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Classic Games (Games) Books Media Book Reviews

Videogames: In the Beginning 410

Posted by timothy from the written-by-participants dept.
evanak (Evan Koblentz) writes "Last year, at the PhillyClassic videogame event, I noticed a teenager wearing an ironic t-shirt. His shirt showed an original Nintendo controller and said 'Know your roots.' Sadly, it's not just modern youngsters who are unaware of their technological roots -- sometimes even we self-proclaimed adult über nerds are equally unaware. Regarding videogames, this is especially true, and now industry pioneer Ralph Baer is trying to rectify the situation. His attempt takes the form of a sincere autobiography, although with mixed results. The book is titled Videogames: In the Beginning." Read on for the rest of Koblentz's review.
Videogames: In the Beginning
author Ralph Baer
pages 260
publisher Rolenta Press
rating 8
reviewer Evan Koblentz
ISBN 0964384817
summary Autobiography of the inventor of home videogames


According to Rolenta publisher Lenny Herman (the author of Phoenix: The Fall & Rise of Videogames), Baer became interested in documenting his own experiences a few years ago, when the mainstream media began heaping praise with increasing frequency on Atari founder Nolan Bushnell.

Baer begins his story as expected: a detailed explanation of why he, not Bushnell, should be called the father of videogames. Baer, as Slashdot readers probably know, invented the prototype console that eventually became the Magnavox Odyssey. He explains that he suggested building a game feature to differentiate Loral Electronics' high-end televisions in 1951, but that his idea was declined by management; that he got serious about the idea and built his first prototype while working at defense contractor Sanders Associates in late 1966; and that Bushnell attended a demonstration (and signed the guestbook) in 1972 before founding Atari and consequently building his own version of Pong.

That's fair, and if Baer were to conclude the first chapter with the book's subtitle -- "the inventor of home videogames" (note the qualifier of "home" vs. "all") -- then it would be an acceptable story. However, he takes the argument into a different and surprising direction. He asserts that everything before his time -- such as Willy Higginbotham's 1958 oscilloscope-based tennis game at Brookhaven National Laboratory and MIT hacker Steve Russell's Spacewar from the 1960s -- were not "real" games simply because they used non-standard screens and weren't commercially viable. (But so what? They were no less entertaining. By common sense, and not a console purist's definition, a "videogame" is a game played on a video screen, period. I'm sorry if Bushnell gets credit for the invention of practical, home videogames where Baer rightfully deserves it, but that's no reason to indict the whole history of creative computer science.)

Happily, the Baer drops the matter after the first chapter, and continues telling the story of his adventures working with Sanders and Magnavox. Better yet, it turns out that these adventures are fascinating and worth reading no matter when or what Baer originally invented. Among the technologies he helped to develop were methods for delivering game content over cable television networks, the use of cartridges for storing game data, interactive videotape and videodisk systems, instant-replay features for sports games, and methods for drawing on the screen. He also invented the famous electronic Simon toy. For most of this time, he made a living by designing military simulators for Sanders Associates. In addition, for most of these issues, Baer includes not just prose about the how and why, but also detailed and full-color technical notes, illustrations, and even schematics. There are also sections focusing on the business issues he faced while trying to get Magnavox and other large corporations (such as Coleco and Nintendo) interested in his unproven ideas, which of course were correct, or else you wouldn't be read this. Another section of the book deals with lawsuits involving Bushnell.

Baer has two more treats for us before closing his autobiography. First, he includes eight appendices, focusing on the Simon and other toys; a television games chronology; a Magnavox timeline; notebook entries from 1966-1972; patents; schematics and experiments; timelines of all of his projects sorted by date and category; and a bibliography. Second, for hands-on readers, there is an optional CD available for $10, which includes the necessary information for building your own Brown Box prototype and with video of Baer demonstrating how to play it. (My review copy didn't include the CD, so I'm basing this on what's stated in the book and on an email from the publisher.)

Overall, I recommend checking out this book. There are other videogame histories, but none so thorough from the perspective of a pioneer who actually lived it. If you can get past the controversial first chapter, you will find a great tale of ingenuity, persistence, ambition, and justice, along with some very cool technological insights. Or, as summarized by Steve Wozniak on the back cover, "I can never thank Ralph enough for what he gave to me and everyone else." Game on!

You can purchase Videogames: In the Beginning from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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Videogames: In the Beginning More

Videogames: In the Beginning

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  • Ah the influence of old games (Score:5, Funny)

    by towaz ( 445789 ) * on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:32PM (#13382253)
    "If Pacman had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."

  • Random (Score:3, Interesting)

    by phaetonic ( 621542 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:33PM (#13382262)
    Are there any people out there who reminice once and a while about the days of playing Doom over IPX with 3 other players on various BBS's over 14.4K and having rocket wars? I found those days especially fun, even tho technology is so much better today.
    • Ahh, yes. The day we had to decide between another 4MB of RAM or upgrading the modem from a 2400bps to 14.4k. They both ran about $150. I think we chose the 14.4k. I was sick of watching the letters appear on my screen one at a time on the local BBSs.
      • i stuck with the 2400 (TW2002's movies were more watchable on 2400 than 33.6) and instead got another 4MB memory and a coprocessor. Imagine 3D v2.0 simply FLEW after that!

