-
Clcik here
Physicist Willy Higinbotham invents the first "video game" at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. His game, a table tennis-like game, was played on an oscilloscope. -
click here
Steve Russell, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), creates Spacewar, the first interactive computer game. It runs on a Digital PDP-1 mainframe computer, and the graphics are made up of ASCII text characters. -
click here
Atari introduces its first cartridge-based home video system called the Video Computer System which later becomes known as the Atari 2600. It retails for $249.95. -
click here
The trackball makes its entrance into the video-game industry as the controller in Atari's new arcade game Football. -
click here
Defender, the first game incorporating a "virtual world" is introduced. The game uses a "radar" scope at the top of the screen to inform users of the surroundings since the screen is too small to display all of the action. -
click here
Atari releases the Atari 5200 to compete with Coleco's Colecovision. -
click here
The Commodore 64 is introduced. It is the most powerful video-game console to date and the least expensive. -
click here
Nintendo introduces the Famicom in Japan—later known as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in the U.S. Since Atari controls such a large percentage of the market, they do not plan to market the product in the U.S. Instead the company offers Atari the rights to distribute the product in the U.S. These plans fall through and Americans do not see Nintendo until 1985.
