By the time that you are reading this, you might already have your new Playstation 2 or you are seriously thinking of getting one. I signed up to get one but it might be a few days before I get it due to the demand for the new machines. If you have looked at the documentation, seen the advertisements, and seen previews of the new games, you are probably very exited as you should be, because the Playstation 2 is going to take gaming to a new level of reality. It is going to take you as close to reality as you dare to go, and in the case of 1st person shooters, you don't want to get any closer (ouch). It is amazing what the artists and technicians have cooked up to keep us entertained these days. What will it be like ten years from now? Technology is moving so quickly, demonstrated when you buy a PC today. You go to the store and you buy the hottest computer on the market with all of the bells and whistles, and it's obsolete by the time you get it home.

You know, it wasn't all that long ago that that the home PC debuted, and some of the first console games came out. After doing some research, I found this little tidbit of information from www.icwhen.com about one of the first video games named SPACEWAR. The year is 1962.

Mr. Steve Russell, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) staff researcher, nicknamed "Slug", completes SPACEWAR; a two-player game which runs on his school's PDP-1 computer. Each player maneuvers a spaceship and scores by firing missiles at his opponent while avoiding the gravitational pull of the sun. For several years, the game is reproduced in campus computer laboratories throughout the U.S. Mr. Bill Pitts and Mr. Nolan Bushnell were two MIT students who spent a lot of time playing SPACEWAR while believing it may offer a variety of commercial possibilities. The game took Russell some time to complete with the first prototype completed the year prior, but Mr. Alan Kotok, a friend of Russell's, motivated the completion by soliciting a badly needed sine-cosine routine directly from Digital Equipment. Russell later estimates that it took a total of 200 man-hours to complete the first version. Eventually, Digital Equipment adopted SPACEWAR as a diagnostic program for their customers, but Russell never made any money on his work.

I was under the impression that the people at MIT were developing things to help out mankind, to make this a better world. Can you imagine walking into the building back in 1962, maybe as an investor or cash donor to the program and somebody yells out, 'I have finished SPACEWAR! Come and play!' I kid them, but I am so glad that they were developing games, because in the years after that, we needed some escape from reality.

A few years later, in 1965, according to the previously mentioned website, there were 26,000 computer systems in the United States. One little catch - they didn't have Solitaire and they cost about $2,000 a month to rent. And you complained about that AOL bill.

In 1967, MacHack, a chess playing program written by Mr. Richard Greenblatt at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), runs so well as to win at novice levels in a chess tournament. I still can't play that game.

Any article about the history of video games must mention the year 1972. Let the nice people at www.icwhen.com give you the story.

On Tuesday, June 27, 1972 Atari is incorporated. The first commercial location is 2962 Scott Boulevard in a low rent area of Santa Clara, California. Bally is one of Atari's first customers with a contract to develop extra-wide pinball playfiields. To establish a business base, the founders (Mr. Nolan Bushnell and Mr. Ted Dabney) initiate a route to install and service pinball machines. Their route includes one bar, several coffee shops and the Student Union building at Stanford University. Later, Dabney will take the route as part of a settlement to leave the company. The first full-time employee of Atari is Ms. Cynthia Villanueva, 17, who once babysat Bushnell's children. Cynthia is assigned to be Atari's receptionist at the modest garage-style office. Incoming calls were purposely held for a short time to create an illusion of being routed through a larger firm. Cynthia will stay with Atari for over ten years. Atari's second employee will be Mr. Al Alcorn as V.P. of Engineering at a salary of $1,000 a month.

Also in June, Mr. Nolan K. Bushnell's PONG is tested on top of a barrel as a commercial coin-operated machine in a tavern in Sunnyvale, CA called Andy Capp's. Within a couple weeks, Mr. Bill Gattis, the tavern manager, called Atari's Mr. Al Alcorn and reported that the machine was in need of repair. When examined, Alcorn discovered that the coin mechanism had been literally stuffed with quarters. Mr. Bushnell would become known as "King Pong". The phenomenon inspired production of a great number of PONG games and Nolan rented space at an old roller rink. By reworking old TV sets, an assembly process was developed amidst, what some say, was an atmosphere of drugs, sex and leisure living. It has been reported that even hot tubs were installed as a company perk. Within 3 years, Atari, Inc. would enjoy sales of $40 million.

