Tennis For Two - The second ever computer game

*** BACKGROUND MUSIC INFO IS BELOW! *** PLEASE READ THE COPYRIGHT INFORMATION BELOW ***

Way back in 1958, William Higinbotham invented Tennis For Two to liven up visitor day at Brookhaven National Laboratory, his workplace. The game uses an oscilloscope with two control pads. It remained largely unknown until 1981 when a lawyer trying to break Magnavox's patent for video games came across writings talking about the game.

Blueprints of it were found to predate Magnavox's game, the case was settled out of court, and the game found fame as the second ever invented, since it was later predated by A.S. Douglas' 'OXO' game from 1952.

The video is sourced from Brookhaven National Laboratory, a governmental institution, and as such, the video is in public domain. Peacespeakers' music is released under a Creative Commons license. You can see a video of theirs here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YaBkugRBmQ

*** Whilst the components of this video are free, this video itself is not. You should not re-upload this video verbatim anywhere, especially with no attribution. Whilst I've had many people do this, a few have been kind enough to message and ask to display the video somewhere off YouTube, which in most cases is fine. All I ask is that you ask ***

Edit: I've been asked quite a few times what music this is. It's 'To Find Our Freedom' by Peacespeakers, from the album 'Message From Planet Earth'. Their web page can also be found here:

http://www.sojusrecords.com/artists/peacespeakers.html

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• video
• game
• games
• tennis
• for
• two
• oscilloscope
• science
• laboratory
• oxo
• first
• electronics

[Mankemacho]

It's not a video game due to no video signals being used. It is however an electronic game though.

[dancraggs]

@Mankemacho Just because it doesn't correspond to the current interpretation of line-by-line scanning doesn't mean it's not an image reconstructed, frame-by-frame, from a signal being fed to the oscilloscope.

[moezbadboy]

still better than mw3 :)

[kimhanh96]

why this video make me smile :)

[buhshmuh]

@FrozenSolid90 Cool! Thanks for clearing that up, even if it was 40 years ago i would be just as impressed! one day i wish to play this, seems real magical to me, video games have always been my passion!

[KevinR1138]

Indeed, what in your opinion IS the "First" video game then? You never said.

[FrozenSolid90]

@buhshmuh According to info I've found, it was made October 1958, so it's closer to 50 at 53

[FrozenSolid90]

Oh you think your fancy graphics are cool, well screw you, you get an oscilloscope!

[Theadventureofoliver]

@Turddrive xox d:

[Turddrive]

What was the first game then?

[chubbystudi0s]

@Zweihander11 yea: TENNIS but single player only

[MrHerecomesjohnny]

why can't i see any PADS to hit the ball???

[MattTheSaiyan]

This is a proto-computer game from the era of Buddy Holly and Finned Cars. Cool.