    • Re:Random (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Pope ( 17780 )
      Even better: Doom 2 played over a serial connection from a 486DX/66 to a Power Mac 7100, side-by-side on the same desk, with a piece of cardboard between the monitors.

      And of course with simpsons.wad for the FX! :)

    • Tank Wars (Score:3, Insightful)

      by WidescreenFreak ( 830043 )
      I'll go one better - Doom over a serial connection with each player in different rooms. That was deadly, having that thick serial cable sprawled across the floor between rooms.

      I've really been in the mood for some of those old games lately. My wife (then fiancee) and I spent hundreds of hours in front of my 12 MHz 286 playing "Tank Wars" until all hours of the night. I've really wanted to play that lately. It was a hell of a lot of fun in its simplicity and ease of use. Unfortunately, it did not have

    • Things I don't miss about Doom: (Score:5, Funny)

      by Chordonblue ( 585047 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @04:55PM (#13383628) Journal
      Top of the list: Death of hardware

      Me and this guy from across town used to pound the living hell out of each other at 14.4K. At first, it was friendly rivalry but later, shit started getting abused.

      The first casualty was my nice, almost new 500 MB hard drive. I still remember it: There I was, circling around back of the cathedral to take him out when all of a sudden I turn around and get a face full of rocket. Totally surprised (and pissed), I pounded my fist on the table screaming incoherantly (probably something similar to, "Son a BITCH!") and within my desktop I heard the scariest noise ever: 'whhhhiiiirrrrr... Click... whhhhhiirrrrr'. Yep. Destroyed my hard drive that day.

      But my buddy did even better than that a few weeks later. I had helped him get a motherboard and processor but I had no case to donate. He ended up with this old Hyundai case. Man did that suck! Everything in the case was off by like half a centimeter (a Dremel can only do so much)!

      Anyway, because of the sickly case design, he'd have to keep it open with a room fan blowing into the case to keep it from overheating. It was kinda comical and sad at the same time.

      Now, how many of you remember that level with all the REALLY THIN walls you had to walk on with lava below? Well, I found out that the spawnpoints were such that he could not finish the level if I didn't want him to. I'd simply wait for him to get on those thin walls and blow him away.

      After doing this (I'm not kidding) around 40 times, he texts me and says something like, "Godddamint chuk. if you fucking do that one more time im done." I'm sure you realize that this kind of message is the kind that almost insures his death. The funny thing was, he was on the walls again when I came around the corner, rocket launcher in hand. I fired off a round - purposely missing him and he got so freaked out that he fell off the wall into the lava.

      {CLICK!}

      Game over! I didn't find out what happened until the next day as he was too embarrassed and angry to talk to me. Apparently, when he accidentally fell off the wall in the game, his RL leg shot out and caught the 'case fan'. The case fan (with a nice, conductive metal grating) fell into his motherboard and shorted the whole mess out - EVEN his VESA (Whoa! 32-bit Trident chipest - hot stuff!) video card.

      It was about that time that we both realized that maybe we were taking things a bit too seriously. Then Duke Nukem 3D came out... But that is a different story. ;)

  • well (Score:5, Insightful)

    by brandanglendenning ( 766328 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:35PM (#13382280) Homepage
    i don't know how the 'know your roots' t-shirt is ironic. i mean, it's not like everybody is 40 years old and still playing pong. 'your' would imply that the roots he is 'knowing' are relative to his own life, not that of some intelevision spaz touting the depth of burger time gameplay.
  • Let's get it out there and just start complaining about kids these days and how we started...

    Atari 2600 and Space Invaders (I chewed the controllers)...
    Tandy II TRS-80 (didn't have the tape deck so I couldn't save my programs and it had no monitor - it hooked to a television)

    No punchcards to complain of, but I do recall playing with an abacus when I was in kindergarten...

    (re: subject [phespirit.info])
    • I played Computer Space, which preceeded Pong, and once had the opportunity to buy one. Which I did not do, to my great regret since. I also had a Magnavox Odyssey, although since it had 4 games instead of just a pong-clone it might have been an Odyssey II or something like that. pong-hockey! Whoo hoo!

      sPh

      • Re:Four Yorkshiremen... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by plover ( 150551 ) * on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @04:37PM (#13383428) Homepage Journal
        I also had an Odyssey when I was a teen. After taking the cover off I acquired the spec sheet for the chip inside (I can't remember if it was General Instruments or National Semiconductor.) Using the sheet, I soldered in extra wires and ran a new switch to the case so it could play "one-player handball," freeing me from having to beg my sister to play video games. That was a game that the chip supported but was not normally available from the console game selector switch. I also wired it to turn on the "skeet shoot" game, but I was never able to figure out how to make a light-activated "gun" device work.

