47 replies to this topic

[xZanU]

Hmmm. The one I had looked like a wood style 2600 with two paddles on the top. (Not the APF). I wish I still had it so I could send it in. All it played was Pong, 1 player or 2 player and had no detachable parts. I may not be remembering correctly, but it might have been made by magnavox (not the odyssey units)

[Mark Wolfe]

I had the pleasure of doing a phone interview with Ralph Baer back in the Philly Classic 5 days and I must say that while the discussions over which came first is fun for the dinner table, there is no doubt in my mind that Ralph deserves the credit for being the father of modern "video games" as we know them. Hands down, no arguments.

Speaking of fun dinner table talk, perhaps the pongmuseum can put up an article about how Xerox came up with the first mouse and GUI for a computer OS front end and they basically gave it up for free and then Apple took the idea and ran with it. I'm sure there must be articles out there about it to further define it and get the facts straight, but that goes along well with the early computing devices and the timeline of modern computing and electronic gaming and all that.

[david.winter]

Just a little correction: the first Tennis game wasn't first played in 1969, but in Nov 1967.
Click here to view the first 1967 schematics of the Slicer design (Unit #4), the very first Tennis prototype. The circuits were extremely unstable and were quickly replaced by the circuits later implemented in the Unit #6, the Brown Box and then Odyssey. The next prototype to play Tennis, with all the changes and additional games, was Unit #6. Unit #5 was an add-on to simulate a hockey game, but was never functional. Unit #6 was finished in late 1968, shortly before the Brown Box (Unit #7).

You can find every note and schematic of those prototypres in the Smithsonian's archive by clicking here.

So I'm sorry to disappoint you guys, it's not the 40th birthday, but the 42nd !


David Winter - http://www.pong-story.com

[pongmuseum]

david.winter, on Sun Feb 8, 2009 12:58 PM, said:

So I'm sorry to disappoint you guys, it's not the 40th birthday, but the 42nd !

Dear David, I was noted by Mr Bear himself that the 40 anniversary has come,
I only posted what he told me, he mentioned the 40 anniversary of the first video pingpong play.

greetings from Berlin,

Oliver

Edited by pongmuseum, Sun Feb 8, 2009 6:11 AM.

[david.winter]

Oliver:

As you might know, I've been in close touch with Ralph for ten years. I also owned most of the original documents now in the Smithsonian. Next month, Ralph will be 87 years old. The more time passes, the more you forget. He never stopped insisting on how much human memory alters by itself, that you think you tell the right thing when it's actually not exactly what you believe. I happened to correct him several times and made many corrections in the script of his book. It's not that he's wrong, it's just that he was involved in such a large number of game stories and designs that 40+ years later it is almost impossible to remember everyting in detail. If he didn't take the meticulous care of writing and dating his schematics (and all the various documents I recovered in 2002), several important parts of the video game history at Sanders Associates would still be wrong. Also, don't forget that Sanders Associates contacted the various TV manufacturers in late 1968 to find a licensee. So at this date, all the games were working and played at Sanders !


David Winter - http://www.pong-story.com

[pongmuseum]

Dear David,

you are for sure much longer and deeper inside all the data and facts and I am thankful for the informations you gave. I got a more detailed email from Mr. Bear today which I include here and on pongmuseum.com:

While the B&W movie of Bill Harrison and me was indeed taped in 1969, we played the first ping-pong games in December of 1967 in preparation for a January 1968 visit by Teleprompter execs whom we had invited and considered as possible licensees. We then thought that videogames would best fit the cable business. Teleprompter was one of the biggest cable networks in the 1960s. ... P.S. I like your website.

Ralph H. Baer

So you are absolutely right that the first video ping-pong game was held in 1967. Mr. Baer´s definition of 40 years was related to the video which was produced in 1969. The problem with inventions is: when did they really happen ? In the moment you first think of it - when you sketch it on paper - when you tell someone about it - when you patent it - when its first produced or presented to the public ? I don´t know the golden rule. Mostly its the patent I think that is defined as invention date.

