The video game in your solitude
Cambridge, 1952. Alexander S. Computer Professor “Sandy” Douglas (1921-2010) prepared a doctoral thesis on the interaction between computers and humans. It needed a practical example of demonstrating its assumptions and had the right tool to do so. At the time, there were only two computers capable of running electronic programs in the world: the first program was run in 1948, near the SSEM (Small Scale Experminetal Machine), at the University of Manchester. The other, EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator), had it at home at Cambridge University. The machine occupying the entire room gave Douglas the opportunity to explain his thesis through a practical model.
The computer computer chose a simple and familiar game to program: In the United Kingdom it is called Noughts and Crosses (zeros and crosses), in the United States Tic-Tac-Toe and in our Three or Three Shepherd Games. It gave it the name of OXO, because of the symbols that are used in the game. Following the contents of his thesis, the game did not allow competition between two human beings; man had to play against the machine. The game table was a 35x16 pixel cathode ray tube, so it can be said that the Douglas game was the first graphic video game that used the digital graphic screen.
There were previous attempts. 1947 Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann created the first interactive electronic game. It was a missile simulator based on the radars used in World War II. But he used analogue circuits and to represent the objectives of the missiles used overlapping screens, as digital graphics were not yet available.
In 1950, Claude Shannon designed his first chess program and published his contents in Philosophical Magazine. But the program stayed in design, it never took place.
Therefore, it is difficult to pinpoint where the first milestone of video games is, and many use OXO digital graphics as a criterion for granting the title of the first video game. However, the belief that the first one was Pong is widespread. Atari launched the ping-pong based game in 1972. It was a first-generation game of video consoles, the first one that had a great commercial success. Surely that is why he is usually given a title that does not correspond to him.
Twenty years earlier, OXO had no commercial success. That was not their goal and it was not possible. The program couldn't be commercialized because there was only one or two computers capable of using it in the world.
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