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JERRY EIMBINDER
Electronic Engineering Times
Great Neck, New York
In 1962, a graduate student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology named Steve Russell wrote a computer program for a game called Spacewar. Research buffs estimate that Russell's ingenuity cost companies possessing computers several million dollars during the following three or four years.
In order to play Spacewar, engineers and other employees of companies having computers had to obtain computer time one way or another. Some returned to the plant with the late shifts and guided rocket ships across computer displays until nearly dawn. Others found more devious or round-about ways to use their company's computers.
Spacewar continued to be popular through the late 1960's. At this time, two of the students who learned the game on the college campus were Nolan Bushnell at the University of Utah and Bill Pitts at Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Center.
Both Bushnell and Pitts independently set out to develop commercial versions of Spacewar. Bushnell's model "Computer Space" was finished first, in 1970 by his company, Atari.
Although Atari didn't actually produce the game (the rights were sold to another company), it learned much about user interest from studying the reaction to Computer Space in the marketplace. Computer Space wasn't a heavily successful financial venture because it was too complicated and taxed the player's mental powers to understand it.
The situation was totally different for Pong. Because of its similarity to Ping-Pong, the player was able to grasp its principles immediately.
Atari field tested Pong in 1972 by installing its prototype unit in a bar in Sunnyvale, California called Andy Capp's.
The machine ceased working after twb days and Nolan Bushnell stopped by to see what was wrong. A complete check of its TTL logic circuitry uncovered nothing wrong and finally Bushnell checked the coin box. It was jammed to capacity. Bushnell then knew that he had a likely winner.
Meanwhile, Pitts completed a prototype unit in 1971 and followed with a second model called "Galaxy Game" a year later. He placed it in the Tressider Union Coffeehouse at Standford, a few miles from where Bushnell 's Pong game was under evaluation at Andy Capp's. Pitts' game, employing a Digital Equipment Corp. PDP-11 computer, challenged some and discouraged many. The machine still stands there today. No
Galaxy Game being played at the Tressider Union Coffeehouse.
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