May you can help me with some historical details:

• Is it correct that Mr. Rusch invented the second paddle on the Brown Box ?
  
• Who invented the "angle" effect on the paddle ?

Kind regards,

Oliver

Edited by pongmuseum, Sun Feb 8, 2009 5:57 PM.

[Retro Rogue]

Mark_Wolfe, on Mon Feb 2, 2009 11:43 AM, said:

Speaking of fun dinner table talk, perhaps the pongmuseum can put up an article about how Xerox came up with the first mouse and GUI for a computer OS front end and they basically gave it up for free and then Apple took the idea and ran with it.

Just a correction there as well, Doug Engelbart came up with the first mouse and GUI. Members of his team then left for Xerox and appropriated it for the first mouse driven bitmapped GUI.

[Mark Wolfe]

wgungfu, on Sun Feb 8, 2009 10:18 PM, said:

Mark_Wolfe, on Mon Feb 2, 2009 11:43 AM, said:

Speaking of fun dinner table talk, perhaps the pongmuseum can put up an article about how Xerox came up with the first mouse and GUI for a computer OS front end and they basically gave it up for free and then Apple took the idea and ran with it.

Just a correction there as well, Doug Engelbart came up with the first mouse and GUI. Members of his team then left for Xerox and appropriated it for the first mouse driven bitmapped GUI.

that actually is beyond the point I was clumsily trying to make of how Apple got it from Xerox... to me that is the more interesting part of the story.

[david.winter]

pongmuseum, on Mon Feb 9, 2009 12:53 AM, said:

• Is it correct that Mr. Rusch invented the second paddle on the Brown Box ?
  
• Who invented the "angle" effect on the paddle ?

Oliver:

The story with Bill Rusch is earlier than the Brown Box. This dates back to 1967 when the team was working on Unit #3, a reduced version of the complex and too expensive Unit #2, also known as "Pump Unit". Unit #3 only played Chase games and Target Shooting games. Something more attractive had to be created and Bill Rusch was therefore attached to the project, since he was known for his creativity. Then he proposed the third (and not second) spot generator (that you call paddle), controlled by the machine instead of the players. Thus the first Tennis game was born. From this time every prototype featured this game. The english was by design. There was no angle effect on the paddle in those games. The angle was first created by Atari in 1972.


David Winter - http://www.pong-story.com

[carmel_andrews]

Looking at it from the bigger picture then, Baer/Bushnell were 'pioneers' in commercial applications for videogame technology....In the same way the JL Baird and Eli Farnsworth pioneered commerical applications for television technology (i.e that didn't actually originate the technology itself, merely becoming the first to create commercial applications for that technology)

[frogstar_robot]

pongmuseum, on Wed Jan 28, 2009 8:22 AM, said:

Many people consider "Tennis for Two" the first video game ever created. But as before, other people differ from the idea as they said that "it was a computer game, not a video game" or "the output display was an oscilloscope, not a "raster" video display… so it does not counts as a video game". But you know… you can't please everyone…

That argument is a load of horse hockey. So vector games like Aztarac and Major Havoc aren't video games because they are vector titles and Star Raiders and Turrican aren't video games because they run on "Home Computers". There was a computer, an output display, and means for opponents to interact with each other and the computer. "Tennis For Two" was a video game.

[frogstar_robot]

frenchman, on Thu Jan 29, 2009 2:27 AM, said:

Because it doesn't have "raster video equipment" as a display (a TV set, monitor, etc.) it's been said that it does not qualify as a real "video game.

So what do we call things like the Vectrex, Asteroids, Tac-Scan and many many others? What I see on the screens of those things isn't raster scanned but it sure as hell is video. The only differences between Tennis For Two and a vector title were of degree not kind.

[Retro Rogue]

frogstar_robot, on Mon Feb 9, 2009 9:31 PM, said:

frenchman, on Thu Jan 29, 2009 2:27 AM, said:

Because it doesn't have "raster video equipment" as a display (a TV set, monitor, etc.) it's been said that it does not qualify as a real "video game.

