|
Spacewar! is one of the earliest known digital computer games. Steve "Slug" Russell, Martin "Shag" Graetz and Wayne Wiitanen of the fictitious "Hingham Institute" conceived of the game in 1961, with the intent of implementing it on a DEC PDP-1 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After Alan Kotok obtained some sine and cosine routines from DEC, Russell began coding, and by February 1962 had produced his first version. It took approximately 200 hours of work to create the initial version. Additional features were developed by Dan Edwards, Peter Samson, and Graetz. Image File history File links Spacewar1. ...
A video game developer is a software developer (a business or an individual) that creates video games. ...
Steve Russel created the first videogame, Spacewar at the Tech Model Railroad Club at the MIT. Categories: Substubs ...
1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar). ...
Video games are generally categorized into genres. ...
Tactic could refer to: Tactic (municipality) Tactic (method) Military tactics Tactics (manga) This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ...
The PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) was the first computer in Digital Equipments PDP series and was first produced in 1960. ...
Steve Russel created the first videogame, Spacewar at the Tech Model Railroad Club at the MIT. Categories: Substubs ...
The DEC logo Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the computer industry. ...
The PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) was the first computer in Digital Equipments PDP series and was first produced in 1960. ...
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private, coeducational research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ...
This article is about Alan Kotok who was associate chair of W3C. Alan B. Kotok who is the managing editor of Science Careers is also called Alan Kotok. ...
In mathematics, the trigonometric functions are functions of an angle, important when studying triangles and modeling periodic phenomena. ...
In mathematics, the trigonometric functions are functions of an angle, important when studying triangles and modeling periodic phenomena. ...
The DEC logo Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the computer industry. ...
Peter R. Samson (born 1941 in Fitchburg, Massachusetts)[1] is an American computer scientist, best known for creating pioneering computer software. ...
Gameplay
The basic gameplay of Spacewar involves two armed spaceships called "the needle" and "the wedge" attempting to shoot one another while maneuvering in the gravity well of a star. The ships fired missiles which were unaffected by gravity (due to a lack of processing time). Each ship had a limited number of missiles and a limited supply of fuel. Each player controls a ship, and must attempt to simultaneously shoot at the other ship and avoid colliding with the star. Player controls included clockwise and counterclockwise rotation, thrust, fire, and hyperspace; using either the front-panel test switches with four switches for each player or optional control boxes. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...
Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...
The Vintage Computer Festivals 2005 motif. ...
The Space Shuttle Discovery as seen from the International Space Station. ...
A gravity well is the scientific/science fictional term for the distortion in space-time caused by a massive body such as a planet. ...
STAR is an acronym for: Organizations Society for Telescopy, Astronomy, and Radio, a non-profit New Jersey astronomy club. ...
A front panel was used on early electronic computers to display and allow the alteration of the state of the machines internal registers and memory. ...
The hyperspace feature could be used as a last-ditch means to evade enemy missiles, but the reentry from hyperspace would occur at a random location and there was an increasing probability of the ship exploding with each use.
Options and features Early versions of the game contained a randomly generated background starfield. However, the inaccuracy and lack of verisimilitude annoyed Samson, so he wrote a program based on real star charts that scrolled slowly: at any one time, 45% of the night sky was visible, every star down to the fifth magnitude. The program was called "Expensive Planetarium" (referring to the price of the PDP-1 computer), and was quickly incorporated into the main code. Expensive Planetarium is the star display written by Peter Samson for Spacewar!, one of the first interactive computer games. ...
There were several optional features controlled by sense switches on the console: A front panel was used on early electronic computers to display and allow the alteration of the state of the machines internal registers and memory. ...
- no star (and thus no gravity)
- enable angular momentum
- disable background starfield
- the "Winds of Space"- a warping factor on trajectories that required the pilot to make careful adjustments every time they moved
Spacewar was a fairly good overall diagnostic of the PDP-1 computer and Type 30 Precision CRT Display, so DEC apparently used it for factory testing and shipped PDP-1 computers to customers with the Spacewar program already loaded into the core memory; this enabled field testing as when the PDP was fully set up, the field representative could simultaneously relax and do a final test of the PDP. A 16×16 cm area core memory plane of 128×128 bits, i. ...
A PDP-11-based GT40 Implementation at DEC When the PDP-11-based GT40 vector graphics system was developed, Spacewar! was re-implemented to run on this system. As with the original version, gameplay was controlled by the front-panel toggle switches with four switches for each player controlling ship rotation left, ship rotation right, thrust, and weapons fire. It was quite common to see the paint worn off of the PDP-11 control panel above the eight switches used for Spacewar. The PDP-11 was a 16-bit minicomputer sold by Digital Equipment Corp. ...
Because the missiles were launched with a velocity that was relative to the ship, a common ploy in this version of the game was to fire a missile while being whiplashed by a close approach to the sun. If the firing ship was pointing backwards along its orbital path, the fired missile had almost no absolute velocity and was simply left floating in space. If the opponent was not paying close attention, they would simply fly into such a lurking missile as they pursued and thereby be destroyed.
