Lecture+1+Notes

= __Lecture 1 Notes__ = ===For the Fall 2010 Discussion Board, Click [|HERE] ===

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 * Pinball – precursor to videogames – established games in the Amusement Industry, made people familiar with playing games at Arcades and Bars
 * Bagatelle - precursor to pinball - everything starts somewhere
 * Very popular game for a long time period (1600's through early 1900's) - existed in various shapes, sizes, styles
 * Offshoot of billiards (once again, everything starts somewhere)
 * Uses a cue (like billiards/pool) to shoot balls into pockets across the table, blocked by "pins"
 * Cue eventually replaced by "plunger" device - no records exist explaining why
 * Once cue is replaced, the first true "pinball" games come into existence
 * David Gottlieb – Baffle ball – early 30's
 * Tilting – used to control ball using "Body English"
 * Harry Williams – tilt mechanism – ball on pedestal, then pendulum - 1932
 * Electricity - “Contact” - scoring holes shoot back out balls - 1933
 * Though considered to the be the first Pinball-type game to use electricity, some Bagatelle games in the ealry 1900's used electricity for lights, bells, etc.
 * Legal troubles – gambling/organized crime
 * 1942 - Fiorello LaGuardia – ban on pinball in NYC – other cities followed suit
 * 1947 – Gottlieb employee Harry Mabs - flippers (6)
 * Steven Kordek – revised to 2 flippers
 * Skill added to pinball, Gottlieb tries to reverse bans
 * Other Manufacturers, like Bally, produce even more luck-based games, such as their "Bingo" line, which did not use flippers or any real skill
 * Games like Bingo further the notion that Pinball is gambling
 * Flippers did convince many cities to reverse ban, NYC keeps ban into the 70's
 * Other non-Pinball mechanical games inspired - mechanical baseball games, etc.
 * 60's – games becoming more complex
 * Mechanical, electronic games like Chicago Coin Speedway - precursors to modern video games
 * Prior to this time, however, first "video games" were being born – most not widely known
 * Often debated what should be considered the first true "video game"
 * 1948– "Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device" – often considered to be first electronic, interactive game
 * Created by two physicists: Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann
 * Used an Oscilloscope to display a light beam - meant to be the trajectory of a missile
 * Oscilloscope - a device used for measuring electrical voltage
 * A beam of light (typically shown as a dot or a line) is displayed on a screen to indicate the voltage and other properties of an electrical current being fed into the Oscilloscope - beam will move, bend, and curve depending on variances in the electricity it is measuring
 * Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device:
 * No graphics – used picture overlays and players controlled a moving dot
 * Meant to imitate World War II radar displays
 * No computer used, no actual programming present, no game really "stored" - just manipulated knobs to direct light-beam to intersect an image-overlaid symbol
 * Best to think of it is as a target game, where nothing register the score of "hits" except the person running the game or an audience – not very interactive and usually not considered a true video game
 * Designers did work in a clever way of mimicking an "explosion" when a target was hit - overloaded the signal of the oscilloscope to blur the spot on the screen, which ended up looking like an explosion
 * The blurred explosion was, because of the device, always in the exact same spot when it occurred - and the graphical-overlays were drawn so that the target or targets happened to be on these spots
 * The pre-determined area of blur had to be created before the game was played by adjusting the electronic components of the device itself
 * The idea was to keep the blur lined up with whatever target-overlay was being used - if a different target-overlay was used for the next game, the device would have to be re-adjusted to move the pre-determined "blur" area, so as to not ruin the explosion effect
 * Game was never mass-produced or marketed - never sold at all - only prototypes ever made
 * No versions of this device known to exist today – only a patent and schematics (linked below)
 * 1951 – Dr. Dietrich Prinz created first chess program for Manchester Ferranti computer
 * No graphics, not very interactive, more of an experiment than true attempt at entertainment
 * 1951 – Ferranti (same company that manufactured Manchester Ferranti computer) creates NIMROD Computer
 * Based on "Nim," which is an ancient mathematical game of strategy
 * First computer designed to specifically play a game – in some ways a forerunner to more modern arcade video games and home game consoles
 * Once again, no graphics - pure text display
 * 1952 - A.S. Douglas earning his PhD at University of Cambridge
 * Cambridge had an EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) vacuum-tube computer
 * Had a simple display which had 35 columns of green dots, and 16 rows of green dots (35x16 = 560 dots total)
 * Douglas was writing his PhD thesis on human-computer interaction
 * Created a simple game on the EDSAC to accompany his research
 * OXO, also called "Naughts and Crosses" – Tic-Tac-Toe – 1st graphical computer game known to exist
 * 1 Player against computer – very basic – like Chess game, also more of an experiment than entertainment
 * Later in history, versions of Tic-Tac-Toe frequently created as first computer game programmed by many budding computer game programmers
 * 1958 - Willy Higinbotham, Head of the Instrumentation Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory
 * Laboratory started giving tours to the public
 * Inspired by missile radar systems, Higinbotham realized that simple moving imagery could be controlled on a screen - similar to how the inventors of the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device came up with their idea
 * To Higinbotham, the "obvious" use of this was creating a game
 * Thought such a game could add interest to the public tours
 * Analog computers (which measure voltage to read information and data, rather than the traditional "on/off" switches of digital computers) were used for processing the "game"
 * The image was displayed on an Oscilloscope - much like the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device
 * Created "Tennis for Two" – likely the first completely computer-generated game created specifically for entertainment
 * Far more interactive than previous games, especially Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device - actual programming stored for the game via an analog computer
 * 2-Player game, featuring bouncing ball and vertical net (see images and videos in links below)
 * Players each had a knob and a button that acted as tennis paddles (the precursor to modern video game controllers)
 * Pressing the button at any time sent the ball flying to the other side of the net
 * Turning the knob changed the angle in which the ball flew
 * "Tennis for Two" simulated realistic gravity, wind resistance on the ball, and even had the ball bounce in a realistic manner, both off of the ground and off of the net
 * Very popular - visitors lined up for hours to play the game
 * "Tennis for Two" was on display at Brookhaven for 2 years before being dismantled
 * Supposedly, over that time Higinbotham created various other versions of the game, including altered-gravity versions to simulate playing tennis on the moon and other celestial bodies
 * Hard to confirm whether this is true or not, but seems plausible
 * Higinbotham never filed for a patent on the device, partly due to a lack of interest from his employers - the US Government
 * Since Hingobtham had created the game at work, any patent he filed would have gone to the government
 * If he had filed, depending on the scope of the patent, the US Government could have owned the rights to all video games, requiring any potential video-game maker to obtain a license from the government to make a video game