        I also made an etch-a-sketch type road-racing game on my oscilloscope by tracing a "road" onto a clear piece of cellophane and taping it to the screen. Then, by adjusting the horizontal and vertical offset knobs, I could "drive" the point around the track.

        But try telling that to kids these days and they just don't believe you.

    • My first video game at home was Pong. What was it, three settings? Tennis, handball, and hockey I think.

      Being a second generation computer geek I did have punchcards to play with. Mom started as a keypunch operator back in the '60s and went up to Senior Programmer Analyst before she died last year. When I was a kid she'd bring home punchcards for me and I'd use them to build house-of-cards kind of stuff. Funny aside, when I went into the Army back in '87 I joined a computer unit. One of the first thin
    • Haha, it's funny you mention the 2600, I just dug mine out the other day, complete with scores of busted controllers. My dad and I actually rebuilt some of the controllers with metal posts, instead of the "break me in half please" plastic posts. Those lasted a lot longer.

      -Jesse

  • The sad thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rAiNsT0rm ( 877553 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:39PM (#13382307) Homepage
    I have a videogame collection with close to 1000 original game carts and systems as well as thousands more in emulation. When younger kids/relatives come over they don't even know how to USE a NES/SNES let alone an Atari or the likes, but once I brief them they all love them. TAZ for Atari 2600 is one game that holds up so well it is amazing, or Warlords.

    The "roots" of gaming were FUN games, easy play, and great simple control. Gaming really needs to get back to its roots and stop trying to be the next multi-billion hollywood-like crap industry.

    Music has been turned artificial, movies have followed suit, I guess games are next. When people will wake up and stop accepting this crap is beyond me. People have no "soul" anymore, they want fluff with no real substance, typical disposable society.

    Ask a teenager to hum or whistle their favorite song... they can't do it because there is nothing but a catchy hook, it's empty. Same thing with games, they have tons of flash and glitz but no soul and it isn't getting any better.

    The only hope is that the Nintendo Revolution claims to simplify the controller so that even a mom can play, with this simplification of controller should force game developers to go back to THEIR roots and begin to produce fun and enjoyable games with some heart put into them.

    • Re:The sad thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TobyWong ( 168498 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:46PM (#13382379)
      Good games today are also fun, easy to play, with great simple control.

      These are the characteristics that separate the good games from the bad games.

      I was there in the beginning too but I don't subscribe to the notion that all modern games suck/are pure fluff. Due to the amazing properties of nostalgia you just happen to forget all the crappy old games which were no fun, had bad controls, and were frustrating to play.

      IMO, the majority of games past and present range from poor to mediocre but it's those few really good ones that make video gaming such an enjoyable pastime.

      • I respect what your saying but it is not nostalgia clouding my vision. I have been a game reviewer for a number of years and am well aware of the current state and I'm also aware of the vast amounts of crap games from yester-year.

        My problem is that very few games have a designers heart and soul behind them because the costs today are very high, so companies go with the "safe" games. Katamari Damacy is probably the last game I've played that had that old feeling of a single vision being brought to life with
        • There is a big difference between "good controls" and "simple controls". Good controls are intuitive, responsive, and well laid out. Simple controls are what you would find on a pac man machine.

          I have no interest in going back to the days of simple controls but I do recognize the importance of good controls. But like I said in my earlier post, good modern games also have good controls. If a small child can learn the controls to a game in minutes, you can't tell me they are too complex for human consum
      • Due to the amazing properties of nostalgia you just happen to forget all the crappy old games which were no fun, had bad controls, and were frustrating to play.

        Journey Escape [journey-tribute.com] anyone?

    • Re:The sad thing is... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by FLAGGR ( 800770 )
      Alright, you know all these things are relative? Who made you the sole decider of what has soul or not? I admit I hate most movies/music these days, but the crap:good ratio is about the same as 20 years ago, you just don't remember the crap, you remember the classics. Also, it appears that you've just got a hate-on for new stuff. Did you have to walk 15 miles, in snow, uphill both ways to school when you were a kid?

      I have an atari 2600 emulator on my xbox. I can't stand the majority of the games. I'm not a

      • Re:The sad thing is... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Egonis ( 155154 )
        The strange thing about memory is that we generally remember really good, or really bad.

        The best times in gaming as a child were when I had my Atari 2600, and then when I had my Sega Master System.

        Most of the games for both platforms SUCKED! But the good ones were very very good. Same goes for NES, there were alot of bad titles, but the good ones were really really good.

        Why would I play a game I don't like? I had like 60 cartridges for my Atari, and played *maybe* 6 of them... (Pitfall, Pitfall 2, Taz, Tapp
      • If your experience halts upon the screen's surface, you need a little coaching.

        Turn your attention to the interaction between screen elements (sprites) and their sounds. That's where the gameplay happens.

