The world's first video game arcade machine is a glittery fiberglass wonder

Computer Space sounds like a third-party PC parts wholesaler, but back in 1971 it was the world's first video game arcade machine. Before Nolan Bushell and Ted Dabney went off to start some games company called Atari, Computer Space was their first commercial collaboration -- a full year before Pong. The coin-operated computer game was the first of its kind in arcades, even if it wasn't the commercial success they'd hoped it would be. A recently christened game museum in Japan had not one, but four of the original arcade machines -- and an extra (unfortunately beige, non-shimmering) machine to play the game itself -- so we touched a bit of gaming history.
The game is like a one-on-one version of Asteroids without the debris. Controls are similar and simple, although being the first of its kind, there's a learning curve to it all. A pair of buttons rotate in either direction, while the other two act as thrust and fire. (The green model is particularly rare, with a pair of joystick controls that actually never made it into arcades.)
There's no RAM, processor or ROM.
Unfortunately, we barely managed to play the game at the museum's launch: our own spaceship disappeared from the game screen completely after about five minutes' play and the machine was then tagged with an out-of-order sign for the remainder of the press event. (We didn't break it. Promise.)

The machine can't be run through emulation easily on more modern machine, because the hardware itself was before the era of arcade motherboards. There's no RAM, processor or ROM. ROM chips were expensive at the start of the 70s, so creator Bushell substituted in diodes on the circuit board, laid out in the shape of the spaceship on the circuit board itself. Interestingly, the highest score possible is 15 -- once you go over that, the machine resets. Technologizer has a supremely detailed tale of the game's development, but if you're wanting a taste of the arcade's first video game yourself, then we suggest trying some of the downloadable simulators here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Electronic Music Theory: 8 Rhythmic Devices You Should Know (Polyrhythm, Syncopation +)

Image
 I wrote about the primary elements of drum beats: measured time, drum sound selection, and the observable phenomenon of 2s and 3s. Truth be told I wrote that article to get you thinking about rhythm in a different way so I could follow it with this article. I will go over some rhythmic devices that I’ve picked up over the years from working with drummers and percussionists in a variety of live performance and studio recording situations. Being that this is a series dedicated to how music works (music theory), it is appropriate to include some examples of recorded music that utilizes these techniques, which I will do for you below. Once you’ve internalized these concepts and can recognize their idiosyncratic sounds, you’ll start hearing them all over the place. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them using the comment section down below. Alright, let’s jump in. This one example includes all eight rhythmic devices that we’ll cover below:  the downbeat ,  the up
Read more

Computable Universes & Algorithmic Theory of Everything: The Computational Multiverse

Digital Physics: Is our universe just the output of a deterministic computer program? As a consequence of Moore's law, each decade computers are getting roughly 1000 times faster by cost. Apply Moore's law to the video game business. As the virtual worlds get more convincing many people will spend more time in them. Soon most universes will be virtual, only one (the original) will be real. Then many will be led to suspect the real one is a simulation as well. Some are already suspecting this today. Then the simplest explanation of our universe is the simplest program that computes it. In 1997 Schmidhuber pointed out [1] that the simplest such program actually computes all possible universes with all types of physical constants and laws, not just ours. His essay also talks about universes simulated within parent universes in nested fashion, and about universal complexity-based measures on possible universes. Here a few video clips on this from the World Science Fest
Read more

Balancing your Studies and Social Life at University

When you add up all the course work and social opportunities, the uni experience can be overwhelming, and one of the worst parts is feeling like you have to sacrifice part of your study time for a party or vice versa. But fear not!  The university experience doesn’t have to be all work or all play  – there are ways to have a successful academic career and still have time for fun. The key to making it through is finding a way to balance your studies and social life, by setting realistic expectations, staying organised and having interim goals. Set the right goals A good goal is one you have to stretch to achieve, but is not so unreasonable that you’d have to drop everything else to get there. Try to get into the habit of setting goals not only for your academic life but other parts of your university experience as well. Break your course work into achievable segments.  Instead of waiting until the last minute to study for an exam or start a big project, set intermediate daily o
Read more