Name: 電子遊戲的黎明。速成遊戲第3號 (The Dawn of Video Games: Crash Course Games #3)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T06:06:49.000Z
Duration: 11 min 36 s
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Hi, I'm Andre Meadows, and this is Crash Course Games.

Today we're going to start talking about the twentieth century, and the advent of computer games.

But before we get into that, let's start with a little perspective.

Computers are, historically speaking anyway, very new, and they've evolved very quickly.

These days, if you have a mobile device on your person, you probably have more technology with you

than NASA had when they went to the moon!

And yes, I know that's kind of a cliché, but it's true.

The Apollo Guidance Computer had a processing speed of 1 megahertz, and it only had 4 kilobytes of memory!

That means it could only hold 2048 programmed words. Better choose those wisely.

Meanwhile, an iPhone 4S has a processing speed of 800 megahertz, and a minimum memory of 16 gigabytes!

Though, to be fair, an iPhone isn't going to get you to the moon.

At least not yet. Tim Cook's got something going, I'm pretty sure.

But you won't get a signal there. Trust me.

Historically, computers, and the games that were created for computers, are a new phenomenon,

seeing as electronic computers appeared in the 1940s.

And those early computers? They were some serious tools.

Colossus, not to be confused with Colossus from X-Men and Deadpool,

was built during World War II to break Nazi codes.

And ENIAC, which is considered the first computer to be reprogrammable, it was primarily used for calculating artillery tables,

that helped soldiers drop explosives on each other more accurately.

But human beings have a long rich history of turning serious tools into playthings and games.

Pretty much as soon as we humans invent something useful, we turn it into a game. We're fun!

Spears get turned into javelins. Auto racing was invented pretty much as soon as we had cars.

We even turned dating into game shows and mobile apps! Swipe left! Swipe right! Super like!

So it seems pretty natural that computer games were invented as soon as we had computers.

Now those computer games weren't like the games we have today.

They weren't consoles or home computers, because there were like, ten computers.

And they all belonged to the army or universities, and they all cost a lot of money.

But some pioneers were creating video games, or electronic computer games, as they were called.

Now video games, in their most basic sense, involve a game played on a computer device and projected onto some kind of video screen.

The precursors to video games were computer games, that were made on giant early computers to test the machines.

And before those there were electronic games,

or those games made on electronic devices without a screen or a computer running the program.

And now that we've made that distinction,

let's just agree to call all these electronic and computer games "video games."

Because it'll make this stuff a lot easier for me to say.

We're going to start with a device known as the "Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device."

In 1947, right after WWII, Thomas T. Goldsmith, professor of Physics and

television pioneer, and his co-worker Estle Ray Mann filed for, and received,

what is considered the first patent for an electronic game with a video display.

The game was a series of eight cathode-ray tubes hooked up to an oscilloscope for display,

and with a set of knobs as player controls.

Now, cathode-ray tubes were the technology behind those old, thick, heavy televisions.

They would project a beam of light onto the oscilloscope, and the user would see an arc of light.

The game simulated the firing of artillery shells,

and when the "shell" reached its target, its beam would de-focus, simulating an explosion.

This gave players a sense that their "missiles" had struck a target and caused damage.

And that was it. The technology could only generate that beam of light,

so the other part of the game was a screen overlay, which would later be a regular feature of 1970s video games.

While this all sounds very fun, and had virtually unlimited market potential,

The parts that went into the "Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device" cost a lot

of money in 1947, and mass production would have been impractical.

The amusement device was never made for the public.

It's like the rarest video game ever. Even more rare than "Chrono Trigger."

Another gaming first was the display of the NIMROD gaming computer on May 5, 1951

at the Festival of Britain in the "Dome of Discovery".

The Festival of Britain was sort of like the World's Fair, but just for Britain,

and just like that weirdly specific exposition to celebrate one small island in northern Europe,

It was one of the world's first gaming computers, designed and built specifically to play an ancient game called "Nim."

Surely you remember NIM from Alain Resnais' 1961 French new wave film "The Last Year At Marienbad"?

No? Then you're not a real gamer. Just kidding!

Actually the game play itself doesn't really matter. The NIMROD was more of a proof of concept.

As one of the earliest gaming computers that the public could interact with,

it helped show people that computers could be fun, and it inspired future computer scientists and game developers.

Like in 1952, when a University of Cambridge PhD student, A.S. Douglas, developed "OXO", a graphical version of tic-tac-toe.

OXO was important because it was one of the first video games to include artificial intelligence.

Douglas wasn't a game designer, he just wanted to illustrate his thesis on "Interactions Between Human and Computer."

The computer moves in reaction to the player's moves, and this is the interesting artificial intelligence part,

they were not predetermined, they were made at the computer's discretion.

So far, all of this is pretty high-minded, right?

All these games were made to demonstrate the power of computers or as part of academic research.

Where's the mindless entertainment of "Burger Time"?

Okay kids, "Burger Time" was an arcade game in the 80s - you know what? Look it up.

There's food in it. Walking hot dogs and eggs, it's cool.

Video games made the jump to pure entertainment in 1958 at the Brookhaven National Laboratory

in Upton New York. WIlliam Higinbotham, who had been a designer of electronic circuits

for the Manhattan Project, was tasked with entertaining students on Visitor Day.

He looked through the lab for stuff that might divert the youth of 1958, with their

hula-hoops and chocolate malts... Whatever they were doin' back then...

While he was reading the manual for one of the computers in the lab,

he discovered that it could calculate and visualize ballistic missile trajectories.

He made the natural, logical leap, and programmed the machine to play a tennis game.

Kids lined up to play the game and Higinbothom had a hit on his hands.

The important thing to note here, is that Tennis for Two's success grew out of reading an instruction manual.

Come on, read those manuals kids! Technical writers are working hard to make sure you understand all

the functions of your mobile device. Have the common decency to read up and become a power user!

Actually manuals are important, but that's not the point of Tennis for Two.

The game was never commercialized, but it hinted at the potential of games

created solely for the sake of entertainment.

Ah, so a theme is clearly developing in our history of game development.

The people developing these things were nerds. Awesome, awesome nerds.

And these nerds weren't only creating a new world of computers, they were creating a culture,

and a lot of culture that sprung up around these early pioneers is still with us today.

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電子遊戲的黎明。速成遊戲第3號 (The Dawn of Video Games: Crash Course Games #3)

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