A history of computer games, part two: 1980s - 1990s

It is Interesting to investigate 1980's because only Ten years later, I existed in this 3rd dimension reality.

 Plenty of goodies in this era, so here's my little take...

In the 1980’s the gaming industry experienced it’s first major growing pains, because of the relatively low publishing costs for personal computer games which allowed for bold, unique games.

However some early 80’s games, were just clones of existing arcade titles. They say, that there is no consensus as to the exact time period, but based around the 1980 margin, “The Golden age of Video arcade games” was a peak era of video arcade games popularity, innovation and earning.

The Golden Age generated a lot of revenue, though in contrast the best-selling arcade games of the Golden Age, were space invaders and Pac-man. They both  sold over 360,000s and 350,000s copies, with each machine costing between $2000 and $3000.

Thought this image was interesting because it's the world smallest Space Invader, machine lol.

So it's a shooter game in which the player controls a Hyperlink laser cannon by moving it horizontally across the bottom of the screen and firing at descending Aliens. The player-controlled the laser cannon which shoots the aliens as they descend to the bottom of the screen.

This is an ipod docking station disguised as a Ms.Pacman Arcade machine.

Pac-man was developed by a nine-man team. It’s obvious but funny to think it was based on the concept of eating, which in Japanese terms was called “Pakkuman”. You find the Japanese always get their names from such things that exist in reality. So the Japanese onomatopoeic slang phrase Paku- Paku taberu, where the “sound of” the mouth movement when widely opened and then closed in succession.

There were  Genre innovations

When the Golden Age of video arcades games, reached its highest point in the 1980s, it brought with it many technical advances and genre-defining games.            

Action role playing games, Adventure games, Beat 'em up, and more Action adventure games like ...

That helped establish the action adventure genre, combining elements from different genres to create a compelling hybrid of a lot of genres.

Atari 5200

Atari 2600

New and better consoles from the 70's such as Atari 5200 that was introduced in 1982

That was a higher end complementary console for the popular Atari 2600 and the later one Atari 7800 that had origally been designed to replaced Atari 5200, but in 1984 was temporarily shelved due to the sales of the company after the video game crash. 

Atari 7800

In January 1986, the 7800 was again released and would compete that year with the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Master System. However the Atari 7800, had simple digital joysticks, also the main treat of this console was that it was almost fully backwards-compatible with the Atari 2600 and for that, it was the first console to have this with out additional modules.

A history of computer games, part one: 1950s - 1970s

Interesting enough what I believe is that, to know our answers now, we must search the past, that helps us figure out the present.

So the video game history started in an unusual and complicated way, so it’s apparent to avoid confusion with what happened in the 1950’s and 1960’s. 

It states that the real video game history started with Ralph Baer as early as 1951.  In the 1950’s and 1960’s, computers were not only exceedingly expensive, but the technology was lacking, because it could not allow integrating them into a video game system. Only mainframes could allow playing a few games. These games qualified as Computer games, not Video games.

In 1947, there were requests for an invention, that became known  as 'Cathode ray tube amusement device' which was the earliest known interactive electronic game,which any person using the knobs and buttons to manipulate a cathode ray tube beam, could simulate firing a 'airplane' target.

In 1949 -1950 Charley Adam, created a 'Bouncing Ball. However, the program was not yet interactive; it was a precursor for games in the future. In 1958, Tennis for Two was a game on an Analog, computer, which simulates a game of tennis or ping pong on an oscilloscope.

Tennis for Two was Exhibited for two seasons before it was dismantled in 1959

This was created by William Higinbotham, that Tennis for Two showed a simplified tennis court from the side, featuring a 'gravity-controlled ball that needed to be played over the net, unlike its successor Pong. Pong has a box shaped controller, that was  equipped with both a knob and a button for hitting the ball.

This is Spacewars! one of the earliest known digital computer games

It  is a two-player game, with each player taking control of a spaceship and attempting to destroy the other. Steve Russell, Martin Graetz and Wayne Witaenem from the fictitious Hingham Institute, conceived of the game in the 1961 which they implement  on 'DEC PDP-1' which is a programmed data processor, and was the first computer in digital equipment corporation. Amazing to think when Russell began finishing his first version, it took him approximately 200 hours of work to create the initial version.

As early as 1951, a young 29 year old TV engineer named Ralph Baer worked at Loral, a TV company. Amazing to see that his chief engineer, Sam Lackoff (haha jackoff) asked him to build the best television set in the world. Designing a TV set was child play for Ralph, however he wanted to add a new concept that his boss did not understand: playing games on the television set. The video game concept was born, but could not been implemented since the boss refused the idea. In 1966 Ralph Baer came back to his 1951 idea of playing games on TV sets and started to build the first video game prototypes.

Ralph Baer is accordingly, credited as the inventor of the video game

In 1966 Ralph Baer, had a co-worker called Bill Harrison that he engaged into the project. They created a simple video game 'Chase'. This was the first to display on a standard television set.

He designed a series of seven prototypes that played several video games. Chase consists of two squares chasing each other. The last prototype built in 1968 (also known as Brown Box) played Ball and Paddle games, Target Shooting games and more. After several demonstration to TV manufactures, Magnavox signed an agreement in 1971 and the first video game system was released in May 1972: Odyssey.

 The history of PONG games and derivates had just started, and would spread all over the globe and die in the early 1980s