Ask Owlbert

1962 Spacewar PDP from MIT - the first video game EVER

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!).

LogicAnywhos, 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:

Ah, memories…. :)

ThankYouVeryMuch!

Owlbert

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


1966 DEC Digital PDP-9 Computer Introduction Print Ad


1968 DEC Digital Equipment PDP-10 computer print ad


DEC Digital PDP-11 BA-23 Board M7555 Disk Controller

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