1962 Spacewar PDP from MIT - the first video game EVER
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:
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1966 DEC Digital PDP-9 Computer Introduction Print Ad
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1968 DEC Digital Equipment PDP-10 computer print ad
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DEC Digital PDP-11 BA-23 Board M7555 Disk Controller

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