June 1972 seemed to be a banner month for video game development because it was also month that

Magnavox introduces the first home video game system, Odyssey (#1TL100). The Odyssey was inspired by Mr. Ralph Baer who sold his concept to Magnavox in 1970. The Odyssey offers players an assortment of a dozen varieties of tennis, hockey and maze games and sold for about $150. Each game variation requires a special plastic overlay placed over the TV screen to lend color and dimension to an otherwise simplistic game system. Additionally supplied game elements such as dice, cards and "phony" money helped inpsire long term interest in the games, but the players have to manually keep their own scores regardless of the variations. Before end of year, 100,000 units will be sold. The technology of the Odyssey was strictly analog.

To learn more about the specific dates and companies in the video game saga, please visit our friends over at www.icwhen.com. Donald A. Thomas has done a wonderful job at compiling a whole lot of information. One day I must ask him how long it took.

Back when I was a kid - I forget what year - I got my first video game console, the Atari 2600. I had a few games, but I remember Night Driver being my favorite. When I was doing research on video games, I found the web site www.atari-history.com. This web site will give you a play-by-play history of the development with lots of photographs. Here is a basic history taken from their web site with permission.

Atari Videogame consoles (as opposed to Atari's earlier stand alone single function consoles) got their start in 1977 with the introduction of Atari's VCS (Video Computer System).The VCS was originally ready to ship in 1976, however due to a legal clause in an earlier settlement between Atari and Magnavox over the release of PONG in 1972, Magnavox would own the rights to anything Atari produced for 1 year, so Atari delayed the VCS release so that Magnavox would not own the rights to it. The Atari VCS was originally conceived in Grass Valley, California. The second iteration was done in Sunnyvale, CA. The Atari Video Computer System was initially going to be a new multipurpose console chassis with a single multi-programmable motherboard which would have its games installed internally into a rom slot. This design was quickly dropped in favor of selling the same concept except making the rom slot external and selling the various games in cartridge form that consumers would buy and plug into the console. Originally only 10 games were to be designed for the console since it was designed to play games such as Pong, Tank, Outlaw and various other simple challenge games. However designers had unknowingly created a console who's hidden potential was quickly discovered by programers who created games far outperforming what the console was original conceived to do. Then came Space Invaders for the Atari VCS, the first licensed arcade title. The VCS took off and no one could stop is popularity and success.

In 1978 several of the same engineers who had designed the Atari VCS were already laying out plans for a new set of chips with so much power and abilities for graphics and sounds that Atari's next game console would far overshadow its first creation, the VCS. However Atari was now headed by Raymond Kassar who was brought in by Warner Communications, Atari's parent company when it was sold to WCI in 1976 by Nolan Busnhell for $28 Million. Ray Kassar wanted Atari to compete against Apple in the home computer market. The new Super Game console chip set was now turned over to Atari's brand new Home Computer Division and became the Atari 8 bit chip set. It would not be until 1982 that Atari's vision of a Super Game console would become a reality. Basically, Atari took the 8 bit chip set and built an all new Super Game System around it. Originally code named PAM, Atari's new Super Game System would almost be called P.A.M. for Personal Arcade Machine, however Atari settled on its model number: 5200. So it was born, the Atari 5200: Super System.

Atari's release of the new Super System was ill timed and poorly supported by research from marketing which was ignored. The vein of most people's complaints were its amazingly innovative controllers. While introducing some impressive features, the controllers were difficult to handle for long periods of time and broke easily and were costly to repair. The Super System was also faced with serious competition from Coleco with its impressive Colecovision console and Coleco's barrage of expansion modules and peripherals. Everything from Super controllers to Steering Wheels to even an Atari 2600 VCS compatible interface for playing all of the games made for the Atari VCS 2600 console.   Before Atari even had such a module available for its own Atari 5200 Super System! Atari fired back with a peripheral that even today stands out as an impressive and well engineered product, the Atari 5200 Trakball. However that wasn't enough, adding to this was the fact that Atari packaged with its console Super Breakout, while Coleco packaged the hottest Coin-Op game at the time: Donkey Kong. Then something happened that noone could fight against... The Great Video Game Crash. Like Black Friday on Wall Street, the crash hit, people saw video games as a fad that had reached its peak and had passed. Company Exec's panicked, packed up and ran faster then Pac Man with all four ghosts hot on his trail.