So what do we call things like the Vectrex, Asteroids, Tac-Scan and many many others? What I see on the screens of those things isn't raster scanned but it sure as hell is video. The only differences between Tennis For Two and a vector title were of degree not kind.

No they "sure as hell" are not video. Video refers to "pertaining to or employed in the transmission or reception of television pictures", I.E a video signal. Vector generators are special monitors, there is no video signal present. The beam is directly manipulated by the sofware to points about the screen to draw an image, much like an etch-a-sketch.

The quandry here is again, how the term "video games" has been expanded by the masses over the years from a technical (descriptive) term to a generic "catch all" term. When people say "video games" now, they're usually refering to many different types of displays, irregardless of its technical accuracy or lack thereof. This is why people still get confused by the subject because of the problems of hindsite - i.e. with regards to terms being applied in their current useage "back" on technology from the past that was never in that context. Then, for example, you have PR campaigns like the recent one for Higinbotham that Brookhaven then trying to use the public's current perception of the word to their advantage, knowing full well that any such claims (including Spacewar! and others) were already failures in court several times over.

As for Tac/Scan and Asteroids, neither one refered to themselves as a "video game" on their flyers. The versions on home consoles would certainly qualify though. As for Vectrex, you'll notice ads for it like this also avoided the term and refered to it as having an "arcade screen". Though it was already becoming common in the early 80's to see just about everything refered to as a "video game" by the press and media. One of Vectrex's commercials refers to it as a "video game system", though its brochure again bills it as a "Graphic Computer System" with a single allusion to video game with the sentence "...and draw you in to the action like no other video game, home or arcade", nodding to the growing popular perception.

Edited by wgungfu, Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:10 AM.

[pongmuseum]

david.winter, on Mon Feb 9, 2009 9:36 AM, said:

The story with Bill Rusch is earlier than the Brown Box. ...

Dear David,

thank you, I have ordered the book written by Mr. Bear (and edited by you) to study more details.

Kind regards,

Oliver

[frogstar_robot]

wgungfu, on Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:57 AM, said:

No they "sure as hell" are not video. Video refers to "pertaining to or employed in the transmission or reception of television pictures", I.E a video signal. Vector generators are special monitors, there is no video signal present. The beam is directly
manipulated by the sofware to points about the screen to draw an image, much like an etch-a-sketch.

I know how such displays work. What is an issue for me is the result: an animated display generated under computer control. Raster versus vector is an implementation detail though try explaining that to a lawyer.

Quote

The quandry here is again, how the term "video games" has been expanded by the masses over the years from a technical (descriptive) term to a generic "catch all" term. When people say "video games" now, they're usually refering to many different types of displays, irregardless of its technical accuracy or lack thereof. This is why people still get confused by the subject because of the problems of hindsite - i.e. with regards to terms being applied in their current useage "back" on technology from the past that was never in that context. Then, for example, you have PR campaigns like the recent one for Higinbotham that Brookhaven then trying to use the public's current perception of the word to their advantage, knowing full well that any such claims (including Spacewar! and others) were already failures in court several times over.

Exactly. There is a lot of self-serving going on around the term "video game". I have no disrespect for Mr Baer or his achievements but I have no respect for the abuse of IP law. To me, the fact that a game is implemented on a vector display doesn't make it a complete non-sequitur. IMHO IP law was abused with those early Odyssey patents. And I for one only see Baur as "The father of games on raster displays". If we are going to accord the title of "Father of Video Games" today then it will be as the term "Video Game" is used today. Baer doesn't qualify.

[Retro Rogue]

frogstar_robot, on Tue Feb 10, 2009 11:33 AM, said:

I know how such displays work. What is an issue for me is the result: an animated display generated under computer control. Raster versus vector is an implementation detail though try explaining that to a lawyer.