        (You might have to get a real 2600 for this to work properly, but it's easy now, with the 2600 & more available at Wal-Mart & such)

        The thing that makes new machines great - even the NES, is the incredibly simplistic graphics on the old systems. Inversely, the thing that makes the older systems *go

        • Re:Read between the scanlines: (Score:4, Insightful)

          by FLAGGR ( 800770 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @03:44PM (#13382927)
          Okay, there are two types of games as I see it. The games you're talking about, typical to the Atari, are "game games". Simple and fun. Personally, I tire of them quickly, but I know they mean something special for some people, and the more modern ones (examples you listed at the end) are actually quite awsome games.

          Then there are simulation games. Iw as just looking at a pic of MGS3 (not my cup of tea, but oh well.) It's trying to simulate the real world, stealth and AI as best as possible. Some people really enjoy this. Personally, a defining moment in my video game playing career was playing a used game I got at EB for $2, x-beyond the frontier. It's a space sim, with an economy where you trade crap, buy ships, blow shit up and build factories etc. Not like starcraft or anything, its a persistant universe, and fighting is done through the cockpit of a single ship, maybe using the AI commands to make your other ships attack with you. I remember, the first solar system you land in. The graphics were shit, let me tell you, pure shit. Some alien dudes are talking, the Taladi or something, but the voice acting is crap and you can't understand it. When your flying in the system, the first thing you notice is size. it takes like a minute to fly to the nearest station, as you watch it come closer and closer. The funny thing is, you could see the seams in space, like in the FAR off distance, where the level ended, everything was enclosed in a cube, with the stars textured on, but they did it badly so you could see the edges of the inside of the cube. (/me hands the dev's a tutorial on texturing and lighting) If you play it, and sit back and think about it, each sector, no matter how big it is, is actually small. Distances mean shit in computer graphics, since its all just empty space, so technically, in a sense, its easier to do "big" than small. For some reason though that didn't matter, because I felt like I was flying through space. The cool thing is, in space stations, you had to manually dock until you got the autopilot upgrade. Fly to fast, or not in a straight line, and boom your dead. The sequel X^2 is great too, great graphics.

          What am I trying to get at in this off topic post? The simple atari games dont appeal to me, that doesn't mean they don't have soul. If the new fangled first person shooter with a million polys per character doesn't appeal to you, it doesn't mean someone else doesn't, and doesn't mean it doesn't have soul in their perspecitve. It's all about what kind of emotional response you personally get, whether its a joy from the pure mechanics of the game, or immersion from the realistic setting.

    • Re:The sad thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by imsabbel ( 611519 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:58PM (#13382496)
      Well. I dont know what you are talking about.

      I downloaded some "all in one" rom package years ago, a few thousand nes roms. Sad thing was: 8 of 10 were crap.
      And only a few were those "gems" that make us believe back then everything was better.

      I dont think the great to crap ratio has dropped significantly the last 20 years...
      • I downloaded some "all in one" rom package years ago, a few thousand nes roms. Sad thing was: 8 of 10 were crap.

        That's because they were crap back in the days too. Keep in mind that "a few thousand" games is way more than anyone actually played back in the days... hundreds of those are just pirate games released in china and such (There were only around 600 or so domestic releases). Forget about GoodNES sets, look at the games that were actually popular releases and the ratio is much better.
        • I know. I know.

          But thats something nostalgia people often forget: If you only pick the best 50 or so games of the decade, they _will_ be great.
          Comparing with the latest shooter that didnt match the expectations and then crying "back then everything was better" just isnt correct.

      • You're both right! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by nobodyman ( 90587 )
        The arguments in the parent post and the, er.., "grandparent" are not really mutually exclusive. In fact, I'd say there's a lot of truth in both.

        On one hand, I think that the older generation of games tend to decry the games of today as being derivative, uncreative titles that focus more on technology and graphics than gameplay. I think that this is a nostalgic view that glosses over a mountain of crap. In fact, I'd argue that the ratio good/bad games has remained relatively constant. You had franchise
    • Ask a teenager to hum or whistle their favorite song...

      My teenaged niece's favorite song for the last couple of years has been Annie Lennox's "Into The West", from the ROTK soundtrack (IE: since it came out). Go on-- try and hum it. I dare you.

    • Ask a teenager to hum or whistle their favorite song

      Why bother asking? Just call them, and their cell ringtone will reveal the answer.
    • Apparently, there's something very good/special about the Revolution's controller, but thanks to the NDAs that Nintendo has forced its developers to sign, we don't know what. For example, Peter Molyneux made the following comment a couple days ago: "There is a line at the end of the book 'Game Over' and it is, 'Never underestimate Nintendo.' That is all I can say about the controller."
    • "People have no "soul" anymore, they want fluff with no real substance, typical disposable society."

      It's not that people dont have souls its that new ones are constantly born without an entertainment history, if you want to know why industries pump out the same stuff time and time again its because people dying and new people being born wipes the slate clean. They could be a game company that pumps out the same shit for decades and as long as newblood or blood that doesn't care or gets bored exists money w
    • Music has been turned artificial, movies have followed suit, I guess games are next.

      Ahh, yes, I too pine for the days when music and movies grew on trees.

      How did you get so old so fast?

