The history of computer games – from text to DirectX

Ever since the birth of the home computer, people have wanted to play games on their PCs.

The patent for the first game using a CRT monitor was filed in 1947.

When the first DEC PDP-1 mainframe was delivered to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1961 it took staff just months to write a shooter called Spacewar.

But it was the boom in home-computer ownership in the 1970s that saw games take off. Since then designers have developed code that uses computing power to the fullest and have been pivotal in the development of hardware, such as sound and graphics cards.

Today the industry is worth billions and the population of online gaming communities outnumbers that of some nation states.

Modern professional gamers are at the cutting edge of computer hardware and gaming machines are used to design the new generation of mainstream computers.

1970s and 1980s

The early years
When home computers began to rise in popularity during the late 1970s, the public was already used to playing electronic games. The video arcade boom had seen a generation grow up playing games, and consoles using Rom cartridges were becoming a feature in many homes.

The first computer games were built primarily by university staff and students because they had easy access to computers. They were mostly text adventures with no graphics.

However, before long the first 3D maze game, Mazewar, was created, which also became the earliest example of a first-person shooter (FPS) after a combat system was added.

University systems were increasingly networked, so the sector also gave us the first multi-user dungeon (Mud) games. These were played by a limited number of people navigating an imaginary landscape using text commands but they also allowed participants to talk to one another.

It was mainly the work of hobbyists that led to these games being played on standalone computers. They either shared games among themselves or distributed them via magazines such as Creating Computing, which printed out the source code for others to input and play.

But games design was hampered by a plethora of platforms and limited hardware capabilities. The Apple II, considered powerful for its time, lacked a sound chip, so used an innovative software hack to vibrate the speaker at different frequencies to simulate notes, for example.

Data transfer was another problem, with most computers storing software on cassette tape that was limited to between 500 and 2,000bits/sec and required careful sound control to work. Although 5.25in floppy drives were available at this time, they were primarily for business use.

Living colour
Colour was also pivotal. In arcade games, it was provided by coloured stencils across the screen but in 1979, the first true colour game, Galaxian, arrived -– though colour games had yet to reach computers.

But in 1982 things changed, with the launch of the Commodore 64 in the US and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in Europe. The powerful Commodore and inexpensive ZX Spectrum dominated the games market for the next few years.

The Commodore 64 was built using a graphics controller that had been designed for a games console and was capable of displaying 16 colours, bitmapping and screen scrolling.