Did video games come out 50 years ago today?

[digitalwanderer]

I didn't get in to them until the following year of 1972, when Pong first came out. I was 6.

Saw this article today about Computer Space launching 50 years ago based off of the mainframe version of Space War, and it explains why we've never heard of the game. Also how Atari came in to being and invented Pong the next year.

Just found it interesting and thought I'd share.

 

[orangpelupa]

Yikes. This makes me realize how fast tech has progressed and how fast global warming is.

When I was a kid with NES, I can run around like idiots all day. Nowadays we have super computers in a phone and can play ridiculously good looking game on it. But if I go outside... OMG the heat! 35 celcius, and that's on a bit cloudy day.

The big wigs of mining company, coal power plants, etc that throw out lots of pollution still can live in comfort with air conditioner, taking holidays overseas... common people feel the heat every day and more expenditures (drinking water is expensive, and the hotter the air, the more people drink)

Edit:

Oh my God, just checked historical temperature data and the max in 2020 was just 31c https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/indonesia/climate-data-historical#

 

[zed]

I remember when pong came out, a neighbour had brought a machine in singapore and brought it back
but this is nothing compared to the space invaders in 1979/1980 what a phenomenon, nothing afterwards has come close to equalling (*)
my town of 3000 ppl, had 3 arcades, 2 with 10-15 machines, and one with 4 and every machine except one was space invaders (for the life of me I cant remember the other game)

hmm it seems they used to make the machines in NZ

(*)USA had pacman a couple years later but that was a lot smaller craze relatively

 

[Laurent06]

I remember when pong came out, a neighbour had brought a machine in singapore and brought it back
but this is nothing compared to the space invaders in 1979/1980 what a phenomenon, nothing afterwards has come close to equalling (*)
my town of 3000 ppl, had 3 arcades, 2 with 10-15 machines, and one with 4 and

I still have fond memories of those arcade places. In the 80s, we had a few in my medium sized town (~200k inhabitants). All disappeared now, and I'm not even sure there's still one arcade in France.

every machine except one was space invaders (for the life of me I cant remember the other game)

Asteroids or Lunar Lander perhaps?

(*)USA had pacman a couple years later but that was a lot smaller craze relatively

I always thought that Pacman was much more successful than Space Invaders.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I always thought that Pacman was much more successful than Space Invaders.

In the US it was. But maybe in NZ it was different and Space Invaders was much more popular there?

Heck, I'm pretty sure Asteroids was more popular than Space Invaders in the US. That said, my mother used to spend hours playing Space Invaders on our Atari 2600.

Interestingly enough there's still 3 arcades in the city where I live. One of which is a "vintage arcade."

Regards,
SB

 

[zed]

I still have fond memories of those arcade places. In the 80s, we had a few in my medium sized town (~200k inhabitants). All disappeared now, and I'm not even sure there's still one arcade in France.
Asteroids or Lunar Lander perhaps?
I always thought that Pacman was much more successful than Space Invaders.

Pacman was big, also the same with donkey kong etc but they did not have impact as space invaders
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_arcade_video_games

Space Invaders 1978 Taito (Japan) / Midway (U.S.) Considered the game that revolutionized the video game industry.[129] The first blockbuster video game,[130]

Space invaders was the game that started the whole videogame craze
Like I said my town had a ratio of one space invader machine for each 100 inhabitants

personally I never like space invaders, galaga, stargate, moon patrol yes

 

[Laurent06]

personally I never like space invaders, galaga, stargate, moon patrol yes

I mostly played shoot'em up but always found Space Invaders boring. I found Asteroids funnier and of course ones that came later (Defender, Galaga, Gaplus, Mad Planets, Robo Dangar, etc.). I stopped playing arcades before manic shooters from Japan existed, but I guess I would have loved them too.

EDIT: BTW from the Wikipedia article you link:

The game that most affected popular culture in North America was Pac-Man.

That's exactly the feeling I had in France. The impact of Pac-Man seemed more important. But I agree Space Invaders started it all.

 

[nutball]

I guess I was too late for the earliest home-based Atari consoles with pong and so forth.

I do remember Space Invaders being a massive thing in the arcades, along with Asteroids, the semi-3D tank game (Battlezone?) and then Defender, Galaxian, Scramble, etc. but these are late-70s/very-early-80s.

There used to be a Space Invaders in the fish'n'chip shop I went to as a university student. Whenever I play it on MAME and hear the bib-bob-bib-bob-bib-bob back-track I can smell frying fish'n'chips and vinegar.

 

[orangpelupa]

Btw for those with OG switch that's hackable, it is really good for playing classic games. Someone even made a super easy to use package called "lakka for switch".

Xbox Series also quite good. But it's not portable and the initial setup can be a bit confusing for those not accustomed to ftp, file uploading, etc.

 

[milk]

Great thread, you guys. I'm from 1990, so I have no such memories. The oldest game I ever played was a 8-bit NES clone, save for one day a friend showed me a VolksWagen pong console from an uncle of his or something. We played for 5 minutes before getting bored.

 

[Davros]

I'm from 1990,

Woah Milk is a time traveller

 

[Sxotty]

I bought an Atari 2600 at a garage sale and an atari 7800 later. Donkey Kong, asteroids, pitfall etc.

I liked joust does anyone remember that one? I didn't like ET. I never figured out how to play it.

 

[Davros]

I remember joust you were on flying ostrich's or what looked like

 

[digitalwanderer]

Loved the arcade version of Joust, hated the Atari one.

 

[zed]

Yeah joust was a classic, pretty unique gameplay as well, sure you had gunfight etc beforehand but perhaps joust was the first duel game
For me my favs were

galaga, stargate, mr do, qix

 

[Silent_Buddha]

For arcade games, I'm overly fond of Front Line (Front Line - Legends Ultimate (atgames.net) ). Mostly because of the unique control scheme. (Honorable mention to Centipede for its trackball control method as well.)

• Joystick to move around.
• Rotary dial to aim.
• One button to shoot.

The various console and computer ports basically sucked in comparison. Sinistar and the ultra wide screen Darius (my god Darius in an ultra wide screen arcade cabinet was absolutely gorgeous) were probably my overall favorite arcade games, however.

The Darius arcade cabinet used 3 monitors + mirrors to present a seemless single screen image of the game. My mind was blown the first time I saw one in the arcades. That would make it something like 12:3 (36:9) aspect ratio.

Regards,
SB

 

[zed]

Don't know that game, looks a bit like rally-x with the colors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rally-X a grounding breaking game

 

[Laurent06]

Mad Planets was also using both a rotary controller and a joystick, but the fire button was on the joystick. For some reason they decided to put the rotary controller on the left and the joystick on the right, and as there was no way I could efficiently use the joystick with my right hand, I had to cross arms to play.

 

[Zombietoid]

Remember booting up the first ever Tekken game and seeing that retro space shooter that could get you Devil Kazuya?