Spacewar!
1962 · Space Combat · DEC PDP-1
Overview
Spacewar! is one of the most influential early computer games, developed in 1962 by students at MIT on a DEC PDP-1 mainframe. Two players pilot spaceships — the needle and the wedge — around a central star with realistic gravitational pull, firing torpedoes at each other. The game spread rapidly among research institutions and universities as PDP-1 computers were shared and the code freely copied. It is widely regarded as the first widely-played and widely-influential computer game, directly inspiring an entire generation of developers and game designers.
Deep Dive
Spacewar! was created by Steve Russell and his colleagues at MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club. The game featured a realistic starfield background, gravity simulation from a central star that could slingshot ships if used cleverly, and the option to enter hyperspace — a risky random teleport used as a last resort. The MIT hackers kept adding features: Dan Edwards added the gravity star, and Peter Samson contributed an accurate star map of the night sky. By the mid-1960s, Spacewar! was installed on nearly every PDP-1 computer in the United States. In 1972, Nolan Bushnell directly credited it as inspiration for the first commercial arcade game, Computer Space. It is regularly cited as one of the ten most important computer programs ever written.
