Spacewar and the Birth of Digital Game Culture

So, I just hinted at this, but quoting from my Slashdot submission: “Gamasutra is partnering with the IGDA’s Preservation SIG to present in-depth histories of the first ten games voted into the Digital Game Canon, beginning with a history of the 1961 mainframe-based shooter Spacewar, arguably the first ever video game.”
From the article: “Spacewar had a life of its own, spreading across the computer world like a benign virus. “It was the program that was run into the PDP-1 before it was shipped. It was the last thing–it was used as actually as a final test,” [co-creator J.M.] Graetz said. Because the PDP-1’s memory was composed of magnetic cores, small ferrite rings whose polarity indicated whether a bit was 1 or 0, the game stayed in memory even after the power was turned off.”
Hey, that’s all kinds of awesome! Graetz continues: “Core memory is non-volatile and once Spacewar was […]

Original post by editors@gamesetwatch.com (simonc) and software by Elliott Back