Which wasn't the only patent, they were also for the interaction and movement of of objects via a video screen as well, raster light guns, cable tv interaction, audio recording interaction, and more. And for any one inolved in electrical engineering and engineering of games like these, saying raster vs. vector is an "implementation detail" sounds like something the very lawyer you're talking about might state. The implementation is the issue here. Some of of his core patents involved modification of tv sets to manipulate a video signal for generation and interaction of objects on the screen. Something that was hardly trivial in the mid 60's, and in fact the first time they were done. And in fact, many of these companies in the 70's lost because they had literally modified tv sets and placed them directly in to cabinets for display, as for example was shown in court literally one of the defendants tried to bring one of their arcade games in to court to show differences. The judge asked them to open the cabinet to see the insides, and there's a literal tv set modified and hooked up to the discrete logic board. There's a reason the term "video game" first started being used in the arcade industry during this time period, and that was it. Likewise, why home consoles were referred to as "tv games" both by the media and technical publications of the 70's.

Quote

Exactly. There is a lot of self-serving going on around the term "video game". I have no disrespect for Mr Baer or his achievements but I have no respect for the abuse of IP law.

Abuse of IP law? These patents are refered to as the "landmark patents of the industry" for a reason. I agree though that many companies tried to get away with abuse of said patents and get around them. Luckily they did not.

Quote

To me, the fact that a game is implemented on a vector display doesn't make it a complete non-sequitur.

No, it just makes it technically inaccurate to call it a "video" game however. But people do what they want, just like you calling a vector display a "video" display, when what you were most likely confusing was the fact that both were CRT displays. CRT does not = video, that's the definition of the signal and rendering method.

Quote

IMHO IP law was abused with those early Odyssey patents.

Sorry, but quite the opposite - they were *defined* by those patents and their thorough documentation. Once again, someone using hindsite to make an argument on technology. This is *hardly* the case the currunt issue of the plethora of computer related IP's around today for "single click shopping" and other garbage in a sea if tech IP's. These were the first of their kind, period, and held up to many challenges to demonstrate their soundness. Doing what he did in the mid 60's was hardly a trivial thing.

Quote

And I for one only see Baur as "The father of games on raster displays". If we are going to accord the title of "Father of Video Games" today then it will be as the term "Video Game" is used today. Baer doesn't qualify.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Luckily, you're in the minority on that one and once again technically inaccurate. The definition of video and video signal, and Baer's contributions, patents, and awards have not changed. They are the same "today" as "yesterday".

[djmips]

wgungfu, on Tue Feb 10, 2009 9:17 PM, said:

No, it just makes it technically inaccurate to call it a "video" game however. But people do what they want, just like you calling a vector display a "video" display, when what you were most likely confusing was the fact that both were CRT displays. CRT does not = video, that's the definition of the signal and rendering method.

So I guess a lot of arcade games are not video games either because the arcade machines, although raster displays could not possibly display broadcast video. No tuner, no composite decoding, just RGB. So I guess they are not video games either.

Come on now, smarten up. The term "Video game" was coined by society, the masses. They didn't intend such a narrow view.

[Retro Rogue]

Quote

So I guess a lot of arcade games are not video games either because the arcade machines, although raster displays could not possibly display broadcast video. No tuner, no composite decoding, just RGB. So I guess they are not video games either.

I don't recal stating it was limited to broadcast video, I stated the "video" in the term has to do with actual video signals. Please show me where vector display technology has video signals? The beam is manually controlled.

djmips, on Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:16 AM, said:

Come on now, smarten up. The term "Video game" was coined by society, the masses. They didn't intend such a narrow view.

Cone on now, learn a bit of actual history and design of these games during that time period and smarten up your self before you start trying to insult someone's intelligence. The etymology of the term is simple and previously stated - it was coined by the industry and engineers, not society and the masses, that's a plain fact. It was a literal descriptive term. The media and pop culture are the ones that *later* widened it as a catch phrase. As stated, the first use of the term was in the arcade industry in the early 70's that accurately described the technology then in use. From Atari's own 1972 promo flyer: ""...alll began when we harnessed digital computers and video technology to the amusement game field with PONG." As we of course know, PONG is indeed hooked up to a literal TV set inside. The following year (1973), the term "video game" first went in to use with their PONG Doubles advertisement. Not "Society", and not "the masses". And for those not familiar with the technology of video signals being discussed in this thread, here's a nice tutorial on them. Here's a further look at the words of the term themselves as well.

