Spacewar – First Shooting Game

The first shooting game was created by three students from MIT on a DEC PDP-1 mini-computer in 1961.  Those students included Martin Graetz, Stephen Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen.  The game was called "Spacewar."  This early game was not a video game, because it did not use a video display, the PDP-1 computer used a vector display system.

Spacewar consisted of two spaceships which shot at each other.  To bring some sense of reality to the game, the students made a special background which simulated a real constellation.  The students also wanted to add some complexity to Spacewar, so they added a new element to the game, the gravity star; which attracts the spaceship(s.)  This star is usually called sun.

Later, Stephen Russell admitted that the best thing about Spacewar was that the game has set an example for numerous arcade game developers of future, this early game inspired them in the creation of their own games.

The interesting thing is that the game of Martin Graetz, Stephen Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen was used as a test on new PDP-1 systems, because there was not any other program which allowed DEC technicians to do a complete check of all aspects of the system except Spacewar.

Odyssey – First Video Game System

The idea to create a video game system first appeared in the head of 29-year old Ralph Baer in 1951.  He was a TV engineer at the TV company called "Loral."  Ralph received a task to create the best TV set in the world from Sam Lackoff, his Chief Engineer.  This was not a problem for young Ralph Baer and from there he decided to make something totally new.  He wanted to create a way to play games on TV set.  Unfortunately however, Baer was not able to implement his idea because his boss, Sam did not approve it.

Ralph Baer came back to his idea of playing games on TV sets only fifteenth years later.  During the time period of 1966 -1968 Ralph built seven prototypes that played several video games.  His works resulted in the creation of "Brown Box," which played Target Shooting games, Ball & Paddle games, as well as other types of games.

Ralph Baer demonstrated his work to different TV manufactures, and in 1971 one of them was interested.  It was Magnavox, the agreement was signed, and in the May of 1972 Magnavox released the first video game system called "Odyssey."