Spacewar!

Spacewar! is a two-player space-combat video game created at MIT in 1962 for the PDP-1. Its real-time play and shared-screen controls helped establish conventions for computer games.

PDP-1: The Digital Equipment Corporation minicomputer on which Spacewar! was developed and played. Its display and computing power made the game possible.
MIT: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The university’s Tech Model Railroad Club supplied the community in which the game took shape.
Computer game: A game whose rules and state are processed by a computer. Spacewar! became an influential early example of this form.
Spacewar! at the Computer History Museum: A playable reconstruction of Spacewar! exhibited by the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. It preserves the game as an experience on PDP-1-style hardware.
Cathode-ray tube: An electronic display that forms images by directing an electron beam onto a phosphorescent screen. The PDP-1’s screen drew the ships and moving stars as luminous lines.
Tech Model Railroad Club: An MIT student club known for elaborate model railroads and an early hacker culture. Its members’ playful technical experimentation helped inspire Spacewar!.
PDP-1 user group: A community of PDP-1 users who exchanged programs, technical knowledge, and software. Its members copied and adapted Spacewar! across institutions.
PDP-1 restoration: The restoration of a PDP-1 computer to working condition by the Computer History Museum and collaborators. A restored machine made authentic demonstrations of Spacewar! possible.
Newtonian mechanics: The classical description of motion in terms of forces, mass, and acceleration. Ship inertia made movement persist after thrust stopped.
Steve Russell: Steve Russell was an MIT programmer who led the initial development of Spacewar!. He wrote the first playable version in 1962.

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