Edited by wgungfu, Wed Feb 11, 2009 8:54 AM.

[djmips]

wgungfu, on Wed Feb 11, 2009 6:20 AM, said:

Cone on now, learn a bit of actual history and design of these games during that time period and smarten up your self before you start trying to insult someone's intelligence. As we of course know, PONG is indeed hooked up to a literal TV set inside. The following year (1973), the term "video game" first went in to use with their PONG Doubles advertisement. Not "Society", and not "the masses". And for those not familiar with the technology of video signals being discussed in this thread, here's a nice tutorial on them. Here's a further look at the words of the term themselves as well.

Clearly you are intelligent. Not in dispute.

Thanks for the PONG flyers. Interesting read.

[Curt Vendel]

100% Correct Marty...

Unfortunately "Video Games" has become the catch all phrase for games being played on displays... it even spilled over into being used for Mattel LED games and such, which are Electronic Games and not Video Games. The overall term should've been "Visual Games" as that would've been a more appropriate universal term.

Playing Tennis on an Oscilloscope was a Computer Game, not a Video Game. Games played on early 80's computers - such as the mention of Star Raiders in another message - is a Video Game - why? Because the 800 had RF and Composite video signal output, while games such as Space War played on a PDP8 was definitely a Computer Game.

Now the discussion came up about Modern Consoles such as a PS3 that had HDMI which is purely a high speed digital data transmission interface and has no actual analog video signal of any sort through it. However, the console also its multi AV output for Composite/Svideo/Component capability. So like an Atari 800 or a C64, with the ability to transmit an RF and/or Composite video signal, this does qualify as a Video Game, otherwise if it had come with just an HDMI output only it would've had to been classified as a Computer Game.



Curt

wgungfu, on Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:57 AM, said:

frogstar_robot, on Mon Feb 9, 2009 9:31 PM, said:

frenchman, on Thu Jan 29, 2009 2:27 AM, said:

Because it doesn't have "raster video equipment" as a display (a TV set, monitor, etc.) it's been said that it does not qualify as a real "video game.

So what do we call things like the Vectrex, Asteroids, Tac-Scan and many many others? What I see on the screens of those things isn't raster scanned but it sure as hell is video. The only differences between Tennis For Two and a vector title were of degree not kind.

No they "sure as hell" are not video. Video refers to "pertaining to or employed in the transmission or reception of television pictures", I.E a video signal. Vector generators are special monitors, there is no video signal present. The beam is directly manipulated by the sofware to points about the screen to draw an image, much like an etch-a-sketch.

The quandry here is again, how the term "video games" has been expanded by the masses over the years from a technical (descriptive) term to a generic "catch all" term. When people say "video games" now, they're usually refering to many different types of displays, irregardless of its technical accuracy or lack thereof. This is why people still get confused by the subject because of the problems of hindsite - i.e. with regards to terms being applied in their current useage "back" on technology from the past that was never in that context. Then, for example, you have PR campaigns like the recent one for Higinbotham that Brookhaven then trying to use the public's current perception of the word to their advantage, knowing full well that any such claims (including Spacewar! and others) were already failures in court several times over.

As for Tac/Scan and Asteroids, neither one refered to themselves as a "video game" on their flyers. The versions on home consoles would certainly qualify though. As for Vectrex, you'll notice ads for it like this also avoided the term and refered to it as having an "arcade screen". Though it was already becoming common in the early 80's to see just about everything refered to as a "video game" by the press and media. One of Vectrex's commercials refers to it as a "video game system", though its brochure again bills it as a "Graphic Computer System" with a single allusion to video game with the sentence "...and draw you in to the action like no other video game, home or arcade", nodding to the growing popular perception.

[Curt Vendel]

Whoa...

