History of Computer Games
part 1
Greetings again fellow gamers!
So you have been made aware of the explicit games of the modern age by contemporary media and repetitive advertisement. I’m afraid to say, if you haven’t, well then you may find that you’ve been probably living under a bridge for the past 20 years. However, when playing such aesthetically pleasing games as Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption and Mirror’s Edge etc. do you not wonder where they all came from or rather, how far we’ve come in the past 3 decades since the birth of computer devices.
Now I’m not going to indulge you in a boring, history class based timeline of consoles from early 1600’s that you’d expect to hear from teachers with monotone voices, but I will bring you back to a selected few of the gaming consoles which had a greater impact and influence on today’s consoles.
‘The Difference device’ was one of industrial Victorian civilizations first attempts to use machinery to add human problematics. The creator, Charles Babbage has been deemed “the pioneer of the computer” due to his design. he modeled the Difference machine in between 1847-1849.
Although, Babbage never completed any of his creations as the schematics of his inventions were ahead of his time, this 5 tonne, 8ft high machine’s primary function was to calculate 7th order polynomial digits ( I have no clue either) and copy the values onto paper and tiles (essentially a printer too). It worked through clockwork mechanics to turn the cog;s and arrange the pillars with numbers. So why did Babbage make such a difference? and how did his invention influence modern gaming, well its because it is of the first machines to stimulate problems and work to “eliminate the risk of human error, in the calculation and production of printed mathematical tables”.
Moving on , the outbreak of the second world war, not only caused the deaths of a significant amount of lives, but also was the cause of a significant electronic breakthroughs. one being the 1943 ‘Colossus’ machine.
This machine was an electronic British Code-breaking device used during wwII to decipher German encrypted messages. The Pioneer was Tommy Flowers. Initially designed to answer a mathematical problem. With aid from the ‘Lorenz’ device, Colossus worked in uncovering German tele-printed signals or ‘fish’ and printing the decrypted digits and messages onto paper tape to be used. Now, although it may not create 7th polynomial digits like the difference machine but it is a computer device which aided the Allies’ victory over the Axis. Common, that;s pretty significant. (In my opinion I believe it;s encrypting abilities may have been one of the methods used to pave the way for international server sharing and cross national data reading.
Next on my list is the 1946 ‘Eniac’ machine created by physicist John Mockley. it was a giant computer which could “figure charts in minutes” , much larger than the Colossus though (don't expect to be able to use this on your lab) Although, it required uupt to 4 workers to maintain it and had very small memory in comparison with today’s machines it could solve thousands of equations and introduced efficient cable connectors to the computer devices like the ones used in our machines.
“It proved computers could be constructed”. John Neumann reformed the Eniac designing it to contain internally held memory, a control unit and a processor. This would be replaced by today’s terms- RAM, Hard disk and CPU. However all computers today even phone derived
from this stage. In away the Eniac is the ancestor (the Adam) of all computers we play today. Von Neumann with the aid of Mockley and Hackman basically “laid out the logical plan for a computer and pointed the direction for the future”. Following this the 1960s gave way to the IBM machine which calculated charts and business tables to be used in economic, business related corporations.
So I've spoken about machinery used for work purposes , now we must converse on matters of electronics used for human entertainment.
Now, although no game can be awarded the first game ever, on October 18th pioneer William Higinbotham developed “Tennis for two”, the first recording of an electronic game, in 1958. Using a small analog computer, Higinbotham was able to portray a virtual tennis game from his device; ability to generate different curves on a “cathode ray tube and an oscilloscope using resistors, capacitors and relays”. initially the bouncing ball reminded Higinbotham of a tennis ball.
‘BNL’, says ‘it is the earliest processor to modern video games’. so what i’m trying to tell you is , Professor Higinbotham is the Grand-daddy of all video games. (pretty cool huh!)
Lastly, on our journey through the ages of computer gaming, remember the 70’s- (not me I wasn't born) but for those who do , any of you remember the 1977 Atari 2600.
I know I played it at one stage of my life. I chose this console because the Atari literally brought the arcade to the game,bringing much loved memorables such as Pac-man and Mario Bros to the household. The joystick is memorable and easy to play with, also the cartridge system meant players weren't grounded by the non-micro process dedicated hardware which the old consoles had meaning they could only use built in games…(like Tennis for two).
Furthermore, its size created the foundation shape for contemporary console- Xbox, Ps3’s, Wii’s you name it.
So there you have it, some history behind the games and consoles you play to day, which was not boring, as i promised (I hope).
Stay tuned for the next part of this post, where I discuss the evolution of gaming”.
Thank you for Reading
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and like always- Game on!
Reference Material
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0anIyVGeWOI- (Doron Swade)
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