Higinbotham grew up in Caledonia, New York and he graduated from Williams college in 1932. After college, he went on to graduate school in Physics at Cornell University. While he was a student there, he was an electronics technician, and in 1941, he joined the MIT Radiation Lab (6). While working in the Radiation Lab, he worked on cathode ray tube displays for radar systems (7). In 1943, he worked on a timing system for the atomic bomb.
In 1948, he joined the Brookhaven National Laboratory's instrumental group (8). While working there, he served head of the instrumental group from 1951 to 1968 (9). During one of the annual visitors' days, he thought the exhibits were dull and he wanted to make an interactive exhibit. In a magazine interview he said, "it might liven up the place to have a game that people could play, and which would convey the message that our scientific endeavors had relevance for society (10)." The game he speaks of is Tennis for Two, which only took him a few hours to come up with and only a few days to put basic pieces together. His past work with displays for radar systems the designing was no problem for him.
Robert Dvorak, a technician, helped Higinbotham build the device, and after some debugging, it was ready to be showcased in a visitors' day (11). It was easily the most popular and people would stand in a long line all day just for a chance to play it. Sadly, after being shown for two years, Tennis for Two retired and both the computer and oscilloscope were used for other things in the exhibits (12). He knew the game became popular but he never thought video games would become so popular in the future. He never did patent the game but if he did he would not make any money off of it because the government owned the lab and therefore would own the game (13). Higinbotham once said, "it never occurred to me that I was doing anything very exciting. The long line of people, I thought, was not because this was great, but because all of the rest of the things were so dull (14)."
In 1948, he joined the Brookhaven National Laboratory's instrumental group (8). While working there, he served head of the instrumental group from 1951 to 1968 (9). During one of the annual visitors' days, he thought the exhibits were dull and he wanted to make an interactive exhibit. In a magazine interview he said, "it might liven up the place to have a game that people could play, and which would convey the message that our scientific endeavors had relevance for society (10)." The game he speaks of is Tennis for Two, which only took him a few hours to come up with and only a few days to put basic pieces together. His past work with displays for radar systems the designing was no problem for him.
Robert Dvorak, a technician, helped Higinbotham build the device, and after some debugging, it was ready to be showcased in a visitors' day (11). It was easily the most popular and people would stand in a long line all day just for a chance to play it. Sadly, after being shown for two years, Tennis for Two retired and both the computer and oscilloscope were used for other things in the exhibits (12). He knew the game became popular but he never thought video games would become so popular in the future. He never did patent the game but if he did he would not make any money off of it because the government owned the lab and therefore would own the game (13). Higinbotham once said, "it never occurred to me that I was doing anything very exciting. The long line of people, I thought, was not because this was great, but because all of the rest of the things were so dull (14)."