After the dust had settled, Atari picked up its pieces and its badly bruised ego and went to work on making right all that was wrong with its past consoles. Working with, and more importantly LISTENING to test groups, Atari and GCC (General Computer Corporation) got to work on an all new game console. First fix, it would be compatible with Atari 2600 games automatically, no modules. The unit would have encryption so Atari could control what software was released in its high performance "7800 Mode" so there wouldn't be a repeat of the huge flood of lousy software titles which caused the Great Video Game Crash to happen. The console would have lots of expandability and several peripherals would be made available at launch. Peripherals included a dual joystick holder for games like Robotron 2084, Battlezone and so forth. A High Score Cartridge that could keep high scores for up to 65 different games. A computer CPU add-on module and a computer keyboard to turn the system into a beginner's computer system that would be able to use existing Atari Home Computer Systems peripherals like disk drives and printers (software would not be compatible with the home computers.) For its bruised and battered Atari 5200 owners, Atari planned an expansion module called SLAM-PAM which was an Atari 7800/2600 compatibility module so Atari 5200 owners could use all of the existing 2600 software, plus all of the new Atari 7800 software. The console was ready - the first 5,000 units were on their way from the EL Paso, TX manufacturing plant. Pre-release reviews were ecstatic, the console would certainly be a success... Then it happened, on July 2, 1984 Atari was sold and the Atari 7800 and its unannounced low cost brother the Atari 2600jr. were shelved until 1986 when they were finally sold to a gaming public that had nearly forgotten about Atari and was more interested in the new systems from Nintendo and Sega.

Although nothing more then an Atari computer with built-in Missle Command and a detached keyboard, Atari released in 1987 the Atari XE Game System which met with luke warm acceptance. Atari repackaged and re-released several older tried and true Atari Home Computer System software titles into cartridge form. In 1989 Atari would come back into the gaming market with a surprise entry which would turn out to be a amazingly powerful and portable game system. It was called the Atari Lynx Color Portable. Slightly bigger then a VCR tape, the Lynx was a color handheld game system acquired by Epyx, a gaming software company which decided to get into the console market, but had run out of money to market their product. Originally called "Handy", Atari acquired the Lynx technology and several software titles. The Lynx was overshadowed by the Nintendo Gameboy, a primitive black and white LCD game and the Sega Nomad, which were marketed far heavier. The Atari Lynx, far superior to all the other portable game systems with its slew of add-ons like portable battery pak, carrying cases, sunvisors, Lynx cables for multi-user game play and its fairly healthy line of games just couldn't fare as well as the other game consoles, but continued strong for quite sometime. In fact, today Songbird Productions has been releasing brand new software titles for the Lynx.

In 1993, Atari made one last push at getting back into the very market which it had helped to pioneer. Working on the Atari Jaguar, a 64-bit gaming console which was acquired from Flare II, Atari dropped work on its own in-house console called Panther and the big push was on. The Atari Jaguar 64 would be built by IBM, sporting a DSP Digital Signal Processor, and several custom microprocessors on a 64-Bit wide bus that had expansion to support various types of video, external modems, networking of consoles for multi-user games, attachment of a CD-ROM player for enhanced gameplay and even a VR Virtual Reality headset system for fully immersed gaming experiences. The Jaguar, although an admirable console, just didn't have the quality of game worthy of its 64-Bit title. With a few shining stars such as Tempest 2000 and Alien vs. Predator, the oncoming threat of the Nintendo 64 and the Sony PlayStation quickly put an end to the Jaguar and to Atari's consumer electronics division as Atari folded into a reverse merger in 1996 with JTS a now defunct hard disk maker. The Jaguar console was heavily modified and installed into Atari Games Corporation Area 51 arcade video coin-ops and called the Co-Jag. Atari Games Corporation was a separate Atari company that split off from the Atari consumer division/computer division in 1984. The Atari Jaguar and the Atari Co-Jag were the last of Atari's video gaming consoles. Today Atari Corp is owned by Hasbro and is called Atari Interactive. They design and sell Atari classic gaming titles for PC's and other gaming platforms. Atari Games Corporation is owned by Midway/Williams and has now been absorbed into Midway and lost its own identity and exists no more.

I want to thank Curt Vendel at www.atari-history.com/mainmenu.html for his permission to use that article and I hope that you are able to visit the site for a more in depth study of the Atari machines. If you are PC Gamer, you can even get PC versions of some of the classic games from the Atari line.

Things began to heat up in the mid 80's when new console systems came out. I found a web site at www.videotopia.com that gives a great chronological listing of when these new machines came out.

