A few facts about history of video games.
The last day of the deadline. It's time to write the blog. Subject - "Describe three exciting historical IT solutions": before 1900, 1901-1950 and 1951-2000. So, I decided to write about a few interesting game facts.
First artificial game opponent or “Mechanical Turk”
One of the most famous and popular turn-based strategies is chess. And one of the oldest. Not surprised, that first not-human opponent was invented for this game.
“Mechanical Turk” was constructed by Wolfgang von Kempelen in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen. “Turk” was the automaton - a relatively self-operating machine.
“Gameplay began with the Turk moving his head from side to side to survey the board before appearing to decide on the first move. His left arm then jerked forward, the fingers splayed, and he picked up a chess piece, moving it to another square before setting it down.” 2.
And he plays very well. He even can detect when humans are cheating. That was impressive ….trick. It actually was operated by a professional chess player who hid inside the desk. Not very IT solution but interesting story.
The real first video game or “Cathode-ray tube amusement device”.
Officially the first game is “Pong”, but before it there was another game.
In 1947 was created the “Cathode-ray tube amusement device” byThomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann. It was a simple (for nowadays) device based on a cathode-ray tube - a device that can register and control the quality of an electronic signal.
The control knobs adjust the strength of the electronic signal that makes beams of light that output onto the Oscilloscope appear to move and curve, allowing the player to control it.
“In the game, the player would face a TV made up to look like a radar screen. The player, using a controller with two dials and a single button, would move a vector-drawn dot around the screen, targeting airplanes painted onto a transparent overlay. Once the dot was over a plane, the player would press the button, sending a missile after the plane. If the player “hits” all the planes in time, they win.”4.
Sadly, Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device was never released and because of that it did not become an official first game.
And also because the device is purely mechanical, does not use any programming or computer generated graphics, and no computer or memory device is used at all in the creation or execution of the game. You even can say that was not an IT solution…
The First 3D Networked Multiplayer First Person Shooter Game or…
What is the first 3D game? What is the first Networked Multiplayer game*? What is the first First Person Shooter? Answer the same. It was “Maze War”, developed by Steve Colley, Greg Thompson, and Howard Palmer for the Imlac PDS-1 computer in 1972-73. And it was playable over ARPANET between multiple universities and was upgraded to play on modern internet.
“Maze War was FPS simplicity to the core. Players took on the role of a flying eyeball and navigated a maze, moving either forward, backward, or turning 90 degrees to the left or right. While players could see their position on the maze map, other players were hidden from sight. The goal was easy: Find and shoot the enemy before he did the same to you. If you shot an enemy, you'd get 10 points, while he lost five.”5.
Maze Wars was mostly forgotten but legacy is hardly overstate. It helped create the 3D games, first-person shooter, online gaming, and internet gaming. And it definitely was an IT solution.
*There was actually another networked multiplayer game - "Empire" which was created around the same time. It cannot be definitely said, who was first.
If you interested in some of this things, you can read more here (or wiki):
https://interestingengineering.com/the-turk-fake-automaton-chess-player
https://www.lifewire.com/cathode-ray-tube-amusement-device-729579
https://www.engadget.com/2012-06-12-the-game-archaeologist-maze-war.html
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