Spacewar today As of May 2006, there is only known to be one working PDP-1 in existence, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. The computer and display were completely restored after two years of work, and Spacewar! is operational. 2006 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The Computer History Museum in Mountain View. ...
Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, in the U.S. state of California. ...
A second PDP-1 belonging to the Computer History Museum is currently on tour as part of the Game On exhibition, previously shown at the Barbican in London. However, this PDP-1 is not operational.
On May 15, 2006, the museum presented The Mouse That Roared: A PDP-1 Celebration Event. The PDP-1 was demonstrated running Spacewar! as well as other programs, and members of the public were able to play the game using makeshift controllers. Further PDP-1 demonstrations will be scheduled on a biweekly basis on Saturday afternoons. May 15 is the 135th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (136th in leap years). ...
For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ...
Most recently, Spacewar code has been given out with the latest build of Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express, with the intent that users will be able to use it to help better learn XNA GSE. Some Microsoft employees have expressed concern that users have so far not come up with any modifications to the base release. Microsoft XNA (XNAs Not Acronymed[1]) is a set of tools, complete with a managed runtime environment, provided by Microsoft that facilitates computer game design, development and management. ...
Other games inspired by Spacewar
KSpaceDuel, a modern derivative included in many Linux distributions Over the years, many computer games have been inspired by Spacewar; some are known by the same name. Some are straightforward clones, but most have introduced additional variations to the game play, such as: Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x768, 48 KB) Description: Screenshot of KSpaceDuel version 1. ...
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x768, 48 KB) Description: Screenshot of KSpaceDuel version 1. ...
- various rates of acceleration
- various levels of gravity (even negative)
- missiles affected by gravity
- fuel (energy) regeneration over time
- shields
Arcade versions of Spacewar were released as the Galaxy Game (1971), Computer Space by Nutting Associates (1971), and Space Wars by Cinematronics (1977), the last being the most commercially successful. The Galaxy Game is the earliest known coin-operated video game. ...
Computer Space is a video arcade game released in November, 1971 by Nutting Associates. ...
Nutting Associates was the company that created Computer Space (1971), the first coin operated arcade game. ...
Space Wars was the first vector-graphics arcade game. ...
Cinematronics was a pioneering arcade game developer that had its heyday in the era of vector display games. ...
The first networked version of this genre was Orbitwar(1974) by Silas Warner on the PLATO network. It included all the features of the original Spacewar with the addition of a Big Board where PLATO users would await challenges from each other to play. Silas Warner (18 August 1949 – 3 March 2004) was a game programmer and one of the founders of Muse Software. ...
PLATO, an apronym for Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operation, was one of the first generalized computer-based teaching systems, originally built by the University of Illinois and later taken over by Control Data (CDC), who provided the machines it ran on. ...
Home versions have appeared for most computer and console systems, with some becoming quite elaborate, such as the Star Control series, introducing a wide variety of gameplay frameworks around the basic one-on-one combat system at its core. Senko no Ronde can be described as a modern interpretation of Spacewar, with a design heavily inspired by versus fighters such as Street Fighter II. The Star Control series is a trilogy of computer games with a cult following. ...
Senko no ronde is a (Fighter/Shooter) hybrid that was developed by G.rev for the Sega Naomi Arcade System. ...
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior is a 1991 competitive fighting game by Capcom. ...
Non-space themed variants with similar play (ie two players control a vehicle using similar controls - ie rotate left / rotate right / move forward / fire - and try to score by hitting their opponent with a missile, include Tank by Kee Games and Combat by Atari. Kee Games was an arcade game manufacturer that released games from 1973 to 1978. ...
This article is about a corporate game company. ...
Although some accounts mistakenly identify Spacewar as a motivation for the development of Unix, the game involved in that case was Space Travel.[1] Filiation of Unix and Unix-like systems Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®) is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. ...
Space exploration is the physical exploration of outer-Earth objects and generally anything that involves the technologies, science, and politics regarding space endeavors. ...
Earlier computer and video games The first graphical computer game is believed to have been OXO (a Tic-tac-toe game), developed by A.S. Douglas in 1952. William Higinbotham built Tennis for Two in 1958 using discrete analog hardware rather than a program for a digital computer. OXO (also known as Noughts and Crosses) is a tic-tac-toe computer game made for the EDSAC computer in 1952. ...
Tennis for Two was a game developed in 1958 on an oscilloscope which simulated a game of tennis or ping pong. ...
Notes and references
General references Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (ISBN 0385191952) is a book by Steven Levy about the hacker culture. ...
Footnotes and specific references 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini era. ...
March 11 is the 70th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (71st in leap years). ...
See also This article is about Alan Kotok who was associate chair of W3C. Alan B. Kotok who is the managing editor of Science Careers is also called Alan Kotok. ...
Steve Russel created the first videogame, Spacewar at the Tech Model Railroad Club at the MIT. Categories: Substubs ...
Marvin Lee Minsky (born August 9, 1927), sometimes affectionately known as Old Man Minsky, is an American cognitive scientist in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of MITs AI laboratory, and author of several texts on AI and philosophy. ...
External links | 
Feeds |
Contact