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) - 1985. Designed by Masayuki Uemura. Nintendo released its Famicom (Family Computer) in late 1983. The system featured an 8-bit 6502 microprocessor and a custom graphics chip that produced 52 colors, while advanced previous systems had a maximum of 16. The Famicom also contained far more RAM than any previous console. Nintendo released the system in New York City during the Christmas season of 1985. The Famicom, now called the NES, came with game controllers, a light-gun and R.O.B. - the Robotic Operating Buddy.

Nintendo Game Boy - 1989. Designed by Gumpei Yokoi and Nintendo R&D Team #1. The Game Boy was a portable system that used a black and green LCD screen and was programmable with its interchangeable cartridges. It contained a 1.1 Mhz 8-bit Microprocessor and was released at a price of $100. Game Boy was a huge success with adults as well as children.

NEC Turbografx-16 - 1989. Released in Japan in 1988 as the PC Engine, the system was renamed the Turbografx-16 when it reached North America in 1989. Although NEC advertised the Turbografx-16 as a 16-bit game machine, it actually had an 8-bit CPU. It did contain a separate 16-bit graphics chip however. The Turbografx-16 became the first system to have a CD-player attachment.

Atari Lynx - 1989. After designing the advanced Commodore Amiga home computer, R.J. Mical and Dave Needle decided to create the first color portable programmable game system. Introduced at a price of $149, the Lynx's CPU was an 8-bit microprocessor, and its screen was large and capable of displaying detailed colorful images.

Sega Genesis - 1989. Recognizing that great games sold systems, Sega took elements from its 16-bit arcade machines and produced the Mega-Drive in 1989. When the machine reached American stores it was called the Genesis, and it retailed for $199. Featuring a version of the Motorola 68000 16-bit microprocessor that had powered the original Apple Macintosh, the new console was capable of running excellent translations of Sega arcade hits.

3DO Interactive Multiplayer - 1993. Designed by R.J. Mical and Dave Needle. 3DO was the first game system based only on CD technology. The console could play VHS quality video, as well as CD quality sound. The 3DO Company itself was also a change of pace. It did not build anything and allowed other companies to make their own versions of the 3DO for a fee. The Panasonic REAL FZ-1 3DO player used a 12.5 Mhz 32-bit microprocessor and was released in late 1993 at a price of $699.95.

Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation - 1995. The Sony PlayStation used a 33 Mhz 32-bit microprocessor specifically designed to produce polygon graphics. The PlayStation began its life as a CD attachment for the Super NES. When Sony and Nintendo disagreed on the way the new device would be marketed, Sony decided to further develop the PlayStation into a game machine of its own. Sega used twin 28.8 Mhz 32-bit microprocessors and parallel processing to power its Saturn system (pictured left). Like the Genesis, the Saturn benefited from translations of Sega arcade games to help drive its popularity.

Nintendo Virtual Boy - 1995. Designed by Gumpei Yokoi. Powered by a 10 Mhz 32-bit microprocessor and using a display system developed by a Massachusetts company named Reflection Technologies, the Virtual Boy displayed objects that seemed to actually exist in 3-Dimensions. Images were produced on 2 tiny mirrored screens, one for each eye, in two colors - red and black. Virtual Boy was priced at $179.99 when released.

Nintendo 64 - 1996. Packing the power of a 1980s supercomputer into a $150 game machine, the Nintendo 64 used a 93.75 Mhz 64-bit microprocessor as it's CPU. The Nintendo 64 was jointly designed by Nintendo and Silicon Graphics. The system's controller itself was revolutionary, designed specifically for control of the 3-D games that had become so popular. The Nintendo 64, as well as the 32-bit machines from Sega and Sony, out-powered the personal computers in terms of game playing and exposed players to worlds of entertainment previously unimaginable.

I want to thank Keith over at www.videotopia.com for permission to use that information. I urge you to visit the web site to learn more about Videotopia which is a traveling historical exhibit on video games, home and arcade. Videotopia will actually be on display in El Paso Texas at the Insights El Paso Science Museum this winter, so make it out there if you can.

Learning all this information about the history of video games has been great fun and it makes me even more exited about the new PlayStation 2. I find it amazing what we were impressed with back then, and it makes me think... Ten years from now, will we consider the games that were are playing today as primative as we think that PONG is now? I hope so, because those games are going to be great, and you know PlayStation will be leading the way.