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.