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'''Tennis for Two''' was a game developed in 1958 on an oscilloscope which simulated a game of tennis or ping pong. Created by American physicist William Higinbotham, it was based on analog, rather than digital computing. The game is important in the history of video games as one of the first electronic games to use a graphical display.
Higinbotham created ''Tennis for Two'' to cure the boredom of visitors to Brookhaven National Laboratory, in which he worked. ''Tennis for Two'' was a predecessor of ''Pong'', one of the most widely recognized video games as well as one of the first, though there was no direct correlation between the two. ''Tennis for Two'' was only brought out twice, on "Visitor's Day" at the power plant. As such, it remained virtually unheard of until the late 1970s and early 1980s when Higinbotham was called on to testify in court cases for defendants against Magnavox and Ralph Baer. Unlike ''Pong'' and similar early games, ''Tennis for Two'' shows a simplified tennis court from the side instead of a top-down perspective, with no representation of the player on the screen. The ball is affected by gravity and must be played over the net. The game was controlled by an analog computer and "consisted mostly of resistors, capacitors and relays, but where fast switching was needed – when the ball was in play – transistor switches were used.

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External links

External links

★ Tennis for Two video on YouTube.

★ Streaming video of the original Tennis for Two.

★ Page from Brookhaven National Laboratory showing the game

★ Brookhaven History - The First Video Game. Includes a video of the game.

★ Tennis For Two simulator available for download.

★ The Dot Eaters entry on Tennis for Two and creator Willy Higinbotham

★ Who Really Invented The Video Game?