History of Gaming

Gaming has been around since the late 1960’s far later than I had thought, for me I had always thought that the Atari 2600 was the first gaming system known to mankind, and after starting my research I found out how wrong I was. In this part of the teams paper I will discuss the different types of this technology thought it history. In 1967 the first gaming console ever was created and was named the “Brown Box.” A German born television engineer Ralph Baer and his colleagues created the Brown Box which worked on your basic standard television set. Working with a firm called Sanders Associates, Baer along with co-workers drew up schematics for a game which was called the chase game, and they built a vacuum tube circuit that connected to the television. Two players controlled two squares that basically chased each other on the screen, at that point in time gaming was born. Baer and his associates later added a light fun and developed a total of 12 games for the Brown Box. Fast forward five years after Baer and his associates created the Brown Box, Magnavox began production of the Magnavox Odyssey. The Odyssey was called the first commercial video-game console and was marketed in Magnavox TV dealerships. The Odyssey used six cartridges to play up to twelve games. The Odyssey downfall is that many TV dealers didn’t see any potential in it and along with the false rumor that it only worked in Magnavox televisions hurt the popularity of the gaming systems.
In 1972 Nolan Bushnell founded Atari and three years later in 1975, they had their first smash hit with an arcade game called Pong. Atari sold a home version of the game Pong through Sears under the Sears Tele-games label. What made Pong unique was that it produced an on-screen score and sound all by single chip. With his first system Nolan Bushnell and Atari shot to the top of household gaming. Knowing that some of not anything last forever especially a single game system popularity, Nolan Bushnell and Atari

Cited: Admin. (2012). The History of Video Game Consoles. computergameoffer.com. Bellis, M. (n.d.). Computer and Video Game History. About.com. Edwards, B. (2009). 30 Years of Handheld Game Systems. PC World. Johnson, J. (2008). From Atari Joy Board to Wii fit. BBG. Melanson, D. (2006). A Brief History of Handheld Video games. engadget.