PDP-1
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The PDP-1 is the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1959. It is known for being the most important computer in the creation of hacker culture at the
PDP-1 exhibit at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California
A System Building Block, seen end-on
System Building Blocks 1103 hex-inverter card
PDP-1 System Building Block #4106, circa 1963, with a US quarter – note that one transistor (yellow) has been replaced
Spacewar!
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Spacewar! is a space combat video game developed in 1962 by Steve Russell in collaboration with Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen, Bob Saunders, Steve Piner, and others. It was written for the newly insta
PDP-1
…of Technology, Bolt, Beranek and Newman, and elsewhere. The PDP-1 is the original hardware for one of the first video games, Steve Russell's 1962 game Spacewar!. The PDP-1 uses an 18-bit word size and has 4096 words as standard main memory (equivalent in bit size to 9,216 eight-bit bytes, but in character size…
Spacewar! on a DEC Type 30 display connected to a PDP-1
Steve Russell, designer and main programmer of the initial version of Spacewar!, with a PDP-1 in 2007
Picture of gameplay of Spacewar! on a PDP-1. The moving spaceships and missiles leave trails behind them because the phosphors in the CRT monitor slowly fade after being lit.
Spacewar controllers built in 1972 by Robert Saunders, similar to the original ones from MIT