Galaxy Game, The First Coin-Operated Game

"Spacewar," created by three MIT students in 1961, had great success amongst the engineering students.  However in the 1960's computers were very expensive; thus not allowing enthusiasts to freely work on the creation of games.  Only universities and the wealthy were able to afford computers at that time.  The situation changed however, in 1970 with the launch of the minicomputer PDP-11 by DEC.  Its price was about $14000, which means that computers became available for purchase by a wider range of consumers.  Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck did not fail to seize this opportunity.

Pitts and Tuck had an idea in which they would create a game that required money to play.  Meaning that they are the founders of the video arcade game concept. They wanted to create the analog version of "Spacewar" for a wider audience.  Their work resulted in the creation of "Galaxy Game."

"Galaxy Game" was installed in a cafeteria at Stanford.  To play this game, you had to insert coins, one game cost 10 cents.  If player inserted a quarter however, he could play three times.  Thus, the "Galaxy Game," became the first coin-operated game.

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."

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."

Noughts And Crosses – First Real Graphical Computer Game

The first real graphical computer game was released in 1952 by Alexander S. Douglas, and is called "Noughts And Crosses" (or OXO.)  Douglas wrote it on EDSAC for his dissertation.

EDSAC is the first computer, which was built at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, in 1949.  EDSAC had a 35x16 pixels display.  The idea of Alexander S. Douglas was to use the display, to display his game.

Douglas was writing a PhD dissertation about Human-Computer interaction, he programmed "Noughts And Crosses," a Tic-Tac-Toe game, to show this interaction.  The opponent of a player in "Noughts and Crosses," was the machine. The player used a mechanical telephone dialer to place the nought or cross wherever he/she chose.  This dissertation is still stored in the library of the University of Cambridge.

You may wonder why, if "Noughts And Crosses" was the first real graphical computer game, why didn’t it spread worldwide?  This in fact, was not possible.  There was no other computer similar to EDSAC in the world (it was unique.)  So, if somebody wanted to play "Noughts And Crosses," they had to go to the University of Cambridge.

Arcade Games in 20th Century: Part 4 - Arcades and Personal Computers

Even though arcades had survived the rapid increase of video game technologies, their time had seemingly passed.  Every year game technologies become more and more advanced, allowing games to become more complex and realistic.  Video arcade games, with their poor graphics and low capabilities could not hold peoples interest any more.

One thing that became possible with the rise of video game technologies, was the ability for one to play different games on a single platform, this occurred when the personal computer (PC) appeared.


Back then computers had very few capabilities, and the installation of arcade games required a great deal of time; as did running the games on early PCs.  Despite these disadvantages, computers became the number one choice of many gamers.

Early video arcade games could be played only on arcade cabinets, which were specially designed for them.  Personal computers quickly became the universal platform.  In result, there was no longer a need for arcade cabinets, and arcade establishments started to lose popularity.

Regardless however, of all of the disadvantages of video arcade games,  as well as the capabilities of modern video game technologies, when arcades were introduced online, it became obvious that arcade games  were and are still very popular.

Arcade Games in 20th Century: Part 3 - Arcades vs. Simulators

The rise of video game technologies did not only improve video arcade games; the exaggerated use of realistic elements led to the appearance of a totally new game genre, simulator games (sim games.)


From the moment that simulators appeared, their popularity began to rise rapidly and the interest in arcades began to fall.  This resulted in decreasing sales in the video arcade game industry.  Simulators definitely had benefits in terms of video game technologies much more than arcades.  They became popular thanks to their atmosphere and realism.

Obviously, it was not the best of times for video arcade games, however, this game genre did not disappear.  Why so, you might ask, after all the main characteristics of arcades are:

• low reality imitation
• low planning of the levels
• low planning of the task issues

In terms of the first point of view, these characteristics leave no chances for the genre.  Arcades do however have one benefit that allows them to exist along with simulator games, the simple game play.  Simplicity is both the advantage and disadvantage of video arcade games.

The benefits the modern Arcade VGA monitors

A modern arcade monitor doesn't look like a TV, it is more like a computer monitor.  Older game boards had very basic video circuitry, which was constrained in resolution for two reasons.  The first reason is that most early monitors were based on TV designs, and so they had the same frequencies.  Second, memory was expensive and higher resolutions require much more RAM.  The red, green, and blue wires are the signals for the red, green, and blue electron beams in the CRT monitor.

TV combined all of the colors and synced them into the one RCA video line, that would be about 25% of RGB power.  There were some very clever designs around, which used the concept of "sprites" to work around the memory limit, but resolutions were still limited.  The simplicity produces sharply-defined but low resolution graphics.  For an emulator to reproduce this exactly, the beam of the monitor must have a one-to-one correlation with emulators graphics memory.

Most new arcade monitors use VGA now but, the one thing that really set them apart from your computer monitor and TV is that they are designed with a frame for installing them in an arcade cabinet.  This is a good thing because it really is the best way to mount the monitor in the cabinet.  If you try to put a computer monitor in an arcade game, there is no way to bolt the it in.

What is the advantage of using a real arcade monitor for the "old school" games?

The main reason is that the real games used these same monitors!  The first arcade gane cabinets were equipped with a very basic video card, which was constrained in resolution for two reasons; first, most available early monitors were based on TV designs and so they had the same frequencies.  Second, memory was expensive and higher resolutions require much more RAM.  The simplicity produces sharply-defined but low resolution graphics.

For an emulator to reproduce this exactly, the beam of the monitor must have a one-to-one correlation with emulators graphics memory.  We can make the VGA card behave as a 100% emulation of the game board, however, now comes the problem.  To do this, the number of vertical lines and horizontal pixels that the VGA card displays on the monitor must be exactly the same as the original game board.

If they are not the exact same, we have to re-sample the original memory mapping and stretch or compress it to fit the screen, or put up with an incorrectly sized picture.  So the 100% emulation is lost if hardware stretching or a scan converter is used.  So a game which was originally designed to run at, say, 320 X 240 must run the monitor at exactly the same resolution to give a 100% emulation.  If it is run at any other resolution, just because the monitor is capable of handling it, the quality of the original game will be compromised, even if the resolution is higher.