So consoles were born (from points to kinz: generation 1)

Good afternoon or evening, or morning, or what do you have there. With you … I, and I want to tell you what a story. I would like to trace the path of the console industry from two dots traveling along the screen to soap kinz. It will be a long story, we start.

Although we are going to talk about the history of the consoles, I will hook a little beginning, then where it all started. Let’s quickly run around the rudiment of the gaming industry. We lower all this crap about playing cards and all kinds of chess algorithms for computers. So, after chess began to work normally on computers, all kinds of text games began to come out. And you won’t believe it was even a text basketball simulator. At that time, almost all games were released in Basic software

Meanwhile, one engineer from Loral Ralph Bayer in 1951 thought about the interactiveness of television. That is, the consoles from their very rudiment moved to Kinets … And now many scold them for it

Something like that. He said that we will quickly run up and run. We are going to talk about consoles here. So it’s time to move on to them

1972
Magnavox Odyssey

It all starts with a person named Ralph Bayer. He worked in the company for the production of televisions. He worked, he worked, he worked in his mind, this often happens when you develop a TV: “And what if you could not just watch TV, but control the process on the screen”. Not immediately, but by 1966, Bayer introduced his boss Brown Box which looks like … Brown box.

There was only one game on it, two points were displayed on the screen. And the players should have been chasing each other with the help of a fairly bulky controller. Only 16 pieces were made. Be that Bayer brought the box to the court to his superiors. The authorities approved the whole case and gave financial support for production. While Bayer in the sweat of his face improved and finalized his console, the bosses began to look for a company that would release the console into mass production. After many nerves and companies, they still managed to conclude an agreement with Magnovox, and Bayer had already completed work on the improved Brown Box, which had changed so much that it was given a new name, in 1972 the first home game console Magnovox Odyssey entered the market.

Magnavox Odyssey

Odyssey The first console that went to the masses. Although about the “Masses” the question is controversial. At all times, people were very skeptical of something conceptually new. Plus fig advertising and rumor that Odyssey worked only on TVs from Magnovox, although Magnovox claimed that it works on absolutely all TVs. In general, all this, coupled with the inability to play alone, that is, you want to play Odyssey, but you were abandoned by all the people in the world, then all in Odyssey cannot be played. All this led to the fact that the console was poorly sold, and its production was touched in 1975.

What is this console? There is nothing fitzdarescasino.co.uk special in the internal. And this, you will not believe, its main feature. There is no microprocessor here. Everything is completely from transistors and resistors. The console was included … cartridges? Yes, cartridges were supplied with the console, but these are not the same cartridges in our understanding, that is, there were no programs and games on these cartridges. Games have already been recorded in the system itself, and these cartridges were a set of jumpers that included the right game. In principle, with the same success, they could use the handle of switching games. Actually, in the subsequent consoles of the first generation, they did so.

Since the console did not have microprocessors, it did not have a graphics. In the literal sense, all that was a black screen with two points that players could drive along the screen. You could have a question: “And that’s all? And how to play it then?”. Complete with the console, along with cartridges/jumper, there were overlays on the TV screen, as well as all sorts of chips and other crap for games. Odyssey games were as much as 11 pieces, and the games were very diverse. We have tennis, and football, and hockey, and a house with bringing, and playing a cat mouse. In general, you understand. Bayer tried to get ahead of his time, but as we know, you will hurry and … well, yes.
By the way, about the number of games, there were 11 cartridges in total, but the last cartridge has number 12. How so? There is no 11th cartridge. Whether it existed someday we are unlikely to find out.
Console design … cool. He looks half a diplomat with a slot for a cartridge. The gamepads are very large, well … compared to late gambades. We have: two handles for moving the point on vertical and horizontal well, as well as the Reset button, as well as another small disk. Why is he needed, I still did not understand.

