Browse Items (18 total)

Largely credited as the first automatic electronic digital computer and completed in 1937, the ABC (Atanasoff Berry Computer) was one of the first and largest milestones in the development of the computer as we know it today. This was created by Dr.…

The PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1), which launched in 1959, was the first mini-computer released to the public (albeit in small quantities). The company responsible for this, DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), had Benjamin Gurley, an engineer…

The beginning of the UNIVAC’s (Universal Automatic Computer) creation was in 1948, and not until 1951 was it sold to its first customer. Created by engineers John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, the UNIVAC was, essentially, an updated version of the…

This fair was meant to showcase what the future was supposed to look like, and among its many attractions, was the Nimatron, designed by nuclear physicist Edward Condon. The Nimatron was patented, then brought to the World Fair where any of the (over…

Nimrod, which is often said to be the first gaming computer, was brought to the public in the 1951 Festival of Britain. This twelve-by-nine-by-five foot behemoth, created by John Bennet, was heavily inspired by the previous Nimatron, and created for…

OXO was created in 1952 by British professor of computer science A. S. Douglas. It was a simulation of the popular game of tic-tac-toe (or noughts and crosses), and done as part of his thesis on human-computer interaction at the University of…

Created in 1958 by American physicist William Higinbotham, Tennis for Two was the first simulation of tennis on a (two-dimensional) digital screen via an oscilloscope. Though this game was received quite well locally, at Brookhaven National…

One of the first, and probably the most influential, early video games, Spacewar! landed in 1962 to be played on the mini-computer, PDP-1. It was created by a group of MIT students, including Steve Russel, Martin Graetez, Wayne Wiitanen, to name a…

The Magnavox Odyssey is largely accepted as the first video-game console to be commercially sold to the ordinary home. Initially, the concept was born in 1966 by Ralph H. Baer of (military contractor) Sanders Associates, and seven prototypes later…

The IBM Personal Computer (PC) was released in 1981 and created under the directorship of American engineer Don Estridge. It was not the first personal computer to be released, as the Altair (1974) and the 1977 Trinity (Apple II, PET 2001, and…

Handheld gaming was a staple in the gaming industry since its early beginnings, especially from the time of the Milton-Bradley Microvision in 1979 which allowed interchangeable games, as opposed to consoles stuck only with one. That said, Nintendo…

Credited as being the world’s first gaming laptop and created to ensure the prevention of the “death of PC gaming,” the Razer Blade was one of the most innovative creations of its time. Released in 2011 by Razer (one of the largest gaming hardware…

Essentially an updated and more successful version of Tennis for Two, the arcade version of Pong, created by Allan Alcorn and manufactured and released in 1972 by Atari Inc., truly kick-started the video game industry. It played with simple 2d…

The first version of Tetris dropped in 1984 by Russian computer engineer Alexey Pajitnov. Its concept was extremely simple, making it easy to pick up by children and adults alike (a feat in itself at this point in time). It was also a “simple to…

Designed by Akira Nishitani and Akira Yasuda and published by Capcom in 1991, Street Fighter II was easily the most influential game of its genre: fighting games. It wasn’t the first fighting game, but it was the first to provide more than one-two…

Though Doom, released in 1993 and created by John Romero and John Carmack, was not the first FPS (first-person shooter) game to come out, it was certainly one of the most important. Coming in between two other big FPS games—Wolfenstein and Quake—Doom…

Published in 2002 by Blizzard Entertainment, the hit high-fantasy RTS (real-time strategy) game Warcraft III might have been one of the most influential games in the history of the industry. It found the most successful MMORPG (massively multiplayer…