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 installed DEC PDP-1 minicomputer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After its initial creation, Spacewar! was expanded further by other students and employees of universities in the area, including Dan Edwards and Peter Samson. It was also spread to many of the few dozen installations of the PDP-1 computer, making Spacewar! the first known video game to be played at multiple computer installations.
Spacewar! on 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.
Front panel of a PDP-1, featuring paper punched tapes in a holder, a punched tape reader, and the computer's control panel
Steve Russell (computer scientist)
Stephen Russell, also nicknamed "Slug", is an American computer scientist most famous for creating Spacewar!, well known for being the first widely distributed video game.
Russell in 2011
Spacewar! on the Computer History Museum's PDP-1, 2007
