27 May
2014
27 May
'14
4:30 a.m.
Thank you to everyone who has responded so far.
Let me clarify a little - Marty and I are looking for a list of computers
from about 1971 and earlier (1977 at the latest, but
the real focus is on
the 1960s) that had the capability of playing Spacewar.
We've had reports
of a few different machines running it, but obviously there are going to be
a lot of gaps in oral history. Having a list of machines with displays
(CRT, vector, or other) would help identify where some of those gaps might
be.
Here are all the machines we've had reports of Spacewar on them:
1. PDP-1
2. PDP-4
3. PDP-6
4. PDP-7
5. PDP-8 (probably text-based version)
6. PDP-10
7. PDP-11
8. LINC-8
9. DEC-10
10. HP59825 desktop calculator
11. 544 ARTW/Trajectory Division
12. PLATO
13. DDP-224
14. IBM System/360 (IBM 2250 Model 1 display) or 2250-4 (a 2250/1130
Model 4)
15. CDC-3100
16. Data General NOVA
17. IMLAC PDS-1
18. Virtual Machine Facility/370 (VM/370)
Note some of these have multiple versions created in different locations
independently.
1972 is a key date because that's when PLATO went on the ARPANET, and
software could be more widely distributed. This was also the first year
that Spacewar was written for a home computer in BYTE Magazine. 1977 was
the release of the arcade version and publication of a version for the
Altair 8080.
Want to clarify that we're not looking for home computer releases, unless
maybe you have examples earlier than 1977.
On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 05:08:41PM +0100, Dave wrote:
If you are talking 1960's I think the real answer is "not much". I
There was quite a bit actually. The LINC, LINC-8, PDP-1 and
PDP-12 all had vector displays. There was also an add-on for the
original PDP-8 and PDP-6, display 340 or something like that.
These are all DEC of course, Martin might be interested in the
TX-0 from MIT unless it's out of scope.
/P