Tennis for Two

Posted by Miss Cellania in Toy & Video Games, Video Clips on May 31, 2008 at 12:05 am



(YouTube link)

You might think that videogames began with Pong, but here’s one that dates back fifty years!

Way back in 1958, William Higinbotham invented Tennis For Two to liven up visitor day at Brookhaven National Laboratory, his workplace. The game uses an oscilloscope with two control pads. It remained largely unknown until 1981 when a lawyer trying to break Magnavox’s patent for video games came across writings talking about the game.

Blueprints of it were found to predate Magnavox’s game, the case was settled out of court, and the game found fame as the second ever invented, since it was later predated by A.S. Douglas’ ‘OXO’ game from 1952.

The music is “To Find Our Freedom” from The Peacekeepers Peacespeakers. -via Grow-A-Brain




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COMMENT

11 comments to "Tennis for Two"

  1. tf
    May 31st, 2008 at 1:14 am

    I think it’s Peacespeakers and yes i’d love to be playing that game right now.

  2. Miss Cellania
    May 31st, 2008 at 1:18 am

    Hey, you’re right! They misspelled it at the YouTube site. I’ll correct that now. Thanks!

  3. Jmp478
    May 31st, 2008 at 2:51 am

    Funny how this video is more interesting than the one on TV.
    Two guys talking about pong on an oscilloscope is somehow more boring than two guys playing it set to music.

  4. Shervin
    May 31st, 2008 at 3:17 am

    Irrelevant post: When do you find out about the Tokyo Flash watch competition?

  5. Eugenio Martínez Sierra
    May 31st, 2008 at 5:33 am

    Ey, good physics.

  6. davideo70
    May 31st, 2008 at 8:53 am

    I call Fake, Not in a anoying blog trol kind of way but i think the physics are way too advanced. If i’m wrong my respect, but the speed and elegance doesn’t seem 1958 at all.

  7. Marc Forrester
    May 31st, 2008 at 10:18 am

    Davideo - that’s dedicated analog hardware circuitry, not maths on processors. It could have been built at any time past 1900AD.

  8. Christophe
    May 31st, 2008 at 11:25 am

    I wish I could go back in 58, show them the wii tennis and see their faces ;)

  9. CheeseDuck
    May 31st, 2008 at 4:12 pm

    Pong was based off of Tennis for Two.

  10. DOJ
    May 31st, 2008 at 5:19 pm

    like many things, it’s interesting, but the background music makes it watchable

  11. Evil Pundit
    May 31st, 2008 at 11:45 pm

    Presumably this is a later reconstruction of the device, because the two LEDs clearly visible in the circuitry didn’t exist in 1958.


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