The Spacewar Saga
Now that they've put Einstein's
original notes online, it's time to put the original publication
chronicling the birth of Spacewar, possibly the first interactive
computer graphics game. As it turns out, the Kaleberg Archives include
not only the original CACM birth of Unix paper, but the original
Spacewar paper as well. This later, as it turns out, was published in
the men's magazine Saga. That's right, Saga. You can read the article here.
The closest thing we have to magazines like Saga today are things like
Maxim, which are much more mainstream and focused on celebrities. In
the post-WWII era, magazines like Saga were always a bit less than
respectable. They took UFOs seriously, and they ran surprisingly
reasonable political commentary. There is a magazine called Saga around
today; it's published in the UK
and has the tagline Saga - Providing
high quality services for people 50 and Over. This is not the kind
of magazine that deals with emerging video games.
Take a look at the
table of contents and you'll see the stories
in the November 1972 issue, including the one announcing the birth of
the video game industry:
- Jackie Stewart - Grand Prix Super-Driver [celebrity]
- Hunting Africa's Cape Buffalo - With Bow and Arrow! [adventure]
- Uncle Sam's Universal Shafting of Viet Vets [politics]
- Mexico's Phantom Flying Saucer [science]
- American Indian Wars of 1972! [politics]
- Berkeley, California: Test Tube for Democracy - or Anarchy
[politics]
- Spacewar! [science]
- Anthony Quinn - "You Never Forget Pain, Poverty and Hatred"
[celebrity]
- Vicki Peters [celebrity]
- Aquabatics on Skis [adventure]
Interestingly, the author of the Spacewar article, Joseph Goodavage,
might still be around as well. He's apparently built up a reputation as
an astrologer.
So, without further ado, set your wayback machine to November 1972, and
say hello to a new way to waste your time, welcome Spacewar.
