video game history I found for you (Author: Netease netizen boy.367). During the discussion in these two days, many questions involved some things in the history of video games. Unfortunately, they were basically inconsistent with the historical facts. Here, I just want to list some information I have found about video games for reference, and hope that we can discuss them on the basis of full respect for history. The real video game dedicated machine came into being in the early 197s. In 1971, a guy named NolanBushnell, who was still studying at MIT, designed the world's first business game machine. The name of this arcade game was ComputerSpace. The theme of Cyberspace is that two players each control a space warship around a planet with strong gravity to launch missiles at each other to attack. When two warships are fighting, they must also pay attention to overcoming gravity. Whether they are hit by each other's missiles or fail to get rid of gravity, the spacecraft will crash. This business machine uses a black-and-white TV as the display screen and a control handle as the manipulator, which is placed in a billiard room. However, it is a pity that this grandmother's business machine suffered a tragic failure. The reason for the failure was that the players at that time thought the game was too complicated. Compared with the popular pinball in the United States at that time, the game was indeed a little complicated, but I still doubt the quality of American players at that time. At this point, the first business machine in history ended its fate with failure. Producer NolanBushnell admits defeat, but he still believes in the development prospect of video games. The year after the launch of Cyberspace, he and his friend TedDabney registered and set up their own company with 5 dollars. This company is ——Atari, the ancestor of video games. At the beginning of its establishment, Atari's business focus was still on arcades. In fact, they succeeded. The first accepted business machine in the world was Pong, a game with the theme of table tennis launched by Atari. It is said that Atari's engineers put this machine in a billiard room in Sunnyvale, California. Two days later, the owner of the billiard room came to the door and said that the machine was out of order, and the game could not be started anyway. When Atari's people went to repair it, they were surprised to find the cause of the failure-the machine was stuffed with game money invested by players. In any sense, Cyberspace means the beginning of the video game industry, because it is the first specialized game machine and the first tool to expose the public to video games. After that, the success of Pong marked that video games began to be recognized and accepted by the public as a means of entertainment. Speaking of business machines, let's take a look at the computer games of that year. The earliest computer games can be traced back to 1972, when a guy named WillCrowther wrote a simple FORTRAN program with the most popular DEC PDP-1 mainframe at that time. In this program, Crowther designed a map, and traps were irregularly distributed on the map. Players had to find ways to avoid the traps. This program was later considered as the earliest computer game program. In 1976, DonWoods, who worked in Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, wrote a similar program with his lab's Xerox mainframe, and added fantasy elements and puzzles. He called this program ColossalCaves, and Woods' program directly led to the birth of computer games. His program was spread everywhere, which surprised all computer experts. This work also inspired other people's thinking, and then, various game programs were born. The famous ones are Zork written by Hackers of MIT (this game has a long history, and there are sequels on sale until now) and Adventureland written by Squet Adams in 1978. In 1981, Toolworks Software Company, later called Mindscape, launched the official retail version of ColossalCaves, named OriginalAdventure. This is really a proper name. The era of computer games has come. Later, computer-based video games became popular among programmers. At that time, most of the video games were absolute aristocratic games made by programmers to entertain themselves, because only the scientific and technological elites were exposed to computers at that time, and the general public could not touch such things. Of course, these so-called aristocratic video games are very crude-so crude that we can't believe them now. I feel that if a person wants to understand the video games at that time, he must have extraordinary abstract thinking ability. In the eyes of today's players, a white spot of 16×16 pixels may represent a mosaic, but in the video games at that time, they represented the big devil, the brave, the trees or anything else. When the first real personal computer II was launched, everything changed. Many old players in China still remember that year, right? In the children's palace, facing the excitement of flashing green prompt screen? Ⅱ was introduced in 1976, designed by SteveJobs. Ⅱ is an entry-level computer for many people, and it is also a powerful real personal computer. Ⅱ and its built-in BASIC program have trained countless talents for the computer industry. Ⅱ At that time, the memory was only 64K, and the lack of resources made the computer program of that year horribly precise and rigorous. It can be said that the programmers in those days were the people who really knew the fun of fantasy, and they could complete a world in a box. More importantly, II represents a spirit of free development. The difference between computer users and programmers in those days was so small that every user of II was a good BASIC programmer. And now the PC, because of the promotion, has gradually developed into a fool's use, becoming more like a home appliance. Speaking of games on II, I think the most important thing to tell you is Broderbund, a company with three ships as icons, which was established in 198. At that time, it mainly produced some entertainment software and was one of the important software manufacturers on II. In 1989, JordanMechner made a computer game combining action and adventure on the platform according to Arabian Nights, an ancient legend of the Arab nation, which achieved unprecedented success in the game field. The game sold 2 million copies worldwide, and countless players still recall it and talk about it with relish today. This game is Prince of Persia. Prince of Persia is definitely the first work of computer game ACT, which represents the highest level of computer technology at that time. At that time, players couldn't help but marvel at the lifelike prince jumping up and down. The story tells that the prince fought against the evil Sudan in order to save the princess from love. In the game, the prince had to run through all kinds of strange and secretive organs, carefully avoid the pillars moving up and down and the spikes in the deep pit, and kill all kinds of enemies with an Arab machete. Looking at the memoirs of many old players now, we know that countless children fell in love with computers through this game. Prince of Persia has thus become one of the enduring themes