10th April 2003, 12:34 AM
Quote:In 1952, another person named A.S.Douglas was passing his PhD degree at the University of Cambridge (United Kindgom). At that time, the university had an EDSAC vaccuum-tube computer, which used a cathode ray tube to display the contents of one of the 32 mercury delay lines (which stored the programs and data). The display was organized as a matrix of 35 by 16 dots, hence a 35x16 pixel display. A.S. Douglas wrote his thesis on the Human-Computer interraction, and illustrated it with a graphic Tic-Tac-Toe game displayed on a cathode ray tube. This is the earliest graphical computer game known to exist. The game was played against the machine, which used special algorithms to win whenever possible. This game can be played nowadays using the EDSAC simulator, which includes a copy of the original game.
Quote:Tic-Tac-Toe? I imagine that the computer cannot lose (or win, unless the player messes up)... because if you don't mess up at the game, it is impossible to do so...
Just like in real life. The person going first cannot lose, unless they fuck up. But read the quote above. You are playing against the computer, which has a definite (albeit simple) AI.
First ever computer game:
Quote:Later in 1958, another person called Willy Higginbotham created another computer game. The technology consisted of an analog Donner computer linked to an oscilloscope used as display. Called Tennis For Two (and also known as Tennis Programming), the game was played by two people using hand controls. Willy worked at the Brookhaven National Laboratories, and his game was exposed for two years after what it got dismantled (electronic parts were often re-used in labs, especially in the 1950s when they used to cost a lot). Click here to read an interesting article about this game. The engineers at Brookhaven rebuilt this game in 1997 for the 50th anniversary of the BNL labs. After working two months to improve the original circuits using integrated circuits, they finally got the game to work as it did in 1958. Click here to see a short video of the (rebuilt) game in action (courtesy BNL).
Source
That site is actually a really interesting read. I emplore you to go through it. :)
If i had a dollar for every time i ran out of hair in the middle of a spoon making contest id only eat your children with a side of slaw and THOSE ARENT PILLOWS!!