Computer Space
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| Computer Space | |
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| Developer(s) | Nutting Associates |
| Publisher(s) | Nutting Associates |
| Designer(s) | Nolan Bushnell |
| Release date(s) |  November, 1971 |
| Genre(s) | multi-directional shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player or 2 player |
| Platform(s) | Arcade |
| Input | 4 buttons |
| Arcade cabinet | Unique design |
| Arcade display | Horizontal, raster, standard resolution, 15-inches |
Computer Space is a video arcade game released in November, 1971 by Nutting Associates. Created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, who would both later found Atari, it is generally accepted that it was the world's first commercially sold coin-operated video game — and indeed, the first commercially sold video game of any kind, predating the Magnavox Odyssey by six months, and Atari's Pong by one full year. However, at least one non-commercial coin-operated video game predates it (see "Trivia", below).
The player controls a rocket ship and must evade enemy fire from a pair of flying saucers using a thruster and a pair of rotational buttons. The player can try to destroy the flying saucers by firing missiles at them from the rocket ship. Today, the game would be considered a multi-directional shooter.
The saucers moved in tandem. There were at least 2 places on the screen where the rocket could hide and not be hit by the saucers.
If, at the end of 90 seconds, your score was higher than the saucers, you would get another 90 seconds of play. The screen inverted color (black became white and the converse) and play would continue. If at the end of this second 90 seconds your score was still larger than that of the saucers, you received another 90 seconds and the colors would revert to normal.
This sequence of normal space to hyper space and back repeated as long as your score stayed ahead of the saucers at the end of each 90 second play period.
The key was that the score was a single digit that went from zero to nine. The next hit would return the score to 0. So, if the play period was nearing its end and the saucers had a score greater than yours, you placed yourself so that every shot they made would score and their total would go back to zero. If the score was close, but you were ahead, you would go to one of the hiding places and wait out the rest of the period.
As the Videotopia exhibition points out, previous efforts in bringing the experience of Spacewar! to a mass market were centered on the minicomputer paradigm of the college campuses where it originated - that of a central computer distributing software to various remote terminals. Computer Space was innovative for establishing the basic form of all arcade games to come - that of a dedicated computing device built to play only that one game.
Computer Space was the first widely available video and arcade game, although it was not a success. For many, the gameplay was too complicated to grasp quickly. While it fared well on college campuses, it was not very popular in bars and other venues. Bushnell later recruited Al Alcorn and created a sensation with the much easier to grasp Pong arcade game modeled on Ralph Baer's Magnavox Odyssey home system's Tennis game.
Separate cabinets were produced for either single player games or two player games in various colors.
[edit] Technical
Computer Space utilizes no microprocessor, RAM or ROM. The entire computer system is a state machine made of discrete 74 series TTL logic elements. Graphic elements are held in diode arrays. Physical configuration is made up of 3 PCBs interconnected through a common bus. Display is rendered on a General Electric 15" black-and-white portable television vacuum tube set specially modified for Computer Space.
[edit] Trivia
- Computer Space appeared in the 1973 science fiction films Soylent Green & Sleeper and the 1975 film Jaws.
- Computer Space was not, in actuality, the first coin-operated video game ever made. It was preceded by two months by Galaxy Game, a game installed in a coffee shop at Stanford University. Only one example was built, but it remained a popular fixture at the shop for many years.
- Computer Space was cloned/bootleged in 1972 by a game company called For-Play as Star Trek [1]
- A blue Computer Space arcade unit was seen in the original set for the television program The Electric Playground.
