the history of video games

http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/video/hov/

By Leonard Herman, Jer Horwitz, Steve Kent, and Skyler Miller

In 1949, a young engineer named Ralph Baer was given an assignment to
build a television set. He wasn't supposed to build just any television
set, but one that would be the absolute best of all televisions. This
was not a problem for Baer, but he wanted to go beyond his original
assignment and incorporate（包含，加上，吸收）

some kind of game into the set. He didn't
know exactly what kind of game he had in mind, but it didn't really
matter because his managers nixed
（被禁止的）
the idea. It would take another 18
years for his idea to become a reality, and by that time there would be
other people to share in the glory
（光榮，榮譽）
, like Willy Higinbotham
(威利·海金博塞姆)
, who
designed an interactive tennis game played on an oscilloscope
（示波鏡）[註：指《雙人網球》（Tennis for 2）]
, and
Steve Russell

(史蒂夫·拉塞爾)

, who programmed a rudimentary
（基本的，初步的） space game on a DEC PDP-1
mainframe computer
（大型電腦）
. And then there was also Nolan Bushnell

(諾蘭·布希納爾)
,

who played
that space game and dreamed of a time when fairground
（露天遊樂場）
midways
（中途，半路）
would be
filled with games powered by computers.

Today, with interest in classic games gaining

steam
(蒸氣)
once again, players
of video games are reminded of the rich history of the industry.
Crave's Asteroids
（《行星撞擊》）
64 is a modern version of a game that came out in
1979. And the original Asteroids was merely an updated version of Nolan
Bushnell
's Computer Space
, which was really a jazzed-up
（使活潑） copy of Steve
Russell
's Spacewar. Space Invaders
(

《太空入侵者》)
, Centipede, Frogger, and Pong
（《乒乓》） are
once again on store shelves, and Pong is but a polished
（精緻的，優雅的） variant
（變體）
of the
game Willie Higinbotham
displayed on his oscilloscope.

The history of video games is not just about people. It's also about
companies and ironies
. Atari
（ 雅達利）
was an American company with a Japanese
name, and the Japanese company Sega
(世嘉)
was started by an American.
Magnavox
（美樂華）
, the company that started it all, is owned by Phillips
（飛利浦）
, a
company that is over a century old, and Nintendo
（任天堂）
, the company that made
video games popular again, is just as old. And who would have ever
thought Sony, the company that invented all types of electronics, from
transistor radios
（晶體管收音機）
to video recorders
（錄影機）
, would release a video game
console
（視頻遊戲控制台）
that would become its top-selling product of all time?

In today's world, where video games are often cited
（引用，舉例）
as a source for
teenage violence, it's interesting to see that the first home console（控制台）
also had a light
rifle
（步槍）
as an optional peripheral
（外設）
.

The world of video games continues to evolve. By reading about the past, perhaps you'll also get a glimpse of the future.