SPACEWAR!

	Spacewar Spacewar is based on one of the earliest known video games called Spacewar! Shoot the other spaceship, while avoiding the gravitational pull of the Sun and the Red Spaceship.		Spacewars Spacewar is based on one of the earliest known video games called Spacewar! In this two-player game, you shoot one another's spaceship while avoiding lasers and the gravitational pull of the Black Hole.
In 1961, MIT students Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen created the game Spacewar! on a DEC PDP-1 mini-computer which used a vector display system. Spacewar! was hardcoded onto computer chips using a very primative programming language called Assembly. Spacewar! featured real-world physics, involving thrust and the gravitational pull of the Sun. With the right thrust, players could actually use the Sun's gravitational pull to slingshot their spaceship. Spacewar! is considered the first Shooter game and could be played by two-players.  MIT hosted a design contest challenging students to clone Spacewar! onto a computer the size of a business card called the Arduino electronics platform. In 1971, Computer Space became the first coin-operated arcade game to be commercially sold.  Computer Space was created by Atari Co-Founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney.  Computer Space was based on Spacewar!, but used updated hardware, including a cabinet-mounted cathode ray tube television set, instead of the old vector display system. Computer Space was not a commercial success, however, it did launch the Video Game industry. Many of the Computer Space arcade cabinets were converted to run Atari's next game Pong (1972), which was a commercial success. In 1979, Atari introduced Astroids. Astroids was based on the game Spacewar!  Astroids became a huge commercial sucess. Like the game Spacewar!, Astroids featured a vector display system. Astroids has been featured on many game consoles and computer systems. In July of 2009, Universal Studios purchased the rights to adapt Astroids into a film.