Spacewar! Turns 50 This Week!!!

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15/02/2012 22:31:19 GMT
Written by Carl Varley

Often referred to as the first video game even though Tennis for Two, a version of Tic Tac Toe (OXO) and the 1951 Science Fair's Nim were all prior electronic games to Spacewar!. For me this was where it all started, a real video game with recognisable graphics on a real Vector CRT display (non of that coloured lights or oscilloscope nonsense).

Spacewar! pits two warring space craft at opposing sides of a strong central source of gravity a Sun or Black Hole (I can't really tell). Where you try to kill the opposition using the latest in laser BLIP techno. The game features some brilliant gravity physics and occasionally hectic gameplay depending on how good your opponent is.

Coded by Steve Russell, Martin Graetz and Wayne Wirtaenem, the game idea was dreamt up in 1961 with the first version complete by February 1962.

Tonnes more information can be found about Spacewar! with a quick google or by visiting the Spacewar! Wiki page here...

Instead of reading about it why not play the ground breaking game Spacewar! right in your browser. It is runs on a javascript PDP-1 emulatior and plays pretty well. Play it Here...

Happy Birthday Spacewar!

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