Craps Game
a.k.a. Pool
created and published by University of Michigan in 1954, running on custom platform
type: casino/cards
genre: Traditional game, Craps
perspective: bird's-eye
player options: single player
other: Prototype
languages: other
genre: Traditional game, Craps
perspective: bird's-eye
player options: single player
other: Prototype
languages: other
Description
Neither the game by William George Brown and Ted Lewis, nor MIDSAC, the computer it ran on, have been preserved, but we still do know some about it. There are a few photos and a contemporary article by Roy Gibbons in the Chicago Tribune (Chicago Tribune, Sun, Jun 27, 1954; frontpage; available in facsimile at Utimate history of Video games, at archive.is, or here as a local copy) and there’s a transcript of William George Brown’s testimony in the Magnavox Company et al. versus Chicago Dynamic Industries and Seeburg Corp. case (1976, AKA Magnavox vs. Bally, compare the addendum below).
According to this, the game displayed a 2-inch rendition of the pool cue (compare the photo below) for the players to line up their shots and ran a simulation of the colliding and ricocheting balls in real-time, implementing a full game of a cue ball and 15 frame balls for two players. Graphics were drawn in real-time on a monochrome 13" point plotting X-Y display, the screen being updated by the program 40 times a second (that is, in a normal in-game situations with 2 to 4 balls moving at once). However, for time constraints, the table and its pockets weren’t drawn by the computer graphics, but were rather drawn manually onto the display using a grease pencil.
Similarly, during the initial break, involving movement of each of the 16 balls, there was a substantial slow-down by a factor of 5 or 6 : 1 with the game rendering at just 10 frames per second as it took MIDSAC 105 microseconds to calculate the next update (court proceedings, p. 1477). While not realistic, this was rather perceived as "interesting" as it showed the movement of the balls in a detail, which couldn’t be observed on a real table (court proceedings, p. 1456)
https://www.masswerk.at/nowgobang/2019/michigan-pool
Becoro # 2023-04-02 21:53:54 - source
According to this, the game displayed a 2-inch rendition of the pool cue (compare the photo below) for the players to line up their shots and ran a simulation of the colliding and ricocheting balls in real-time, implementing a full game of a cue ball and 15 frame balls for two players. Graphics were drawn in real-time on a monochrome 13" point plotting X-Y display, the screen being updated by the program 40 times a second (that is, in a normal in-game situations with 2 to 4 balls moving at once). However, for time constraints, the table and its pockets weren’t drawn by the computer graphics, but were rather drawn manually onto the display using a grease pencil.
Similarly, during the initial break, involving movement of each of the 16 balls, there was a substantial slow-down by a factor of 5 or 6 : 1 with the game rendering at just 10 frames per second as it took MIDSAC 105 microseconds to calculate the next update (court proceedings, p. 1477). While not realistic, this was rather perceived as "interesting" as it showed the movement of the balls in a detail, which couldn’t be observed on a real table (court proceedings, p. 1456)
https://www.masswerk.at/nowgobang/2019/michigan-pool
Becoro # 2023-04-02 21:53:54 - sourceTechnical specs
display: vector
Editor notes (2)
Authors / Staff
Tags (10)
video game
historical
other
hardware
traditional
Contributors (3)
teran01
zerothis
Becoro
zerothis
Becoro
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