About The Oldest Video Game In America
Today, it is celebrated as a pioneering example of interactive electronic entertainment
A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device, such as a controller, keyboard, mouse, or touchscreen, to generate visual feedback on a display device, typically a screen.
Tennis for Two is the first, and oldest, video game in America. It was created by physicist William Higinbotham in 1958 at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Brookhaven, New York. Only the OXO video game (created in 1952) by A S Douglas at Cambridge University in England is older than Tennis for Two.
Stonybrook University describes Tennis For Two as the first interactive analog computer game. The American Physical Society (APS) recognizes it as the first video game. Brookhaven National Laboratory describes it as the first video game ever.
William Higinbotham was a physicist who had worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. After the war, he continued his work in nuclear physics. In 1958, he was assigned to work on the lab's annual visitor's day exhibit to demonstrate the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
Higinbotham was inspired by the growing interest in computers and their potential for entertainment. He wanted to create an engaging exhibit that would help visitors understand the potential of computers. He drew inspiration from an earlier computer game called "OXO," a graphical version of tic-tac-toe.
Higinbotham's creation, Tennis for Two, was a simple tennis simulation game. It was played on an oscilloscope screen, which was a common piece of scientific equipment at the time. Players used an analog controller with a knob and a button to hit a ball back and forth over a virtual net.
On October 18, 1958, during Brookhaven's annual visitor's day, Higinbotham set up "Tennis for Two" in the lab's main building. Visitors were able to play the game, and it quickly became a hit, attracting long lines of people waiting to play. It was a very simple tennis game, similar to the classic 1970s video game Pong.
Tennis for Two had none of the fancy graphics video games use today. The cathode ray tube display simply showed a side view of a tennis court represented by just two lines, one representing the ground and a one representing the net. The ball was just a dot that bounced back and forth. Players also had to keep score for themselves.
While Tennis for Two was a relatively simple game, it demonstrated the potential of computers for entertainment and helped pave the way for the video game industry that would follow in the decades to come. It was one of the earliest examples of interactive electronic entertainment.
The game is now available on Google Play Store and Apple Store with a description that reads as follows: "Tennis for Two is the first electronic tennis game on an oscilloscope. Specifically designed for entertainment and invention, and most of all the forefather of today’s computer and video games".
Brookhaven National Laboratory, site where the oldest video in America was created, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory. It was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment camp.
Following World War II, Camp Upton was chosen to be the site of an east coast facility for research in nuclear and high energy physics. On March 21, 1947, the site was officially transferred from the U.S. War Department to the new U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to become the Brookhaven National Laboratory.