=__Links__=


 * __Early Non-Electronic Games of the Amusement Industry __**

 Bagatelle   Cartoon of Abraham Lincoln Playing Bagatelle Baffle Ball   __**Pinball and Other Early Electronic Games **__   Various Bagatelle, Baffle Ball, and Pinball games    The Internet Pinball Machine Database  <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Info and an Image for PAMCO's "Contact" -1933 (Designed by Harry Williams), Commonly Seen as the First Pinball Machine to Use Electricity <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Info and Images for Gottlieb's "Humpty Dumpty" -1947, the First Pinball Machine to Use Electronic Flippers <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Info and Images for Wiliams "Triple Action" -1974, based on Genco's Pinball Machine of the same Name -1948, which was the First Pinball Machine to Use The Modern-Style and Positioning for Electronic Flippers, 2 at the Bottom of the Play Field <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Image of Bally's "Bright Lights" -1951, the First "Bingo" Machine Produced by Bally <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> A List of Various Mechanical "Novelty" Games Inspired By Pinball (With Links to Images) <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Chicago Coin Speedway <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> __**<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Early Computer and Video Games **__ <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> A List of the History of Video Games, with Information, in Chronological Order, Up to Pong <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> A .pdf File Containing the Patent for the "Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device" (Includes Schematics) <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"><span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">An online article discussing the "Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device"  <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Information on the Game Nim, Including an Image of an Ancient, Physical Nim Device <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Information on A.S. Douglas's Tic-Tac-Toe Computer Game <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Download an EDSAC Simulator, Including a Copy of Douglas's OXO (Tic-Tac-Toe) Game (Windows, Linux and OLD Mac Version Available - Mac Version WILL NOT Work on Most Modern Macintosh Computers) <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">

__**<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Tennis For Two **__

<span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Information on Willy Higinbotham's "Tennis For Two" <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> A Detailed Description of the Creation of "Tennis for Two," and How the Game Worked <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> A .pdf File Containing an Excerpt from a Magazine Which Discusses the 50-Year Anniversary of "Tennis For Two" (Page 1 and 5) <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #2a4a8d; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Video of "Tennis For Two" (Ignore the Background Music)