You haven’t played it old school until you’ve played it on an oscilloscope!

Most poeple when asked about the early computer games, myself included, would have probablly mentioned Pong as the game that started it all. And they would be on the right track. Although fourteen years before pong there was Tennis for two, a side on view of a tennis court using an oscilloscope screen.

evil mad scientist has painstakenly recreated Tennis For Two, using modern electronics and has documented the processes used with lots of pictures, diagrams and a youtube video.

The year is 1958 (and to pluck a few reandom events from Wikipedia) Sputnik 1 falls to Earth from its orbit, the US Army inducts Elvis Presley and the Academy Award for Best Picture goes to The Bridge on the River Kwai. A physicist named William Higinbotham working for Brookhaven National Laboratory decided that in preperation for the BNL visitor’s open day to design and exhibit an electronic version of Tennis.

The idea was to try and improve an otherwise dreary visitor’s day at the BNL labs, As Higinbotham later said about the event ”it might liven up the place to have a game that people could play, and which would convey the message that our scientific endeavors have relevance for society.” 

The project took Higinbotham and his team several week to complete, which is no mean feat considering the technology available in 1958. Recreating the game using modern circuitry was not easy either, with any out of date parts replaced with more modern components. The video was made to illustrate how to recreate to project for any competent hobbyist.

 For more information about this project, or any other evil mad projects vist evil mad scientist 

Source laughing squid