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Video games are 40 years old

Before we even had Pong and Space Invaders...
Written by Tony Hallett, Contributor

Before we even had Pong and Space Invaders...

It is 40 years since the birth of what is widely credited as the first video game, since students at MIT created an Asteroids-like program called Spacewar.

Of course games have come a long way since then, with the birth of consoles from Nintendo, Sega, Sony and now even Microsoft, not to mention all the titles for programmable platforms such as the PC.

The MIT team were interested in using a powerful DEC computer for something, well, different and programmed their original space fighting game using punch cards.

We recently reminisced about a generation of platforms and games only half as old, as the links below testify.

Click the links below for a trip down memory lane
Technologies That Time Forgot: The ZX Spectrum
Technologies That Time Forgot: The BBC Micro
Technologies That Time Forgot: The Acorn Electron
Technologies Time Forgot: The Vic-20 and the Commodore 64
Technologies That Time Forgot: The Dragon 32

Or to take a look at what Spacewar looked like, click here.

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