The very first video game?

[Mario_Friend1982 | 175]

Is "Bertie the Brain" truly the very first video game?

[Tulpa | 3,494]

For those curious:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertie_the_Brain

Relevant part:

Bertie the Brain is a candidate for the first video game, as it was potentially the first computer game to have any sort of visual display of the game. It appeared only three years after the 1947 invention of the cathode-ray tube amusement device, the earliest known interactive electronic game to use an electronic display. Bertie's use of light bulbs rather than a screen with real-time visual graphics, however, much less moving graphics, does not meet some definitions of a video game.

[Link | 2,710]

It used electronic computational technology. It's certainly a game. It's a precursor. But there's no real video component here. 

 

[SilverspoonGaming | 332]

Im pretty sure Space War was the first video game.

[Tulpa | 3,494]

13 minutes ago, SilverspoonGaming said:

Im pretty sure Space War was the first video game.

OXO and Tennis for Two might have a word with you.

[Hammerfestus | 3,844]

How the hell do you guys know this stuff? I am game good.

[SilverspoonGaming | 332]

22 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

OXO and Tennis for Two might have a word with you.

My quick research says that Tennis for Two was finished about 4 years before Space War.  Good call!

[Tulpa | 3,494]

29 minutes ago, Hammerfestus said:

How the hell do you guys know this stuff? I am game good.

I'm good at useless trivia. I can also tell you how Jethro Tull got their name (their booking agent picked it out) and who was the first person to be recorded using the f-bomb on the moon (John Young during Apollo 16.)

 

[Link | 2,710]

2 hours ago, Hammerfestus said:

How the hell do you guys know this stuff? I am game good.

Almost a decade of computer workbench and desk jockey work with free browsing access, in the last prime stage of web forums and nostalgic blogs before that energy was sucked away by social media and podcasts.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Link

[Gloves | 11,777]

YOU MEAN IT WASN'T PONG!? 

[DarkTone | 984]

I thought it was tennis for two. 

[G-type | 2,481]

contrary to the wikipedia definition of a video game... I would say having a video display is a prerequisite... not just a "display device"....  electromechanical games with metal horses moving around race tracks are display devices.

[TDIRunner | 2,737]

8 hours ago, Gloves said:

YOU MEAN IT WASN'T PONG!? 

 

6 hours ago, DarkTone said:

I thought it was tennis for two. 

 

I thought it was Mario.

[Gloves | 11,777]

15 minutes ago, TDIRunner said:

 

 

I thought it was Mario.

Pretty sure it might be Fortnite.

[SNESNESCUBE64 | 540]

It's one of those things where it is how you define a video game. One argument is that a video game is nothing more than an amusement device with a display and user input. The "display part" is really what makes the classification part difficult. It's just "where do you draw the line?".

Some people say the first one is tennis for two, which used an oscilloscope screen as a display and had paddle inputs. Bertie is a game that doesn't use a television or screen, rather it uses bulb indicators. Many consider that to disqualify it due to the "video" part not being present. I'm in the camp that Bertie, while important, is not a video game due to it's lack of video display. One thing to consider, is that if your definition of a video game is any indicator like Bertie, then EM pinball machines would also be a video game, which existed even then. The first pinball machines with flippers (user control) started happening in the late 40s.

Alternatively, some people also start the count at "the first commercial game", which would be Computer Space by Nutting Associates and engineered by Syzygy (which would become Atari). Everything before that was homebrew projects people were doing at work or in their basement.

Edited December 4, 2023 by SNESNESCUBE64

[RH | 4,903]

A different, hot take--the first "video game" was the first game to be referenced as a "video game".

(I have no clue what that was.)

[Link | 2,710]

31 minutes ago, SNESNESCUBE64 said:

Alternatively, some people also start the count at "the first commercial game", which would be Computer Space by Nutting Associates and engineered by Syzygy (which would become Atari). Everything before that was homebrew projects people were doing at work or in their basement.

Computer Quiz (1967) had "electronic display tubes". 

https://gamehistory.org/first-arcade-game-advertisement-computer-space/

[Tulpa | 3,494]

1 hour ago, RH said:

A different, hot take--the first "video game" was the first game to be referenced as a "video game".

(I have no clue what that was.)

That might have been Tennis for Two. That was definitely the first one created for entertainment, rather than a technology demonstration.

[RH | 4,903]

46 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

That might have been Tennis for Two. That was definitely the first one created for entertainment, rather than a technology demonstration.

Possibly, but I'm not sure.  Tennis for Two was on an oscilloscope and if it were dubbed a "video game", it likely would have been by a reporter who mislabeled it.

To be clear, I'm explicitly mean when was the term "video game" first stated and what game was it in context of--one could consider that to be the first video game.

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

https://patents.google.com/patent/GB190114871A/en

July 22, 1901 the first LITERAL video game was patented.

This meets the definition of requiring a video screen. To exclude this, you would have to exclude a PS5 connected to a project, but also count it again if it's played on a TV.

These shooting galleries were popularized from 1912-1915 too, so they had a history that's been long forgotten.

Edited December 4, 2023 by ThePhleo

[Estil | 1,264]

Would this count as predicting video games?

 

[SNESNESCUBE64 | 540]

3 hours ago, Link said:

Computer Quiz (1967) had "electronic display tubes". 

https://gamehistory.org/first-arcade-game-advertisement-computer-space/

First of all, my mistake. Instead of "first commercial game" I meant "first commercial video game". Wording matters in this thread...

Nutting Associates stretched the truth with that one though. This was a heck of a fun thing to look into during lunch because I didn't know NA did coin op stuff before computer space. This did NOT use a screen as we know it in a video game. It used film and what looked like a projector to display the question, from there the user would select an answer with the indicator of whether they were right or not being indicated by lights and buzzers. It also used nixie tubes to display your score. I would not call this a video game in the way we know it.

Edited December 4, 2023 by SNESNESCUBE64

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

4 hours ago, SNESNESCUBE64 said:

Alternatively, some people also start the count at "the first commercial game", which would be Computer Space by Nutting Associates and engineered by Syzygy (which would become Atari). Everything before that was homebrew projects people were doing at work or in their basement.

I like to go with this one because it's pretty cut and dried (even uses a rastar CRT) and it's the start of the video game "industry" rather than, as you say, random dudes dicking around in their basements (or the University's basement, as the case may be...)

[Link | 2,710]

2 hours ago, SNESNESCUBE64 said:

First of all, my mistake. Instead of "first commercial game" I meant "first commercial video game". Wording matters in this thread...

Well that would not qualify either as there were several arcade amusements decades before that. But 

 

2 hours ago, SNESNESCUBE64 said:

This did NOT use a screen as we know it in a video game. It used film and what looked like a projector to display the question

Thank you for this, because I was trying to figure out how the question screen worked. Hard to tell from the brochure pictures. I guess the electronic display tubes mentioned are the nixies.

[SilverspoonGaming | 332]

6 hours ago, ThePhleo said:

https://patents.google.com/patent/GB190114871A/en

July 22, 1901 the first LITERAL video game was patented.

This meets the definition of requiring a video screen. To exclude this, you would have to exclude a PS5 connected to a project, but also count it again if it's played on a TV.

These shooting galleries were popularized from 1912-1915 too, so they had a history that's been long forgotten.

Those shooting galleries should be classified as "arcade," or "amusement" games.  One of the precursors to video games.  Just my two cents!