Video Game is in fact a documented term created and first used by Atari. You have to get into the mindset of the time period. People didn't know or understand this new form of entertainment. People only associated the screen in the box as a TV game or a Television game. There's a noted comment by a person who looked at the Proto Pong at Andy Capp's and asked the question "How is the TV station making the lines and dot move?" You have to understand that this was a time when the most technological device in most people's homes was the telephone - which was rotary dial and at a bar such as Andy Capps it would've been a mechanical pinball machine or a jukebox.

People only knew of computers as massive refrigerator sized boxes in a sealed glass room only to be touched by guys in lab coats, most people didn't know or understand that inside that Pong cabinet was infact those tiny new miracles - Integrated Circuits (aka IC's or Computer Chips). The first several years of video games saw products that had no actual CPU's are all. They were all built with discrete logic - TTL chips and there were no ROM's, no program code, the actual game was hardcoded in the form of the circuits. A remarkable feat to say the least. In Computer Space's case... it did in hardware what normally took a $40,000 PDP8 to do in software, so its truly an impressive feat.



Curt

djmips, on Wed Feb 11, 2009 2:16 AM, said:

wgungfu, on Tue Feb 10, 2009 9:17 PM, said:

No, it just makes it technically inaccurate to call it a "video" game however. But people do what they want, just like you calling a vector display a "video" display, when what you were most likely confusing was the fact that both were CRT displays. CRT does not = video, that's the definition of the signal and rendering method.

So I guess a lot of arcade games are not video games either because the arcade machines, although raster displays could not possibly display broadcast video. No tuner, no composite decoding, just RGB. So I guess they are not video games either.

Come on now, smarten up. The term "Video game" was coined by society, the masses. They didn't intend such a narrow view.

[RedWolf]

david.winter, on Sun Feb 8, 2009 8:53 AM, said:

As you might know, I've been in close touch with Ralph for ten years. I also owned most of the original documents now in the Smithsonian. Next month, Ralph will be 87 years old. The more time passes, the more you forget.

I can vouch for David here. I have been in close contact with Ralph Baer for the last two years, and even in this short time, he's begun to mix up his numbers and dates more and more. Considering his age, that's perfectly excusable. Otherwise, he's still sharp as a tack.

Ultimately, the answer to "who was first with what" is always difficult, and in this case, it always comes down to how you define "video game" or "computer game." So if you want to, you can manipulate the definition however you like to make almost any game fit the bill.

You can get more factual about true firsts by using more precise definitions, though. For example, Ralph Baer created the first electronic game to use a standard consumer TV set as a display in 1967 -- and that's a documented fact. But once you go beyond the precise facts into imprecise terminology, things start to get fuzzy: for example, in doing what I stated above, it is almost certain that Baer also created the first electronic game to use a video display. But here, you've already got problems. Some people can probably finagle a weird definition of "video," which was never completely set in stone, but was almost always used -- prior to the 1980s -- to describe electronic signals on a raster-scan CRT display designed to show moving images (ala "television"). So Baer's games were the first to use video displays as they understood them at the time, but even now, it's still not case closed -- as display technology has changed, the conventional use of the term "video" has changed as well. This, in turn, has retroactively broadened the reach of the term "video game" along with it. And so on, and so on. It never really ends.

I expressed my thoughts on this topic with more depth in "Video Games Turn Forty" at 1UP.com (published in 2007). You guys might find it interesting (see pages 4 and 5):

http://www.1up.com/d...t=0&cId=3159462

Also, regarding the origin of the term "video game," I asked Nolan Bushnell this in an interview a few years ago. You can read his answer here:

http://www.vintageco...hp/archives/404

Of course, his memory could be completely wrong. Interestingly enough, we also discussed Ralph Baer in that interview.

-- Benj

[Retro Rogue]

RedWolf, on Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:24 PM, said:

Also, regarding the origin of the term "video game," I asked Nolan Bushnell this in an interview a few years ago. You can read his answer here:

http://www.vintageco...hp/archives/404

Of course, his memory could be completely wrong. Interestingly enough, we also discussed Ralph Baer in that interview.

-- Benj

LOL, he is so full of sh** in that interview its funny to read through.