    • Re:The sad thing is... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cowscows ( 103644 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @03:42PM (#13382911) Journal
      It's a little more complicated than that, but also not as bad as you make it sound. As games have gone more mainstream, like other forms of media, a lot of them have started to pander to the widest possible audience, in order to make more money. The focus has often times gone to graphics, because they've been easy to improve, the results can be immediately understood, and it's easy to advertise that sort of thing in magazines and whatnot. Gameplay is a much more subjective thing. While everyone can appreciate the progress being made in graphics, an evolution of gameplay that you enjoy may seem like a step backwards to me. And either way, good luck writing a satisfactory explanation of it on the back of the retail box.

      But like the movie and music industries, while a lot of the big name stuff has "gone hollywood". there's still plenty of people out there doing it cause they love it. Economic forces have relegated these independent outfits more to computers than consoles, but they're still there. Just like there's plenty of weird, experimental, and crazy indie music, there's lots of indie games out there. Sure, a lot of it's crap, but one of the side effects of innovating is that plenty of what you come up with doesn't work. You're not going to find these sorts of games sitting on the shelves at CompUSA, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

      The mass market is always going to pander to a lower common denominator. That's almost what the definition of what mass market is. And that's fine, because plenty of people want fluff. Occasionally I want fluff too, real life offers me plenty of substance somedays, and I generally try to view video games as a diversion, not another project for me to get emotionally involved in.

      There are plenty of good games being made. Some are simple, some are complex. Some are evolutionary, some are revolutionary. Some will appeal to only a few, others will appeal to millions. If you can't find games that you like, either you're not looking very hard, or your expectations have somehow gotten horribly skewed.

  • Know my roots? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zaren ( 204877 ) <fishrocket@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:39PM (#13382308) Journal
    I can still vividly recall playing Pac-Man and Scramble at the local roller rinks, and Donkey Kong and Defender at the front entrance of the local grocery store. I would scrape together all the change I could find just on the off chance my parents would let me hit the arcade at the mall, just to take a whack at Tempest or Spy Hunter.

    Space Invaders, Lunar Lander, Omega Race... Rush N' Attack, Yie Ar Kung-Fu, P.O.W.... Ladybug, Tapper, Mappy... yeah, I know my roots.

    And thanks to the joys of emulators, I can go back to my roots any time I want! :D
    • I'm trying to get back to my roots. I'm planning on building one of these [mini-itx.com] .

      I've been designing the software for it, and although I haven't had time to work on it for about a week, it's coming along nicely.

      Shameless plug: AFX [sf.net]

      I just need to think of a better way of describing what it is in the project summary.

  • Another Resource (Score:5, Interesting)

    by prairieson ( 150780 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:39PM (#13382311) Homepage
    And if you're in Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry [msichicago.org] has a great exhibit for a couple more weeks, "Game On". It's a hands-on exhibit and historical/cultural look at video games. From the Museum's website...

    "Forty years ago, video games didn't exist. The Nintendo Company made playing cards, Sony made black and white televisions and Sega imported instant photo booths. Families played games by rolling dice or dealing cards."

    Cool Exhibit!

  • spacewar at Sanders (Score:5, Interesting)

    by John_Sauter ( 595980 ) <John_Sauter@systemeyescomputerstore.com> on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:40PM (#13382322) Homepage
    I brought Steve Russell's Spacewar to Sanders in the early 1970s, and installed it on the PDP-1 in the basement. When Nintendo was contesting the Magnavox patents they couldn't find any evidence that Baer had seen or played Spacewar, but the possibility does exist, since they were in the same building at the same time. Does he say in his book whether or not he ever encountered Spacewar>
            John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)

  • don't forget, you're old (Score:5, Insightful)

    by frishack ( 662077 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:41PM (#13382332)
    Sadly, it's not just modern youngsters who are unaware of their technological roots

    Um, he's only a teenager, those are his roots.
    • He's a member of the human race, isn't he? His tech roots are everyones tech roots - the early developments in the 50s and 60s, not to mention Atari etc. which as everyone knows predated Nintendo.

    • Not just a teenager (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Gadgetfreak ( 97865 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @03:06PM (#13382576)
      I'm 25 (Born in 1980) The first game system I had was NES, in 1987. That is, I can't remember much before '86, and my parents didn't buy me Atari. So the NES really is the roots of my video gaming life. A teenager is probably beyond the original NES as far as roots go.

      I've spent the last 8 years moving back and forth from college and various apartments... and 2 weeks ago, I dug my original NES out of the box, hooked it up, and played Metroid. It really was a blast from the past. It's been 15 years since I played it.

      And if you really want a tribute to good ol' fashioned gossip and fan networks, think how fast the Justin Bailey code spread without the existene of the internet or BBS.

      Those are roots.

    • When I was a wee lad I had a friend with a near senile old grandfather - an ex-electronics tech with the Army. His routine was set - breakfast, go out into the garage and tinker with circuits, lunch, nap, more tinkering, supper, and then when the sun set - his self-built Heathkit HAM Radio.

