[PLUG-TALK] SpaceWar is back! Rebuilding the world’s first gaming computer
Rich Shepard
rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Thu Jun 6 15:44:20 UTC 2024
On Thu, 6 Jun 2024, Galen Seitz wrote:
> A large team of tech nostalgia enthusiasts have made a PiDP-10, a replica of
> the PDP-10 mainframe computer first launched by the Digital Equipment
> Corporation in 1966
For ancient gaming compters there's also PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching
Operations) at the University of Illinois (Champagne/Urbana campus; likely
the Chicago campus, too.)
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system)>
While it was used for teaching, it also had the multi-user Air War game. I
played it while there in 1972-1976. Many of us grad students played it a
lot, until the university told us to play after 10:00 PM weekdays and all
day weekends. My young son really liked playing it with me on weekends.
There were two teams and when you logged into the game (on a plasma screen
monitor which really killed eyeballs after an hour or so) you were
automatically assiged to a team. Everyone flew F-15s and had control over
fuel and weapons loads as each affected flight time (so did use of
afterburners.) It didn't take long to learn that planes of the opposite team
would often fly circles over an enemy's airport and wait for a plane to
start down the runway for takeoff so they could kill it on the ground.
Before taking off I'd scan the skys above; if there were enemy planes there
I'll log off the game.
It was quite addictive since it simulated real flight in a fighter jet. Yet,
that's the only computer game I've ever played.
Rich
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