First Video Game Invented in 1947!

[stjr]

For those who think everything we see today was just invented yesterday, consider the following obituary of Dr. Thomas T. Goldsmith, 1947 patent holder for the first video game!

Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr., a pioneer of television technology who with his boss, Allen B. DuMont, and others in the nascent industry perfected the cathode ray tube that eventually let little wooden boxes with grainy black-and-white screens bring moving images into millions of homes, died on March 5 at his home in Lacey, Wash. He was 99.....

......DuMont Television Network closed in 1955, partly because of a decline in sales of DuMont television sets, which had supported it. Five years later, the laboratory merged with Fairchild Camera.

The financial difficulties of the DuMont enterprises kept Dr. Goldsmith from making his mark in what decades later would be a booming industry. In 1947, he received patent No. 2,455,992 for a video game that allowed a player to shoot down an image of an airplane with a beam aimed at the screen.

“Here was an honored engineer in the television industry who worked for an undercapitalized company,” Dr. Magoun said. “Here is an interactive television video game in 1947 that the company simply could not afford to take further, beyond the patent.”

Full New York Times obituary of Thomas T. Goldsmith at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/arts/television/15goldsmith.html?_r=1

[Jason]

Now that is impressive!

[obie1]

Guess I need to go further back than pacman to be playing something old school. Table tennis with two bars and a dot was a lot less complicated than shooting down an airplane so this is news to me.

[Jason]

Speaking of video games.  For Christmas I received one of those plug-and-play video game controllers that just plug right into the tv.  It has 3 of the old-school arcade style Pacman games, Galaga, and Dig Dug on it.  I'll tell you what, I have killed countless hours raking up high scores in Pacman and the "system" only cost about $15!!!

[BridgeTroll]

Does it have Centipede?  I have wasted countless hours and quarters on that great game...

[Jason]

No centipede.  But I've killed some time playing that one as well.