Task 2

It's the History of Computer and Video Games!

Right then.

In the beginning, the world was a ravaged and desolate place. That's because the Second World War had just ended and it was 1947. Somewhere in the epic expanse of America, two men invented the first thing that could be called something like a computer game. Their names were Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, and they designed and patented what they called the "Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device". It wasn't nearly as rude as the name implied, as it could simulate a missile being fired at a target, with incredible 8-tube graphics.

It wasn't really a 'video game', but it wouldn't be long before someone cottoned on to the idea of a proper electronic game. It happened in 1952, where in the Kingdom of England, where knights court maidens and magic is a part of everyday life, a student studying for his PhD degree in the University of Cambridge invented OXO, or "Naughts and Crosses". Definitely not "Tic-Tac-Toe". His name was A.S Douglas, and he did it because he was writing a thesis on human-computer interaction. It was basic, as he created it for the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, or EDSAC, which was one of the first computers to be invented. The display was just 35 x 16 dots, but he sucessfully wrote the source code to have a ravishing game of Naughts and Crosses at any time. Unfortunately, since the computer was so enormous, he couldn't take it around his mates' flats and show off.

Montage-cut to America, just a few years later in 1958. Within the iron walls of the Brookhaven National Laboratories, a fellow named Willy Higginbotham used an analog Donner computer to create a tennis game called "Tennis for Two". This was another step up from Douglas' Naughts and Crosses, and showed that games were gradually, oh so gradually, getting more elaborate.

And that's where it all started. We owe a lot to those three gentlemen: Goldsmith, Mann, Douglas and Higginbotham. Well done for seeing technology, even the basic technology that they had access to, as a possible means of entertainment. I salute you, sirs.

As for myself, the first game I ever played was before the days of wonderful colour. It was a black and white game on a DOS-run computer, encased in a huge wooden box, with one of those printers that go EEEEEAARGH... EEEEEEAARGH... when they print stuff. Y'know, with the punched holes down the sides of the paper. Anyway this game had teddy bears in it, and that's about all I can remember. I think it was meant to be educational in some way, and I played it several times before I was old enough to know what to do. One day, I had another go, figured it out and for the first time I actually 'played' it. I was one very amused kiddy on that day.

Honestly I can't remember the first 'proper' game I played. I doubt it was anything popular, but I found great fun, and every one was different. Not only could you play this amazing colour game (At first without any sound of course), you could play ANOTHER one straight after it, and you'd be someone else doing something entirely different. That's where my interest began, because with each passing day games were looking better, when my father bought a sound card for our 486 (Huge event) they began sounding better, and gradually they were becoming really impressive. I shall have to GO RETRO sometime in the future, but I've written more than enough for one night. Until we meet again, my beloved readers, farewell.