Throwback Wednesday: Tennis for Two

Quite arguably the first video game to be created, Tennis for Two was developed to cure boredom for visitors of the Brook Haven National Laboratory. Nuclear physicist William Higinbothan and  set out to develop Tennis for Two after learning that one of the computers in the lab could calculate missile trajectories. Knowing this he used that ability to form the games foundation.

The game had a simple concept - hit a virtual ball over a virtual net back and forth between two players. It used an oscilloscope as a graphical display and an analog computer to process all the physics behind the game. Players would control the gameplay using aluminum boxes that were fitted with a turn knob and a single button. The knob controlled the angle in which the ball was hit and the button would smack the ball. Hitting the virtual net would reset the ball back to the opponents side as it would in real tennis.

Amazingly the game was designed within 2 hours and assembled in 3 weeks. on October 18, 1958, Tennis for Two was introduced to the public at one of the lab's annual Visitors' Day. It gained much attention that day as it was the first time that anyone had seen such a device. Hundreds of visitors lined up to play and this would continue every Visitors' Day following.

It's most obvious that this game may have influenced games such as pong heavily. But it also used technology such as vector video signal that would be used in games such as Asteroids and even in flight aircraft HUDs. Without knowing about it, Higinbotham did introduce something to the future of video game design.

In the 1980's, Tennis for Two was part of a "first video game" controversy. Before 1958 there were three different developments that others had considered to be video games. One was simply dubbed the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device. There was no motion in this game. It consisted of a beam of light that one would turn a knob to move to overlap an airplane that was painted on to a transparent screen. This would simulate that you fired upon an aircraft bomber and it would explode. Another was a form of tic-tac-toe. Players would press numbers on a keypad to input where they wanted to place an X on the grid. Both of these were simulations to study human interaction and were not meant for playing in enjoyment. Whether or not they should be deemed the first is still up for debate. On top of course was whether or not Tennis for Two qualified as a video game. The fact that it used a display that was not a raster signal such as a CRT and used the vector signal of an oscilloscope was the main point of argument. This would lead on to many arguments and would also be used in court cases in which Magnavox was being sued by Nintendo because of patent infringement stating that the tennis game for the Odyssey resembled Tennis for Two. This example was dismissed because of the video technology that Tennis for Two used and was not considered video games by the courts.

Whether or not Tennis for Two is a true video game or if it was the first or not doesn't matter. What matters is that a nuclear physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb would later on help create enjoyment for future generations. Here's to you William Higinbotham!



music from this video is 'To Find Our Freedom' by Peacespeakers, from the album 'Message From Planet Earth'