Fair, challenging anybody to beat it at a game of NIM.  Really trippy sci-fi stuff here.  Dismantled for other things after the Fair, what a shame.

1952 - "Naughts and Crosses" (or "OXO") written by a Cambridge University student - Alexander S. Douglas.  Shortly after was cast aside, thinking of it as a simple program merely to prove a point.

 - Early Military simulation games programmed by Bob Chapman and others.  That same year some formula games (like NIM) and dictionary look-up games (Tic-Tac-Toe, etc.) were programmed for early computers

1953 - Arthur Samuel demonstrates Checkers on an IBM 701 computer.

1954 - 1st computer game of Blackjack for the IBM 701, and a crude game of pool was written at University of Michigan.

1955 - Hutspiel - The first theater-level war game (NATO vs. USSR) was programmed  

1956 - The first version of computer chess was actually programmed by James Kister, Paul Stein, Stanislaw Ulam, William Walden, and Mark Wells on the MANIAC-1 at the Los Alamos Atomic Energy Laboratory. The game was played on a simplified 6 x 6 board and examined all possible moves two levels deep at the rate of 12 moves per minute.

1957 - Alex Bernstein writes the first complete computer chess program on an IBM-704 computer—a program advanced enough to evaluate four half-moves ahead.

Higginbotham's Tennis for Two

1958 -  William Higginbotham's Tennis for Two experiment shown at Brookhaven Laboratory. This was a game played on an oscilloscope display, and was actually the first game to allow two players simultaneous control of the direction and motion of the objects.  Gravity, bounce, and even wind speed were calculated into game play... the earliest PONG!   Though many today do not consider this to have been a real video game, others consider it to be the FIRST actual video game (2-player).

1959 - The Management Game - an early simulation game with simulated competition between three companies in the detergent industry and integrated modules on marketing, production, finance, and research.  Pretty sweet!  I'd want to play that today, although it would be so out of touch with current markets. Actually, this game has been updated and revised and is still in use in schools of business today - making it quite possibly the longest-running game ever created.

Spacewar! (1962)

1962 - The finished version of the mainframe computer game SPACEWAR! is written at MIT by Steve Russell.  1962 IBM catalog even lists it for purchase.  Spacewar! is probably the best known game that came from the mainframe era.  This was a time when computers were still giant machines that were available at large corporations and college campuses.  Games were quite limited, as space was limited and expensive.  

Although Spacewar! had a version for the Atari 2600, it wasn't the same game.  Basically consisting of a "needle" and a "wedge" you flew around space trying to shoot each other.  There was a sun in the middle with gravity that sucked you in, and you could hit the hyperspace button to disappear and reappear somewhere else. Spacewar! was created in part as a demonstration of the new (DEC) PDP-l!

1966 - Ralph Baer writes a four-page paper describing his ideas for playing interactive games on ordinary television sets. The TRUE father of video games.  In 1967 he even has a light gun prototype and a working "ping-pong" game.  He applies for his patents in 1968... is displaying a DEMO unit by 1969!

 - Eliza is programmed into mainframe computers.  It was a primitive natural language simulator, and it had modes like Doctor - which tried to simulate a typical psychoanalysts response to your statements.  For example:
"My Mother Doesn't Love Me" might get a response -
"Who else in your family doesn't love you?"

Some wisdom from Eliza... or not!

I remember a similar game that I played early on with my Commodore 64.  It was "Dr. Sbaitso" and showcased the Creative Labs Sound Blaster.  Very similar in structure to Eliza.  Anyway, it was this attempt to create a human response that was so inventive, and indeed influenced the natural language parsers of early games like "Adventure" and "DND". 
 

Ralph Baer's video game system in development

1967 - Baer has a light gun prototype and working "ping-pong" type game. Three dials (vertical, horizontal and "English") - NOTE:  this is the stupidest use of the word "English" which generally means to put a spin on a ball to affect it's path.  I say this because the "English" dial here just moves the ball itself in either direction - as much as you turn the dial.  So the dial should've just been "ball control"

1968 - Baer applies for a patent for his TV video game system.  And then he starts to shop the concept around to a number of less than enthusiastic companies.  Video games are just not a thing.  Hard to convince sales when they don't even know what to do with it.

1969 - Baer's brown box demo for his concepts.  Also, the game Hamurabi is released... one of the very earliest strategy/resource management games.

The moon landing movie set  *wink

Also in 1969 was the Moon landing!  What a year.  The Lunar Lander game comes out on PDP-8... and a long tradition begins.  And the ARPANET delivers the first message sent from one school to another.  Although there is some debate about it.. the first microprocessor might have been created for the military.

Jan 1, 1970 - UNIX time begins.  It's the official clock of many computers, monitoring unix time down to the very second since this inception.  Also, it seems there are precious few games in 1970.  Like the calm before the proverbial storm.  Stay tuned.

Why this blog?

Well...  that's a good question.  There are many gaming blogs, and many video game history blogs (now).  But, I've been playing videogames since I was 5 years old when my Dad and I found Galaxian at the local Sears.  Ever since then they've been a part of my life.  I like movies, books, sports and music too... but video games and computers have fascinated me from my earliest memories.

I've been making notes and writing summaries for years, and I guess I figured it's time to share some of that with the public.  I'm hoping this will be a way to group things... to gather and collect thoughts.  Playing videogames, and watching them evolve and change through its history is one of my favorite pastimes.  I hope to bring some thoughts and research in a fun, organized fashion. 

So thanks for visiting.  Hopefully over time this site will find an audience with similar tastes, and our shared choice of video games as prime entertainment will bring you joy, new games to play, and maybe a healthy dose of nostalgia.