      One fine day me and my buddy were happily playing 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' on his 2600 when the old man broke his routine enough to stick his head in and say, "Those things are just silly, really. Nothin' to 'em. Just a
  • Last year, at the PhillyClassic videogame event, I noticed a teenager wearing an ironic t-shirt. His shirt showed an original Nintendo controller and said 'Know your roots.'

    I hate to be picky*, but there's nothing wrong with that T-Shirt at all. It is not, as the reviewer implies, suggesting video games started with Nintendo, merely that the wearer's experience of video games started with the NES. Of course, without knowing the person wearing it there's no way to know if it's accurate or not, but you can't
    • I don't know about you, but I found that the controller implied more that the shirt-owner's roots were founded in video games... hardcore geekdom founded in games and other such things (perhaps NES being the first of such).

  • Another good read... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Commander Doofus ( 776923 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:44PM (#13382366)
    ...is J. C. Herz's Joystick Nation [amazon.com]. It was published in 1997 so is pretty dated by now but it's still a fun read about the history of video and arcade games.

  • Two essential websites (Score:5, Informative)

    by gosand ( 234100 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:45PM (#13382370)
    You need to visit these:

    www.klov.com [klov.com]

    www.vaps.org [vaps.org]

    There is nothing like classic video games and pinballs. MAME is great, but still can't capture it completely. I am glad I got to grow up during the great era of arcades.

    • There's another nice site I found here [arcade-history.com] to go along with your two.

      And damn straight about growing up during the era of arcades. It's damn near impossible to explain to the younger video game crowd the sheer wonder we felt as these now technologically antiquated games came out back when they were brand new.

  • Seriously what theh heck is wrong with saying your roots are in Nintendo? What I would take this shirt to imply would be that Nintendo were the ones who inovated video games largely back in the early ninties and late eighties. They made gaming incredibly fun, and that's where video gaming really started to take off. Contrast the fun early nintendo and super nintendo games with the crap that Sony is pushing no where most games sell because of pixelated breasts, blood, and by playing to the lowest common d
    • They made gaming incredibly fun, and that's where video gaming really started to take off.

      You've got to be kidding me. Not to demean Nintendo's achievements during their heyday, but video gaming had taken off before them. Arcade games had their heyday in the early 80's. You might say that Nintendo caused home video gaming to take off, but the Atari VCS was pretty popular back in the day. What Nintendo really did was resurrect an industry that people thought had died - still an impressive acheivement. T
  • I can't remember where I got it from (an online place) but I have a Roots shirt with an Atari controller on it. Bit better then the NES one and I'm fairly certain the NES one was a copy of the Atari shirt (I saw the NES one a few months after seeing the Atari one, but have never seen the atari shirt in stores.)

  • The Book is Wrong! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Evil W1zard ( 832703 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:48PM (#13382398) Journal
    Jeez everyone knows that video games were invented by Al Gore!

    Seriously though this story makes me think back on how much fun I used to have playing River Raid and PitFall (damn those alligators!)

  • Spacewar! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pigiron ( 104729 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:49PM (#13382410) Homepage
    Spacewar not a "real" game? What a crock! Here is Spacewar running on a PDP-11 emulator in a Java applet: :-) http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/sp acewar/ [mit.edu]
    • What Ralph Baer invented wasn't games that would play on a CRT, or even on a computer (all of his earlier games were built out of discrete electronics). What he invented was games that would play on a regular television set.

      Spacewar played on an oscilloscope, and to this day, very few households have oscilloscopes.

  • Children claiming credit they don't deserve. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kinglink ( 195330 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:49PM (#13382411)
    It sounds to me that it's one of those "I invented the Internet" deals.

    Sadly these guys were all beaten by a couple score of years by the table top gamers, and those beaten by centuries by Board games, and of course I'm sure there was cavemen who played "who can get hit the hardest" and they beat us all.

    This book does sound interesting but the first chapter probably will throw most people, why don't people just accept they aren't the FIRST. There's only one, and it's likely to be an unstandardized and oddball chose, rather then a standardized idea. VMS and Unix easily predates Dos, tnd There's smaller OSes before that too, IBM is one of the first developers of computers, but hardly the first. Babbage is considered the creator of computers, but I'm sure even he stood on the shoulders of giants (while he was a giant himself too.)

    I prefer my historians to be realistic, even if they do believe themselves to do great things, Carmack is a genius, and as long as he doesn't run around and say he single handly created the FPS (though he did a HELL of a lot for it) I'll applaud him, same thing with Gates admiting that he changed a fledgling OS into DOS, or helping to create Basic, no he didn't do it himself, but he did take a decent idea and make one of the first stardized "simplistic" programming languages.

    Basically I just wish all these programmers or creators would just admit that they arn't the only person in the industry, admit what they did for the industry, and not they to make their accomplishment the only one in the industry, but then to make that wish I'd have to forget about human nature, and sadly I can't so I guess I understand the reasoning for it, but the wish will stay in my heart even if it's never spoken.

