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Spacewar!, written in 1962 by Steve Russell and his friends on MIT's PDP-1 computer, let two players steer spaceships around a star and shoot at each other. It is one of the earliest and most influential video games.

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The story behind the card

The idea came in 1961 from three friends, Steve Russell, Martin Graetz and Wayne Wiitanen, who loved science fiction such as E. E. Smith's Lensman novels. Russell wrote most of the code and had a playable game by February 1962. Others added to it: Peter Samson wrote a scrolling map of the real night sky, Dan Edwards gave the star gravity that pulled the ships in, and Bob Saunders built hand-held control boxes. The PDP-1 cost about 120,000 dollars and only 53 were sold, but the game was copied from lab to lab, and the maker, DEC, reportedly used it to test new machines. Nolan Bushnell, who later co-founded Atari, turned the idea into Computer Space (1971), one of the first coin-operated video games. In 2007 Spacewar! was named on a list of the ten most important video games ever made.

Türkçe oku
Spacewar!, Steve Russell ve arkadaşlarının 1962'de MIT'deki PDP-1 bilgisayarında yazdığı bir oyundu: İki oyuncu, bir yıldızın çevresinde uzay gemilerini yönetip birbirine ateş ediyordu. Bugün en eski ve en etkili video oyunlarından biri sayılır.

Fikir 1961'de üç arkadaştan çıktı: Steve Russell, Martin Graetz ve Wayne Wiitanen. Üçü de E. E. Smith'in Lensman romanları gibi bilimkurgu kitaplarının hayranıydı. Kodun çoğunu Russell yazdı; Şubat 1962'de oynanabilir bir sürüm hazırdı. Başkaları da oyuna bir şeyler kattı: Peter Samson arka plana gerçek gece gökyüzünün yavaşça kayan bir haritasını ekledi, Dan Edwards yıldıza gemileri kendine çeken bir çekim gücü verdi, Bob Saunders da elde tutulan kumanda kutuları yaptı. PDP-1'in fiyatı yaklaşık 120.000 dolardı ve yalnızca 53 tane satıldı; ama oyun laboratuvardan laboratuvara kopyalanarak yayıldı. Anlatılana göre üretici DEC, yeni makineleri denemek için bile onu kullanıyordu. Sonradan Atari'nin kurucularından olacak Nolan Bushnell, fikri 1971'de ilk jetonlu video oyunlarından Computer Space'e dönüştürdü. Spacewar! 2007'de tarihin en önemli on video oyunu listesine alındı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Spacewar!
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