One of my very earliest memories as a child is sitting in my dad's huge office chair in his bedroom, surrounded by computer parts, consoles now obsolete and stacks of floppy disks, wearing my thumbs out playing Zool on his Amiga. While my memories of gaming only stretch back as far as clunky joysticks and sugary pixels in 1992, of course computers have a longer and much more vast history. In fact, the development of the first computers dates back to the early 1820s (1), far earlier than even my dad and his love of computing would care to remember.
While today, computers may be widely used for personal use - emailling, social networking, gaming - they were first developed as problem solvers; inventions intended to speed up the process of calculating mathematical equations, faster than any human could. It was Charles Babbage(2), an English Mathematician, who first hatched the idea of such a creation by proposing The Difference Engine - a huge, steam-powered machine capable of calculating mathematical tables. Interested in his idea, the British government gave Babbage £1,700(3) to build his machine, which seems a startlingly small amount. And apparently it was, as due to financial problems, Babbage never saw The Difference Engine built in his lifetime. However, over a century later, Babbage's Engine was finally built, using his original design.
Some Quite Interesting information on Charles Babbage himself.
The Difference Engine.
Not really the compact personal computers we're used to using in our own homes, right ? Clearly computers still have a long way to go before we recognise them as the machines we use so often today. That being said, Babbage's machine, once built, was proven to work effectively and he is widely credited as being the father of modern computing.
So, how exactly did computing machines make such a jump from clunky hunks of hand-cranked metal to the sleek, portable instruments of entertainment that we know today ? Well, back to the late 19th century now, where Herman Hollerith, an American inventor, attempts to - once again - create a machine to solve problems. To calculate the census in 1880, Hollerith develops an effective "punch card" system(4), and in the light of this success, goes on to develop the company IBM - ring any bells ? Still, it takes the personal computer another 90 years to become commercially available. During that time though, it didn't take developers long to realise that alongside problem solving, computers also had another exciting potential - game playing, of course !
Talk about embarrassing baby photos.. This is Tennis for Two, the very first video game, developed in 1958 by William Higinbotham(5). Tennis for Two is one of the very first games to use a graphical display, which meant users could directly interact with the device they were using. Tennis for Two was dismantled after just a year, but developers interest in gaming wasn't going anywhere.
Over the next 17 years, the world of gaming saw a variety of developments in gaming - from Tic-Tac-Toe, which involved using a light pen to play, to Spacewar! where two players were pitted against each other - culminating in the founding of Atari in 1972(6). With Atari of course came Pong and, with it, widespread commercial success of the arcade game, opening the floodgates of interest in gaming.
Examples of first-gen systems: left to right - Atari Sears/Tele-Games, Magnavox Odyssey, Nintendo Color TV Game, Coleco Telstar, Magnavox Odyssey Series.
Starting to look more familiar ? These first generation consoles became the building blocks for the home systems we now use every day. At this point, Atari and Magnavox were the big names in the business, competing against each other with systems like the Atari 2600 and the Magnavox Odyssey models(7). Coleco was the next competitor with the release of it's Telstar model in 1976.
While I never had the opportunity to grow up playing anything this early on, I can imagine my dad and other kids of his generation and they excitement they must have experienced getting to play these consoles for the first time. It's around this time I imagine people really getting into gaming for the first time; the challenge of getting further than you could before, waiting for new releases, teaming up with groups of friends to play together - everything that appeals to us now as a community, but completely fresh and exciting. Considering this, the success of the video game industry seems obvious - is there much else in the world that invokes such images of excitement, creativity and community in the name of fun ?
Sentimentality aside, the gaming world was beginning to to take off. With the arrival of home consoles and improved technology, it looked like the sky was the limit for the fresh-faced gaming industry. In my next History of Modern Gaming post, I discuss further developments in the gaming world and get nostalgic over some of my first favourite games and consoles.
References
1. http://www.livescience.com/20718-computer-history.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine
4. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blhollerith.htm
5. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blcomputer_videogames.htm
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games#Late_1950s.E2.80.931960s
7. http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/evolution-of-home-video-game-consoles-1967-2011/
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