History of Video Games: The Early Years (1940-1972)

In this series I will be covering the history of video games from the 1940's to the present day. This will be a fairly massive undertaking divided into several parts as there is a lot to cover, especially later as the video game industry begins to grow into the juggernaut it is today. In this first article we will look at the early years of video games, from the 1940's up to the first home console in the early 1970's.

The earliest examples of video game-like machines can be traced all the way back to the year 1940 and the New York World Fair. Nuclear scientist Edward U. Condon designed an early relay based computer that could be used to play the mathematics game Nim. Its impact on the overall development of video games is quite insignificant, but it is one of the earliest examples of a video game-like device ever created. It would be several years before anything similar would appear again.

Interestingly, it would be the technological developments that took place during the Second World War that would enable the development of early electronic video games. However, it would still take some years for electronic games to be publicly shown to audiences. In 1948 Alan Turing and David Champernowne developed the earliest known computer game called Turochamp, a chess simulation game. Unfortunately the game was never actually implemented on a computer as it was too complex for the machines of the time.

The first electronic game to be shown to public was a game called Bertie The Brain, which was made for the Canadian National Exhibition in 1950. Despite its rather unusual name, the game was actually an electronic version of tic-tac-toe. While it is difficult to say what is actually the first ever video game, Bertie The Brain is one of the prime candidates for that specific distinction. It is possibly the first example of an electronic game with a visual display showing the game.

Despite the game's significance in the early development of video games it was dismantled after the exhibition and never shown again in any capacity. While it had been very popular during the public showing, games like it were still considered novelties at best, so there was no interest in preserving it afterwards. As a result it was largely forgotten and overlooked in the history of video games for a very long time...

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