  • Ironic? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jetekus ( 909605 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:55PM (#13382465)

    I can see why he thinks the t-shirt is ironic - the shirt doesn't depict the earliest known example of video gaming, but I don't agree with his judgement.

    If "roots" had to be the first known moment that a human did something (even if it was before your time), imagine the confusion. You couldn't say that your roots included MSDOS because the first computers did not run MSDOS. Would you have to say that the root was Babbage's mechanical computer, or would that be disqualified because it was never built?

    It's a nonsense. If the person first played on the NES then the t-shirt is perfectly sincere.

    • Re:Ironic? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by greymond ( 539980 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @03:13PM (#13382656) Homepage Journal
      I agree. And I'll add that the idea behind the "Root" shirt has nothing to do with the Atari or Pong of video games. Looking back over the last 20 years what was the first gaming console that made kids want stay in their homes for hours instead of going outside?

      The Nintendo (ok or Sega or NeoGeo if you were rich) The Atari was great and a lot of kids played it. But given the choice between playing Dodgeball back in 7th grade or playing Pitfall on the Atari - I'd pick Dodgeball in an instant. The Atari was great but it was played with on days when it was too rainy or snowy to go outside, and after an hour or two you'd get bored and want to do something else.

      Now the Nintendo...oh my...I didn't want to go outside because I could beat the crap out of my friends for hours in an NFL game or spend literally days exploring the worlds of FF and DW.

      My Nintendo is the "Root" of where I got my desire to play games. Not the Atari, Not the Commador64, Not my PC Jr.. Sorry those were all fun, but they didn't make me give up the outside world and make me spend 4-6 hours in front of them every night.

  • I love bringing out the old games (Score:5, Interesting)

    by filesiteguy ( 695431 ) <perfectreign@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @02:55PM (#13382467)

    As a senior project manager I am surrounded by 20-somethings who think that the world revolves around Halo and/or MechAssult...

    Every once in a while I like to fire up either MAME or Stella (Atari 2600 emulator) to show them "the old days". I usually bring out Galaxian or Pac Man or Night Driver or Pitfall...

    Oddly enough, some of these peeps have learned a bit and are enjoying using the emulators during break time.

    • I need to work for you! :O
    • strange, i am in fact a 20-something and i can only seem to enjoy these types of games. (along with Tetris of course)

      Just can't get into the 3D shooters that are popular these days. The last one I played in any sort of way more serious than a quick glance was Doom II, which was fun, but didn't really keep my attention for more than a few days. And I was .. hm.. 16, I think.

      Guess I'm more busy programming than gaming lately, but when I do it's usually something of the oldschool "arcade" variety, or SNES-s
    • Don't assume all 20 somethings haven't seen anything older than a nintendo. I'm in my late 20s and had an Atari 2600 while growing up. My grandparents actually owned an Odessey like was talked about in the review. Not to mention games like Pacman, defender, dig dug, etc... that we played at Pizza Huts, laundry mats or anywhere else where you had to sit for awhile.

  • Sung to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire" (Score:4, Funny)

    by Conspiracy_Of_Doves ( 236787 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @03:06PM (#13382581)
    "We Didn't Stop Atari" By Francisco Rangel

    (To the tune of We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel)

    Harry Potter, Pokemon, Tomb Raider, Digimon
    Monkey Island, Space Invaders, Super Mario
    Maniac Mansion, Zero Mission, Mortal Kombat, Pole Position
    Grand Theft Auto, Ninja Gaiden, Pong and Yu-gi-oh

    Megaman, Depth Bomb, Asteroids, Robotron
    Tetris, and Army Men, River Raid, and Suikoden
    Castlevania, Kirby, Demolition Derby
    Dragon Warrior, LEGO Racers, Yoshi's Island, Gauntlet

    I really miss Atari. From when I was younger, Now the games are longer
    So, I still play Nintendo. Like to keep it old-skool, 8-bit's always so cool

    South Park Rally, Harvest Moon, Jungle Hunt and Zoo Tycoon
    Double Dragon, Puyo Puyo, NBA Jam
    Duck Hunt, Tony Hawk, Chrono Trigger, Chuck Rock
    Q*Bert, Sonic, Worms, and Serious Sam

    Half-life, Max Payne, Zak McKraken, and Bloodrayne
    Onimusha, Sam and Max, Age of Empires, Golden Axe
    Home run, Outer Space, Prince of Persia, Death Race
    Alley Cat, Paperboy, Sinistar, SimCity

    I used to love my gameboy
    First they made it Color, Then they made is smaller
    My portable companion
    It has been enhanced now, So it's called "Advance" now

    Bomberman, Burning Fight, Killer Instinct, Gyromite
    Frogger, Basketball, Day of the Tentacle
    Solitaire, and Sim Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark
    Ice Climber, and Descent, and Unreal Tournament

    There's Street Fighter, Zaxxon, Duke Nukem, Mafia
    Need for Speed, Halo, Turok: Evolution
    Rampage, Deus Ex, and that BMXXX
    Metroid Prime and Fusion, Dance Dance Revolution

