Gaming

Using a computer as a game station is nothing new. In 1958, Willy Higginbotham, head of the Instrumentation Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory, conducted tours to show the public what Brookhaven was up to and how safe the research laboratories were. Higginbotham wanted to show more than pictures and slide shows. He connected a computer to an oscilloscope with a small five-inch screen, added resistors, capacitors, vacuum tubes, and other circuitry to compute wind speed, gravity, and bounce to display a ball on the screen. He also used an upside-down T drawn on the screen to represent a net. Visitors were now able to see and try a hands-on video gametennis. Higginbotham also built controllers out of blocks of wood with a button and dial mounted. The button was used to hit the ball and the dial to adjust the angle of the ball for return-much like the Pong games, created by Nolan Bushnell, that would appear fourteen years later.