GAMING-RELATED DEVELOPMENT IN BOLD
1960
- Edsger W. Dijkstra and Jaap A. Zonneveld produce the first (X1) implementation of the ALGOL 60 programming language.
- John McCarthy of MIT publishes LISP, the second-oldest programming language in widespread use today behind only Fortran, developed by IBM in 1957. LISP became a program of choice for the development of artificial intelligence applications.
- IBM programmer John Burgeson develops first computer baseball simulation.
1961
- Raytheon Corporation creates global Cold War conflict simulation for American Joint Chiefs; recreated as a more accessible analog version called Grand Strategy.
1962
- Spacewar! created by MIT student Steve Russell
1963
- The computer language, BASIC, developed at Dartmouth College.
- US Defense Department completes STAGE (Simulation of Total Atomic Global Exchange), a computer war game that showed the US winning the Cold War
1964
- John George Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz run the first program created in BASIC (Beginners’ All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), an easy to learn high level programming language that will eventually be included on many computers and even some games consoles.
- PL/I(Programming Language I), a block-structured computer language, is created by George Radin while at IBM.
1965
- A day after Dartmouth beats Princeton in the Ivy League football championship a Dartmouth undergraduate programs the first computer football game !
- Niklaus Wirth develops the dynamically-typed programming language, Euler.
1966
- Martin Richards designs the BCPL programming language.
- Ralph H. Baer of defense contractor Sanders Associates predicts TV gaming
1967
- Baer creates Brown Box prototype, and patents an interactive TV game the following year.
1968
1969
1970
- Scientific American publishes a cell-simulation math game called LIFE.
1971
- The Oregon Trail western expansion (Missouri to the Willamette Valley) game is created by Carleton college students using the BASIC computer language and distributed by the Minnesota Educational Computer Consortium; the game is still played and popular
1972
- The first commercial home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, is released. Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn of the Atari Corporation release PONG, an arcade table tennis game.
1973
- Computer magazine publisher David Ahl writes 101 BASIC Computer Games, including HMRABI where players command ancient Sumerian kings !
1974
- Maze Wars uses wire-frame graphics to simulate 3D environments, creating a labyrinth of passages in the first-ever first-person shooter game
1975
- William Gates and Paul Allen form a company in Albuquerque called Micro Soft to develop and sell BASIC interpreter software for the Altair 8800.
- Atari releases its home version of PONG; with no partners in the toy business, Nolan Bushnell sells the console through the Sears Roebuck sporting goods department