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This machine was never in arcades nor coin operated nor sold nor patented. It is technically the property of the US government. It is considered by some to be the first videogame ever created. Made in 1958 to entertainment visitors to Brookhaven National Laboratory, NY. It was the idea and implementation of William Higinbotham, a physicist in the Manhattan Project who witnessed the detonation of the first atomic bomb. Dave Potter and many of the scientists at the lab assisted him in modifying an oscilloscope with a 5 inch screen into a tennis simulation. The laboratory tour at the time consisted of walking the visitors up to the equipment, waiting for photographs to be taken then walking them out. Higinbotham wanted liven up the tour a bit. Let the let visitors actually handle some of the equipment the lab used. He decided a game was a good way to do this. Higinbotham considered using a digital computer that the lab was building, but the technology was not yet ready, the room was too small (for a digital computer), and digital computers wouldn't be ready for videogames for many years yet. So he used an analog computer with an oscilloscope for a CRT monitor.
Higinbotham used a technique to draw everything that produced no flicker which has become the standard for every videogame system since, except for many vector games. He invented this technique independently from Baer's technique which is essentially the same thing except Baer's technique was (and is) patented, although at a later date. Each player held a box with a button and a knob. The button was pressed to 'swing' and the knob controlled the angle of the swing. Since there were no controls to move the player, and the player was not drawn, this was done automatically when the swing button was pressed. The force of the hit was not adjustable. The player could hit the ball anytime it was on their side of the net. Gravity, wind speed, angles, bounce and friction were all calculated. So it wasn't exactly PONG.

Dave Ahl played the game when he took the tour as a small child, but he didn't sign the guest book :) He has said he remembers the tour vividly but cannot recall when his father setup a telescope on their roof where he viewed sputnik that same year. It has been reported that after over an hour of play, he said 'this could be something important', just before his parents pried the paddle out of his hands. He would later be a witness in court called by Atari when they were sued for steeling the idea for PONG. There is a rumor that Ralph Baer took the tour also. Some would say Baer got the idea for videogames from this visit, but this is not at true. It is well documented that Baer came up with the idea in 1951. It is also rumored that Noland Bushnell took the tour, he would have been about 15 years old at the time. However, it is unlikely either of these two legends would seen played the game, since it was only on the tour twice, and Dave Ahl was the one who played it one of those times.

Zerothis - 2006-09-27 21:47:03