Decisive

I’ve decided that the NIMROD was the first coputer to be used for fun and so Ferranti were the first people who decided to use a computer for fun, it was designed purposefully to play the game NIM and was the first computer designed to play a game; albeit if it was a bit of a light show.


Ferranti typically created defence electronics and power grid systems; they were around for over 90 years until they went bankrupt.


Alexander S. Douglas also used a computer for fun when he created ‘OXO’ for the EDSAC vacuum tube computer. According to record he wrote his PhD degree at Cambridge Uni on Human-Computer Interaction so I suppose you could argue that it was more of an experiment to him but it could have been fun.


Since ‘Tennis for Two’ was played on an oscilloscope; which is an electronic instrument I’m going to discount it.


Steve Russell or ‘Slug’ created Spacewar! for the PDP-1 and I consider this to be significant because it gained widespread recognition pretty quickly and it also influenced a number of video games, in fact I remember playing a similar style flash game about a year ago.



It was Pirates of the Caribbean themed and the idea was to avoid the Krakken squid-thing and the vortex in the centre while paddling around in your boat shooting at ships and rescuing people.



Russell’s field was in computer science and apparently developed the ‘Lisp’ programming language; exciting stuff!


It’s very difficult for me to remember the first game I ever played because I never showed interest in them until I was 14 years old.


Memories of the arcade motorbike games are still happy ones in my mind; even if my legs were too short to reach the floor.


I think I was around 7 or 8 when I first got a Gameboy Pocket because the Gameboy Colour had just been released. I got Super Mario Land 1 & 2 which held my interest for awhile.
At some point my brother gave me a PlayStation, with games like Spyro, Croc and Metal Gear Solid but all I wanted to play was Disney’s Tarzan (weird I know).


But the one game that finally got me interested and hooked was Final Fantasy VII and then the RPG genre.


My genres have broadened over the years but I still love a good story based game so my most recent play was Phoenix Wright: Trials & Tribulations and yes it’s quirky but its crime stories with the interactive element, my match made in heaven.


Til next time.