Tennis For two Review-1958
The first official video game was Tennis for Two made by William Higinbotham in 1958. On October 18 at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on one of their visitors' days. Higinbotham was originally a nuclear physicist, lobbied for nuclear nonproliferation as the first chair of the Federation of American scientists (1). While working at Brookhaven, he realized how non-interactive the exhibits were there. He wanted to change that. As he said, he wanted America to know that what they did there affected all people and mattered.
In the game, two people would play with separate controllers. These controllers connected to an analog computer and the screen was an oscilloscope. The two players saw a sideways view of a tennis court with a bright ball and a trail chasing the ball (2). The oscilloscope used a cathode-ray tube which is a lot like those in black and white televisions (3). With buttons and rotating dials, players could volley and serve the ball, controlling invisible tennis rackets.
Hundreds of visitors arrived, just for a chance to play the game! Higinbotham could not have dreamed that his game would become a pioneer to an entire industry that, only less than 50 years later would have, in 2006 and 2007, 9.5 billion dollars in sales in the U.S. alone, according to information from the Electronic Software Association (4). When he first put the game out in 1958, the oscilloscope screen was on 5 inches in diameter, but in 1959, he improved the screen size, making it between 10 and 17 inches in diameter. In that same year he also added a feature where you could play on the moon with low gravity and on Jupiter with high gravity (5).
In the game, two people would play with separate controllers. These controllers connected to an analog computer and the screen was an oscilloscope. The two players saw a sideways view of a tennis court with a bright ball and a trail chasing the ball (2). The oscilloscope used a cathode-ray tube which is a lot like those in black and white televisions (3). With buttons and rotating dials, players could volley and serve the ball, controlling invisible tennis rackets.
Hundreds of visitors arrived, just for a chance to play the game! Higinbotham could not have dreamed that his game would become a pioneer to an entire industry that, only less than 50 years later would have, in 2006 and 2007, 9.5 billion dollars in sales in the U.S. alone, according to information from the Electronic Software Association (4). When he first put the game out in 1958, the oscilloscope screen was on 5 inches in diameter, but in 1959, he improved the screen size, making it between 10 and 17 inches in diameter. In that same year he also added a feature where you could play on the moon with low gravity and on Jupiter with high gravity (5).
