Friday, September 23, 2011

Tennis for Two – First Video Game Created for Fun


"Tennis for Two," was created in 1958 by William Higginbotham.  When discussing the first video game in history, it is difficult to come to a conclusion as to which game was actually first.  This is due the technical aspect of early video games, and also the purpose of their creation.  Some people believe that "Tennis for Two" was the first video game in history and William Higginbotham is the inventor of video games.

"Tennis for Two," is also known as Tennis Programming.  It was played on the analog computer with separate controllers and oscilloscope in the role of a screen.  This game was played by two people.

The oscilloscope screen used a cathode-ray tube, and showed the tennis court from the two-dimensional side view.  Net and ground were represented as the bright vertical and horizontal lines.  The ball was represented by a moving dot.  Players used controllers to operate the invisible rackets.  Controllers had a button for “hitting” the ball, and a rotating dial for setting the angle of the ball(s) trajectory.

Unlike A. S. Douglas, who created "OXO" ("Noughts And Crosses") for scientific purposes in 1952, for his PhD dissertation about human-computer interaction, William Higginbotham created "Tennis for Two," as an entertainment based project.  This is why, despite the release dates, some people believe that "Tennis for Two" deserves the title for the first video game created, rather than "Noughts And Crosses."

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