One of my favorite

books to read is Hackers, by Steven Levy. It gives a great insight into the minds of those brave intrepid early adventures of computer design, mainly Those Guys from MIT (and what a great history of the Model Railroad club was provided as well!).

Anywhos, even though I read that book more than a decade ago, I still remember how indelibly etched into my mind many of the chapters became. For example, there’s the gripping narrative of how the school’s first computer, the PDP-1, was used to create the absolute Forerunner of modern gaming today:

(looks a lot like Asteroids in Preschool, doesn’t it?). And how another description of a coder was

….the demeanor of a backwoodsman, quietly sitting around whittling his wood…47 instructions.

Nice stuff!

You can learn more about Spacewar at:

• Spacewar! : The first computer game invented by Steve Russell
• Spacewar Legacy
• PDP 1 Restoration Project

Ah, memories….

ThankYouVeryMuch!

Owlbert

ps - did you know you can get some great PDP stuff like so:

MINT digital EQUIPMENT CORPORATION VAX 6200 digital PEN pdp dec VMS