Videogames Turn 40

[Dubh Aingeal]

May 15th marks the 40 year anniversary of the first games hooked up to the television. An article on the 1up site tells the story of Ralph Baer, Bill Harrison, and Bill Rusch working at the Sanders Associates company on a little game called Pong. They go into a great deal of detail on the development of the console, going so far as to include a number of the group's original notes on the project.

Baer kept the tiny lab, a former company library in Sanders' early days, locked at all times. Only two men had keys: Baer and Harrison. The room would remain the base of operations for their controversial video experiments for years to come -- experiments that, had they been known about widely at the time, might have garnered intense ridicule from other employees of the prominent defense contractor. Pursuing them was an utterly audacious move.

[Homicidalheathen]

Thanks. That really made me feel young. LOL

I am 2 yrs older than video games.

[pharoh]

lol I been playing the sega genesis collection on my psp, which the games there are almost 20 years old, and man they are still fun to this day.

all hail phantasy star

[Onyx]

Happy birthday video games! Yay

I remember Pong and how excited my brother and I were that we didn't have to save our quarters anymore.

Looking at how awesome games are now, makes me wonder where we will be in a few years. Maybe they'll put a game jack directly into our brains. :laughing

[BrassFusion]

Happy birthday video games! Yay

I remember Pong and how excited my brother and I were that we didn't have to save our quarters anymore.

Looking at how awesome games are now, makes me wonder where we will be in a few years. Maybe they'll put a game jack directly into our brains. :laughing

actually, it'll be more like an all-purpose jack.

[Destroit]

Yay! I've been married to video games my whole life, and I'm 21 meaning...video games are twice as old as me, but don't question our relationship damnit! We're happy together! *scampers off to play some Sims 2*

[shox spiral]

Hail SNES! Those old RPG's... almost brings a tear to the eye. It's a beautiful thing.

I'm glad that the monkey part of our brains is strong enough that some folks wanted to apply all that new technology to creating a fancier game of catch. Woohoo feels good. Kick. Kick. Punch. Kick. Ha-doooo-kin.

[Scary Guy]

Final Fantasy > Phantasy Star

But that's just my opinion (currently play FFV... again.

I've got emulators for just about everything (including the Vectrex).

However video games are MUCH older than 40 years

http://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/videogame.html

But yeah TV was important at the time. Computer games don't count because most computers aren't run off of TV's. Though the line between the two is really beginning to blur these days.

[shox spiral]

Nostalgia --

Final Fantasy IV ending sequence:

youtube.com/watch?v=wZ4dPnYbFik

[Scary Guy]

http://www.flemcomics.com/d/20020410.html

http://www.flemcomics.com/d/20020418.html

http://www.flemcomics.com/d/20020420.html

http://www.flemcomics.com/d/20020512.html

http://www.flemcomics.com/d/20020708.html

Ok I'm done hunting through them. They're all FF related, and funny.