Games · 1970
Dawn of Mainframe Gaming and Arcade Foundations
In 1970, the interactive entertainment industry was quietly taking shape on university mainframes and inside electromechanical arcade workshops. Innovators laid the crucial technical and legal groundwork that would birth commercial video games.
- 1970 | SDS Sigma 7 | Mainframe
Star Trek Mainframe Game
Mike Mayfield programmed a text-based space strategy game in BASIC that quickly spread across university mainframes nationwide.
- 1970 | PDP-10 | Text Sports Sim
Don Daglow's Baseball
College student Don Daglow coded one of the earliest interactive sports games on a PDP-10 mainframe at Pomona College.
- October 1970 | Simulation | Article
Conway's Game of Life
Martin Gardner introduced John Conway's cellular automaton in Scientific American, mesmerizing programmers who implemented it on computers everywhere.
- 1970 | Arcade | Electromechanical
Sega Jet Rocket
Sega released an innovative electromechanical flight combat arcade game featuring realistic controls and a projected 3D landscape.
- 1970 | Hardware Deal | USA
Magnavox Licenses the Brown Box
Sanders Associates reached a agreement with Magnavox to commercialize Ralph Baer's TV game prototype into the first home console.
- 1970 | Hardware R&D | USA
Computer Space Prototyping
Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney began engineering custom digital circuits in a makeshift home workshop to build an arcade video game.
- 1970 | Arcade | Electromechanical
Chicago Coin Motorcycle
Chicago Coin scored a popular arcade hit with an electromechanical racing game featuring projected roadways and handlebar controls.
- 1970 | Hardware | Networked System
PLATO IV Terminal Design
Engineers designed the orange plasma-screen PLATO IV terminal, creating the networked platform that would soon host early online multiplayer games.
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