Spacewar
Developer(s)	Steve Russell et al.
Release date(s)	1962
Genre(s)	Multi-directional shooter
Mode(s)	Two players, simultaneously (only)
Platform(s)	PDP-1

Spacewar! is one of the earliest video games for a digital computer. Steve "Slug" Russell, Martin "Shag" Graetz and Wayne Wiitanen of the ficticious "Higham 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 Martin "Shag" Graetz. A video game developer is a software developer (a business or an individual) that creates computer or 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). ... This is a listing of computer and video game genres with brief descriptions and examples from each genre. ... Radiant Silvergun Sega Saturn - ©1998 Treasure A shoot-em-up (shmup for short in some areas, and also known as arcade shooter, twitch shooter, space shooter, or sometimes simply just shooter, with shoot em ups being the most popular subgenre of shooter), is a computer and video game genre where... The PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) was the first computer in Digital Equipments PDP series and was first produced in 1960. ... A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ... Steve Russel created the first videogame, Spacewar at the Tech Model Railroad Club at the MIT. Categories: Substubs ... Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering company in the American 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, or MIT, is a private research university located in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. MIT is one of the worlds leading research institutions in science and technology. ... Alan Kotok at CSAIL in 2006. ... 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. ... Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering company in the American computer industry. ...

Gameplay

The basic gameplay of Spacewar! involves two armed spaceships attempting to shoot one another while maneuvering in the gravity well of a star. 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. Ariane 5 lifts off with the Rosetta probe on 2nd of March, 2004. ... A gravity well is the scientific/science fictional term for the distortion in space-time caused by a massive body such as a planet. ... The Pleiades star cluster A star is a massive body of plasma in outer space that is currently producing or has produced energy through nuclear fusion. ...

The ships fired missiles which were unaffected by gravity. Each ship had a limited number of missiles and a limited supply of fuel. 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 Peter 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.

There were several optional features controlled by sense switches (the main control for the game, although the first joysticks were invented for use with Spacewar!) on the console: Joystick elements: 1. ...

• no sun (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 second implementation at DEC

When the PDP-11-based GT40 vector graphics system was developed, Spacewar! was re-implemented to run on this system. 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. To suggest a relevant news story for the Main Page, refer to the criteria then add your suggestion at the candidates page. ... The Computer History Museum in Mountain View. ... For other places in California called “Mountain View”, see Mountain View, California (disambiguation). ...

A second PDP-1 belonging to the Computer History Museum is currently on tour as part of the Game On exhibition. 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). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

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 latter being the most commercially successful. Computer Space is a computer arcade game released in 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 console and arcade game developer that had its heyday in the era of vector display games. ...

Home versions have appeared for most computer and console systems, with some - such as the Star Control series - becoming quite elaborate, introducing a wide variety of gameplay frameworks around the basic one-on-one combat system at their core. The Star Control series is a trilogy of computer games with a cult following. ...

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. In chemistry, oxo is the formal IUPAC nomenclature for a ketone functional group. ... Tennis for Two was a game developed in 1958 on an oscilloscope which simulated a game of tennis or ping pong. ...

References

• Levy, Steven (1984). Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Anchor Press/Doubleday. ISBN 0385191952.

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (ISBN 0385191952) is a book by Steven Levy about the hacker culture. ...

External links

• History of Spacewar!
• Dmoz directory for Spacewar!
• Three vector-based Spacewar! variants
• Playable Spacewar! Java Applet
• 1up.com's article naming Spacewar! the most important video game ever made
• "Spacewar!", a 1972 Rolling Stone article by Stewart Brand
• A 1972 Saga Magazine article about Spacewar!
• Computer and Video Game History describes Spacewar! and earlier video games such as A.S. Douglas' Tic-Tac-Toe and William Higinbotham's Tennis for Two