In the first generation of gaming systems , gaming systems manufactured from 1972 to 1977, starting with the Magnavox Odyssey, are distinguished. The generation lasted until 1977, when manufacturers of Pong- type consoles left the market due to the collapse of the video game industry in 1977, and the continued success of microprocessor- based consoles [1] . In Japan, generation continued until 1980, when the production of the Nintendo Color TV Game was discontinued.
Content
Interactive TV
Engineer Ralph Baer pondered the idea of interactive television , developing a television for Loral in 1951 in New York . He developed his idea in 1966 , was the chief engineer at Sanders Associates . Baer created a simple two-player video game that used a conventional TV as a means of image output, and called Chase , in which two dots chased each other across the screen . After a demonstration to the director of the company, Herbert Kampman, some funding was received and the project became official. In 1967, Bill Harrison made a platform and a light pistol , which was made from a hand gun, which had to be aimed at a target that was controlled by another player.
Bill Rush joined the project to accelerate development, and later a third developed machine was used to create an electronic version of the ping pong game. Several other games were also created, and Baer got the idea to sell the product to cable television companies. The prototype was shown in 1968 to Teleprompter Vice President Hubert Schlafee, who made an agreement with Sanders Associates. Development continued and led to a final prototype called the “Brown Box,” which had two controllers , a light gun, and sixteen switches to select a game to run. Baer tried to negotiate with some manufacturers, and agreement was reached with Magnavox in 1969. The main changes that Magnavox made to the console are the use of game switching software and the removal of the ability to display color graphics in order to reduce production costs. This console was released in May 1972 and was named Magnavox Odyssey .
Digital Electronics
Magnavox Odyssey was built on 40 discrete transistors and 40 diodes, and used a combination of digital and analog (to output and control the game) circuits. Many collectors mistakenly call this system analog, explaining this by the presence of discrete components. Therefore, Ralph Baer had to clarify that the system is digital, because the circuitry for synthesizing game elements is implemented using a completely digital (binary) DTL logic, albeit assembled on discrete elements [2] .
It had little success due to limited marketing, although subsequently other companies with similar products (including Atari) had to pay royalties for some time. For a while, it was the most profitable line of Sanders Associates, even though many in the company were not supportive of game development.
Many of the earliest games using digital electronics were developed by individual university mainframe users in the United States who created them in their free time. So, in 1961, a group of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created a game called Spacewar! on the DEC PDP-1 . In 1970, Nolan Bushnell first saw Spacewar! at the University of Utah. Then he realized that the arcade version of Spacewar! has commercial potential. He manually assembled a computer for this game, using a black and white TV for output. As a result, the game Computer Space was born. She did not gain commercial success and Bushnell continued to search for new ideas. In 1971, he saw a demonstration of Magnavox Odyssey and hired Allan Alcorn to create an arcade version of the ping pong game with Magnavox Odyssey (using TTL circuitry already) called Pong .
Home video games have gained popularity with the release of the home version of Pong on Christmas 1975. Its success has spawned hundreds of clones, including Coleco Telstar , which has become quite successful with a range of about ten varieties.
The first generation of video games did not use a microprocessor and was based on individually programmable finite state machines assembled on discrete logic cells that directly included each element of the game. Later consoles of this generation switched to custom chips, for example Atari Pong was manufactured using a series of chips AY-3-8500 manufactured by General Instruments .
First Generation Game Systems
Mapping
| Title | Magnavox odyssey |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Magnavox |
| Starting prices | US $ 100 |
| date of release | May 1972 1973 1974 |
| Carrier | Cartridge |
| Accessories (trade) | Light gun |
| Sales | 330,000 [3] |
See also
- Home computer
Notes
- ↑ Mark JP Wolf. The Video Game Explosion: A History from PONG to Playstation and Beyond . - ABC-CLIO, 2008 .-- S. 18 .-- 401 p. - ISBN 9780313338687 .
- ↑ Andrew Bub. The Original GamerDad: Ralph Baer (inaccessible link) . GamerDad (June 7, 2005). Date of treatment July 8, 2018. Archived on February 13, 2006.
- ↑ Magnavox Odyssey, the first video game system . Pong-Story (June 27, 1972). Date of treatment November 17, 2012. Archived January 4, 2014.
Links
- "Atari home PONG systems". Pong-story. Retrieved 2010-09-13.
- "Magnavox Odyssey, the first video game system." Pong-story. 1972-06-27. Retrieved 2012-11-17.
- Ellis, David (2004). "Dedicated Consoles". Official Price Guide to Classic Video Games. Random House. pp. 33–36. ISBN 0-375-72038-3 .
- Kent, Steven (2001). "Strange Bedfellows". Ultimate History of Video Games. Three Rivers Press. pp. 94–95. ISBN 0-7615-3643-4 .
- Herman, Leonard (1997). Phoenix: the fall & rise of videogames (2nd ed. Ed.). Union, NJ: Rolenta Press. p. 20. ISBN 0-9643848-2-5 . Retrieved February 16, 2012. "Like Pong, Telstar could only play video tennis but it retailed at an inexpensive $ 50 that made it attractive to most families that were on a budget. Coleco managed to sell over a million units that year."