![]() Russell, now embarrassed, set about actually writing the program. This finally prompted Alan Kotok to head out to Maynard, Massachusetts to DEC headquarters to get copies of a sine-cosine routine for the PDP-1, presenting them to Russell with a group of onlookers asking what his excuse was now. Russell continually put it off as 1961 started to close out, culminating in his claim that he didn’t know how to write a sine-cosine routine. Wayne Wiitanen had been called up as an Army reservist by the fall and Martin Graetz was in a different department at MIT at the time, leaving Steve Russell, who had been talking a big game with the other hackers who hung out at MIT, as the person most able to implement their idea. Of course, brainstorming is one thing and actually writing the game is another. The Spacewar creators during the 2018 Smithsonian reunion. Anticipating the PDP-1’s arrival in the fall, that summer Graetz, Russell and Wiitanen started brainstorming what they could do to push the machine to its limits, and being fans of pulpy science fiction like the Lensman book series and the Buck Rogers comics, they came up with the idea of a space-themed demo program that was entertaining to play and watch, that would have enough player interaction to be different every run, and would also use all the resources the PDP-1 had available to it. This led to the development of a variety of demos and experimental programs from the trio alongside other early hackers like Alan Kotok, Dan Edwards, Robert Saunders and Peter Samson. Dennis was a computer guy going back to the Whirlwind mainframe who essentially controlled access to the TX-0, and as all of them shared an interest in computers and model railroads, he encouraged them to mess around with it after hours. Jumping back a bit to early 1961, three computer hackers named Steve Russell, Martin Graetz and Wayne Wiitanen, who each had some connection either working at MIT (Russell, Wiitanen) or having gone to school there (Graetz, Wiitanen again), were all working at Harvard in its statistical computer lab before Graetz got a job working for MIT professor Jack Dennis. This was not the first computer at MIT, as the university already had other machines such as the TX-0, but the newfound power of the PDP, along with the display that arrived at the university at the end of 1961, allowed for new research and experimental possibilities. In late 1961, the Digital Equipment Corporation gave the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, a PDP-1 computer system, which was one of the most advanced computers 1961 had to offer. Describing the history of the original Spacewar is an article all by itself (and has been several times, which I’ll link in the sources), but we can hit on the major aspects here. In case you’re drifting right into an enemy torpedo or the star itself, most versions of the game also include some kind of hyperspace jump, allowing the player a risky chance to escape a deadly situation.Īmong the most influential video games ever developed, Spacewar was initially designed in the early months of 1962 in what can best be described as a team effort. As a result, it’s generally not worth trying to break free from the star’s hold, but rather using its gravity to your benefit as you move around the screen, sparingly using your fuel supply to adjust your course. In between the two is typically a star pulling them in with its gravitational field each player only has a limited amount of fuel and ammunition to maneuver around and destroy their opponent. One of those designers, Ian Shepherd, seemed to have decided to look backwards for inspiration – about 15 years backwards, specifically, to one of the very first video games ever designed: Spacewar.įor the unfamiliar, Spacewar is a two-player space combat game where each player controls a ship on opposite ends of the playfield. Having exhausted most of Atari’s top-tier arcade titles, those same developers had to get creative on what to make next. Hundreds of thousands of units had been sold the company’s home game design team continued to grow and was getting more experienced. Fresh off a strong and successful 1977, Atari’s Video Computer System was in a good place. ![]()
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