First console the first light gun. Well, like a pistol, rather a gun. Damn, but you can even reload it! Completely with a gun were 9 and 10 cartridges
Such was Magnavox Odyssey. First and underestimated, revolutionary and strange. But still she was the first. This was a bold idea of ​​a person who did not live up to expectations. Unfortunately, Odyssey did not become the console that launched an entire industry, but it is impossible to underestimate its contribution to the entertainment industry in principle. If it weren’t for it, Atari would probably not have been lucky in the field of home systems. And since I started talking about atari that is the time to go further. The real beginning and the dawn of the console industry awaits us is waiting for us PONG.

1975
Atari pong

In 1972, Atari looked at Odyssey, and specifically at tennis and decided “Why not we can develop this idea and create an arcade machine, but there will only be a ping-pong, but we will develop it to unprecedented heights”. I certainly invented everything now and in reality it was not so. But who now finds out how everything was really there.

Pong comes out in the same year, and he suddenly becomes a successful and tears off the unknown cash register. Atari is pleased, Magnovox is indignant. Well, still. Take only one game as a basis with Odyssey, and even fuck success. In 1973, Atari thought to transfer Pong to the houses of people, to do something like Odysseus.

Engineers worked in the sweat of the face and so by 1975 she was completed. But they were in no hurry to let it out. Sluggish sales, and then the cessation of the production of Odyssey, forced Atari to postpone with the exit, but by Christmas they still release it, but still fearing for sales, they release it under the brand of Tele-Games from SEARS. Despite all the fears, the console quickly went to the masses. Still, now people could play Pong not somewhere there, but at home. People lined up in long lines to get this miracle. It did not require any overhead layers on the TV, it did not require chips and other garbage. Stick and play. It was a success and next year the console began to go out under the ATARI brand. But despite success, it lasted in the market for only 2 years. There are several reasons for this. Hard competition, by that time all kinds of good good were in abundance. And by that time it began to recruit a second generation of home game systems.

What Pong was? Well … pong. Two sticks moved up and down and beat off the square, which was the idea of ​​the ball. It is advisable to play in your own, but if you are the most lonely person on earth, then you can also in one. By the way, controllers, my tongue simply does not turn to call them gamepads, have all the deprivation of one pen that turns and … all are built into the console itself, which makes pong console that brings people together.

For those 2 years that Pong spent on the shelves of the store, many of her modifications were released, but did not change. It was all the same pong either in color or black and white.

That’s all I can say about pong. So simple and so popular. It was she who gave impetus to the development of the entire gaming industry, because she gave rise to so many clones ..

In fact, all other first -generation consoles are pong’s clones. Something was available, something is not very, but one thing is clear. Without pong, everything would end in 1975 on Odyssey’e.

1975-1976
The rest is junk

As I wrote above all the other first -generation consoles – these are pong’s clones, okay not everything was so bad. Some representatives were more accessible than others. Some are more diverse. I am now hesitating them now, otherwise this article will stretch on 10 more paragraphs, so I hid all the consoles under the spoiler below.

Airmaster
Tournament 1000
APF TV Fun
Wonder Wizard
Tandy TV Scoreboard
Colorsport VII
Ricochet
Four-Way Videogame
Magnavox Odyssey 100-4000
Nintendo Color TV Game
Volley VI
Coleco Telstar

Some consoles had more than one game, although in fact they were various variations of Pong. Some had external modifications, for example, the same Magnovox began to stamp the pong console simply in packs and on some of them it was possible to move sticks in completely different directions and not just up and the bottom, which greatly diversified the gameplay. Some could be played by the four. Some were convenient to use, some in order to play them to have a scientist, and some just strange.

If you summarize everything that I spoke about today, then everything, practically, the first generation can be described by the following words: Pong, even if it is not the same, but this does not change the essence, the absence of microprocessors, no cartridges, absolutely simple graphics, somewhere it was not at all. In general, it is possible to characterize the first generation of video game systems. Odyssey is strongly knocked out of all this “diversity”. She was an experiment that was not quite successful, and only Atari felt for how to make the console correctly and justice for the sake of, they will continue to do it.

On this with the first generation everything. Next time we will talk about microprocessors and about games on cartridges, as well as about how almost all polymers were sprinkled

So far and good luck.

Please take into account that such a post is my first job, and I did a video of this kind in the first. Write in the comments what needs to be corrected and what to fix in the future