    Genesis made by Sega. 16 bits of power Made Nintendo cower
    They made Super Nintendo. Neither one was hated, Neither dominated

    Leisure Suit Larry, Project Gotham Racing
    Punchout, Zork, Doom, Zombies Ate My Neighbors
    Legend of Kyrandia, DOA Beach Volleyball
    Dig Dug, Nethack, Contra and Plaque Attack
    Zelda, Moon Patrol, Battlezone and Star Control
    Zero Wing, Baldur's Gate, FIFA Soccer 98

    The 3D Revolution. First we saw Playstation, Our infatuation
    N64 and Dreamcast. Came along to fight it, But they couldn't smite it

    Splinter Cell, Ms. Pac Man, Donkey Kong is back again
    Warcraft, Starcraft, Centipede, Xybots
    Pitfall, Pengo, Burger Time, 3D Castle Wolfenstein
    Ninja Turtles in Japan, Roger Wilco needs a tan.

    Hogan's Alley, Excitebike, Quest For Glory, Counter-strike
    Ultima, 7th Guest, Quake, Joust, Everquest
    Klax, Defender, Earthworm Jim, The Incredible Machine
    Final Fantasy, and Loom, I have no space in my room

    New consoles are arriving. GameCube, PS2, We've got Xbox,too
    New consoles will be coming. But when these are gone
    We will still play on and on and on and on...

    http://www.bbspot.com/News/2004/06/stop_atari.html [bbspot.com]

  • Romanticized? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by phorm ( 591458 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @03:07PM (#13382597) Journal
    How many other geeks out there find that the romanticized universes of games, books, and movies have affected their view of life and/or actions. For movies, this is to a lesser extent nowadays, as they are generally more sap and sex than anything.

    Various women have mentioned that I tend to have an old-fashioned flair for opening doors or genteel conversion. Most of these mannerisms I've probably picked up from books, some perhaps from games. Does anyone else find this to be the case?

  • Confusing (Score:4, Funny)

    by rlp ( 11898 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @03:08PM (#13382599)
    It's like a maze of twisty tunnels all alike.

  • Digging for Roots... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stanistani ( 808333 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @03:17PM (#13382687) Homepage Journal
    >His shirt showed an original Nintendo controller and said 'Know your roots.'

    Wish I still had my old t-shirt which showed the solution of a quadratic equation and had the same motto...

  • Roots (for me) of online gaming - BBS + MUDs (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SA3Steve ( 323565 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @03:17PM (#13382688)
    I still remember playing Trade Wars on local BBSs and Red Dragon as well. The fact that you could do things which impacted other player's games was amazing and I always remember dreading that I would log on and find that I was destroyed overnight.

    When I found MUDs (Medievia was my main one), I was in heaven. I was simply amazed at what we could do and how you could interact with other players in real time. It didn't matter that there weren't any graphics, it was just simply amazing.
  • Please, I built a PONG game because I got tired of plugging quarters into the machine at the bus station.

    Besides, for ultra-low-tech, try "Operation!" (Bzzzt).

  • Why he denied Tenis for 2 & Space War (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gameboyhippo ( 827141 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @03:36PM (#13382852) Journal
    It's obvious why he denied those two games as being videogames. It's because his company, Magnovox, had a patent on game consoles. As long as Magnovox held on to the patent, anybody wanting to make a game console would have to pay royalties.

    But of course, it is obvious that Tennis for Two and Space Wars are videogames. In fact, anybody who wants to play the origional Spacewar can do it here [mit.edu]
  • Every now and then I can find a kid (or a 20-year-old) who is shocked to discover that were video games in the "old days" (circa 1980s) when I was growing up. Sometimes I shock them by telling that mothers in my day actually kicked the kids out of the house to play out in the street during the summer because we had no video games. Kids these days...

  • Nintendo is the root (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Prien715 ( 251944 ) <(agnosticpope) (at) (gmail.com)> on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @04:03PM (#13383088) Journal
    While other console companies existed before Nintendo, they were largely unprofitable. Atari's abysmal failures in Pac-man and E.T. are just one example. In short, the entire console industry was about to be written off as just another fad. Nintendo's entry into the market was largely seen as suicide at best, according to many insiders. However, Nintendo did what Magnavox, Atari, and Colecovision could not: brought gaming into the mainstream and were comercially viable. To this day, some people call console gaming (regardless of platform) "playing Nintendo" just as some people call all sodas "coke".

    While gaming would've carried if Nintendo hadn't existed, it would've been mainly on the PC/Mac in my opinion. So while Nintendo was not the first console, it's the landmark console through which all modern consoles trace their roots.

  • Know your roots (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dghcasp ( 459766 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @06:26PM (#13384467)
    If he was really aware of his roots, his T-shirt would have shown an original Atari 2600 joystick, [google.ca] since that was the first mass market programmable videogame system.

    Know your roots indeed. Hmmm, I was born in Winnipeg, so my family's history must start there...

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