And then there was fun
Our love for playing games is an evolutionary trait, something we share with most other animals with a comparably complex nervous system, and it might just be the most important way of learning there is. Playing games means experimenting, testing boundaries, getting to know ourselves and the world around us—the very essence of intelligence. It not only teaches us how to survive, but also to adapt to new situations and progress beyond our own limitations. For that reason, it is in our nature, if we have not forgotten, to play with anything and everything.
That their particular toy might be worth a fortune, shared among dozens of people, and possibly owned by the government, were but minor details when researchers and students started to try and use their lab equipment for something less serious and more fun. In this chapter, you will find out about visionaries and tinkerers that first came up with the idea of playing games using emerging computer technology, long before anyone seriously imagined them to have any commercial potential.
But first, some of the basics. In order to play games on a computer, you need to have a computer. In the interest of a more complete account of video game history, I will start with a couple of facts from early engineering which have led to today’s computer science. However, not trying to replace comprehensive histories of computer science, I will focus on a few key ideas and developments that relate rather directly to the history of video games and home computing.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Pre-1900
- 1st century: Automata
- 18th century: Cards and wires
- 1843: The Analytical Engine
- 1886: Punch card data
- 1897: Cathode-ray tube
- 1898: Magnetic storage
