Apathy Curve: Tennis for Two

<body><script type="text/javascript"> function setAttributeOnload(object, attribute, val) { if(window.addEventListener) { window.addEventListener('load', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }, false); } else { window.attachEvent('onload', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }); } } </script> <div id="navbar-iframe-container"></div> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> gapi.load("gapi.iframes:gapi.iframes.style.bubble", function() { if (gapi.iframes && gapi.iframes.getContext) { gapi.iframes.getContext().openChild({ url: 'https://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID\x3d9924031\x26blogName\x3dApathy+Curve\x26publishMode\x3dPUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT\x26navbarType\x3dBLUE\x26layoutType\x3dCLASSIC\x26searchRoot\x3dhttps://apathycurve.blogspot.com/search\x26blogLocale\x3den\x26v\x3d2\x26homepageUrl\x3dhttp://apathycurve.blogspot.com/\x26vt\x3d-8459845989649682690', where: document.getElementById("navbar-iframe-container"), id: "navbar-iframe", messageHandlersFilter: gapi.iframes.CROSS_ORIGIN_IFRAMES_FILTER, messageHandlers: { 'blogger-ping': function() {} } }); } }); </script>

Friday, October 24, 2008

Tennis for Two

A team at Brookhaven National Laboratory has re-created the first video game.

Since no vacuum tubes were available to rebuild the original version's computer, the team had to re-create the 1958 game with micro-circuits... which led to an interesting problem:

[The] newfangled chips don’t tolerate the big voltage spikes generated by the game’s operation as well as the old-school analog computer, and they kept blowing out. Takacs and his colleagues had to put protective circuits in to keep them from being destroyed.

Vacuum Tubes: The REAL MAN'S Computer Component.

0 Comments: