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National Video Game Day celebrates video games.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES
Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann submitted a patent on January 25, 1947, for the "Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device," which, though never put into production, laid the foundation for video games.
In 1948, a chess simulation game created by Alan Turing and David Champernowne became the first video game. It would have to wait a while to be played. At the time, computers didn't have enough memory to run complicated scripts.
In 1950, Bertie the Brain, a tic-tac-toe arcade game, premiered using a purpose-built machine.
In 1952, Pilot ACE was the first game created that could run on an IBM. A video version of checkers followed it.
In 1954, the University of Michigan was the first to develop a graphics-based computer game that simulated billiards. The cue maneuvered via a joy stick and knob.
By 1958, the game of tennis had made it to video. Business simulation games soon followed, taking "gaming" into the 1960s.
The first purpose-built entertainment game originated with MIT and Harvard in 1962 from the minds of Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen. It was called Space War and was popular among the various academic and research institutions with mainframe computers.
At the time, a singular language did not exist that would allow programming across various platforms. That changed with BASIC in 1964.
The first commercial video game was a coin-operated arcade game developed by Bill Pitts, and Hugh Tuck at Stanford University called Galaxy Game. At $20,000, it was too expensive for most arcade owners, and Galaxy Game never advanced past the prototype stage.
Concurrently Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney were working on a much lower-cost version called Computer Space, which became the first video game sold commercially. Computer Space's creator would later be known as Atari, Inc. Pong would be the first game released under the new company in 1972, and an entire new industry was born.
Magnavox saw an opportunity and developed the first in-home video game console that used a television set as the screen. Ralph Baer first put forth the concept in the 1950s. However, the technology needed to catch up with his ingenuity, which would take a decade and a half.
The Odyssey went on sale in September 1972 and lasted until 1975. A lack of marketing strategy in distribution and channels spelled the ultimate doom for the product. However, it paved the way for Atari, Nintendo, and a host of other companies to create one of the most lucrative and successful entertainment and learning industries ever seen.
David Earle created Nation Video Game Day. His company Kid Vid Warriors, sponsored it until 1996, when it moved from July to September. In 1997, the event settled on September 12 annually, without a sponsor.
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