in the history of computer games. In 1993, Prince of Persia released the second generation. During the production of the second generation, JordanMechner asked his brother to hang countless wires to do various actions, so as to give the prince a real action image (this may be the earliest motion capture technology), which is even more popular. Broderbund, which changed its name to RedOrb in 1999, released Prince of Persia 3D again, but the scenery is no longer there. This is another story, let's talk about it later. This era is also the childhood of countless dazzling stars in the computer industry. In fact, many people have emerged at that time, showing their amazing ability to control computers and computer games. Among them, Richard Galiot, the father of Ultima, was the most representative. At that time, when he was still in high school, he opposed RPG and AD&; D's infatuation reached the level of madness. In 1979, he launched Ultima's first game, Akalabeth, which was warmly welcomed. In addition, the famous BillGates was tinkering with the computer in the computer room of Hubin Middle School, playing chess with the machine with his classmates. BrettW·Sperry studied computer programming in college, while JohnCarmack was still a teenager and didn't know what was going on. It is worth mentioning that Sidmeller, the godfather of the game industry, was studying at the university at that time. His ambition at that time was to be a hardware designer or a taxonomist. Of course, he succeeded. Sidmeller's classification ability in Civilization was enough to make any taxonomist in China ashamed. In this decade, the star of the game industry is the aforementioned atari. Nowadays, people often say that electronic games were invented in the United States, but they reached the Japanese. The invention was directed at Atari. During this period, atari kept making history. In October 1976, Atari released a simulated business machine game called "Night Driver", which was a black-and-white screen with its own frame (steering wheel, throttle, brakes, etc.). Players need to play a crazy driver who drives on the highway in the dark. This simple guy is the first 3D game in the game history. It uses simple perspective effect (near the big and far from the small) to show the effect of the car moving forward and the road scenery retreating. It is the ancestor of 3D games. In addition, it is the first game with a main perspective in history. I think everyone should remember this name. It is the master of NeedforSpeed, Quake and all 3D games. It must be noted that after developing the arcade market, atari turned its attention to the console market. In 1977, atari introduced Atari26 game console, which was the first professional home game console in the world. In the same year, Bushnell sold his company to time warner Inc. for $28 million. After that, Nintendo and Sega rose rapidly and completely defeated Atari. The master of the game industry has thus laid down its body, but we will never forget what it has brought us. The history of the game has turned over another page. In the 198s (198-1989), playing games was a noble enjoyment for educated people. I attach importance to playing games, which is a valuable habit of mine. In this section, the author focuses on Nintendo and its FC. I think this does not conflict with the theme of my computer games. Video games and computer games are originally a female compatriot. Needless to say, Nintendo's FC's position in the game industry is also needless to say. Nintendo and its FC have bred a new culture-game culture. If you haven't played FC, you can't be a real game lover. The 198s was an era of vigorous development of computers and games. During this period, the game industry began to really step down from the altar of nobles and go deep into the people. In this decade, video games have changed the entertainment concept of people all over the world. Since Atari's success in the field of game consoles, countless electronic companies have identified this market, and they have entered the field of video games and started to share a piece of it. As a result, the video game market has entered an era of darkness. In 1983, Japan's NINTENDO and SEGA launched their own home game consoles respectively. The two game consoles launched by Sega were named SG-1 and SG3. The host name launched by NINTENDO is ——FamilyComputer. Everything seems to be pale for this red and white home game machine. The price of FC at that time was 14,8 yen (equivalent to about 1,3 yuan), with 652 chip as the main CPU and a PPU dedicated to image processing. FC can display 52 colors, and the same screen can display up to 13 colors. The total memory is 64KBYTE, with 2 tones of rectangular wave, 1 tone of triangular wave and 1 tone of noise. This ridiculous configuration, which now seems inferior, was second to none at that time. It is by relying on these configurations that Nintendo has incomparable advantages over any other home game console. At the same time, Nintendo also decided the guiding ideology of "software-oriented". The company keeps introducing interesting software to attract players. By the end of 1983, FC sold 44, sets. In 1984, game companies such as HUDSON and NAMCO joined the FC producers' front respectively. By the end of 1984, the total sales volume of FC reached 1.5 million units. On September 13th, 1985, Nintendo released a real game masterpiece-SuperMario, which tells the story of an Italian plumber who defeated the devil to save the world and marry the princess. I still remember my obsession with this game at that time. At that time, I felt that there seemed to be countless puzzles and mechanisms in this game. At that time, the most hope was to find the location of every prize-winning mushroom, every invincible star and every piggy bank in the 8 levels and 32 levels of this game. However, it was always a lingering thought. On the other hand, Nintendo has established itself as the dominant player in the game industry with this game machine. In the home computer market in 1985, Nintendo's market share was 98%. In the same year, Nintendo sold FC's NES (Nintendo Export System) overseas. Sales in that year exceeded 5 million units. FC in 1985 represented almost the whole game industry, and Nintendo's influence in the game industry was greater than that of any distribution company now. You know, when TomHall and JohnCarmack of id made continuous demonstration animation on the computer, the first thing they did was to contact Nintendo. Of course, Nintendo rejected their proposal on the grounds that it didn't want to get involved in the computer field. This is a good thing for us, otherwise, we probably won't see Quake. But the real protagonist of our story appeared on August 12, 1981, and on that day, IBM launched their personal computer-what we are facing now. In BillGates' future, everyone should remember the scene of development-such as the feeling of sweating for secrecy. In the first few years, the number of software on PC can't compete with II, but the biggest advantage of PC is that it is completely open. But when I tried to find PC games from 198 to 1989, it was hard to find them. In this decade, the famous games are OriginSystems' Ultima series.