History of Video Games !!

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History of Video Games !!

• From the Magnavox to the XBox

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Magnavox Odyssey
Magnavox Odyssey was designed by Ralph Baer, Bill
Harrison and Bill Rusch of Sanders Associates, a
military electronics firm in 1966-67. It was
introduced in 1972 at a price of 100. Because
micro chips were so expensive at that time, the
Odyssey was designed using only 40 transistors
and 40 diodes. Odyssey was able to generate only
very simple on-screen effects and the players had
to keep score by themselves, because the machine
was incapable of doing so. Odyssey was packaged
with screen overlays (to be placed on the TV
screen to simulate complex graphics), two
controllers, six game cards, play money, playing
cards, a roulette and football playfield, a
fold-out scoreboard, poker chips and a pair of
dice. It wasn't a successful game.
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Atari 2600
Atari 2600, also known as Atari Video Computer
System (VCS), was designed by Joe Decure, Harold
Lee, and Steve Meyer. It was released in 1977 at
introductory price of 199.95. It was the most
popular videogame console of its day and it was
available until 1990, being on the market longer
than any other system in history. Several hundred
games were developed for it. It featured an 8-bit
CPU, MOS 6507 _at_ 1.19 MHz, 16 color graphics, 2
channel audio (noise and sound). It only had 128
bytes of RAM memory and no video memory (CPU had
control the video chip with screen refresh). The
games were supplied in ROM cartridge, with the
maximum size of 4 kilobytes. Later-on the limit
of 4 kB was exceeded with paging ROM pages
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Atari 2600 Games
Pong Was So Fun
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Coleco Colecovision
Coleco released the Colecovision in 1982 at
199.95. It had 48 Kbytes of RAM and 3.58 MHz,
8-bit, Z80A CPU making it the most highpowered
home system of its time
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Atari 5200
Atari released the 5200 SuperSystem in 1982. It
was basically an Atari 400 home computer without
a keyboard. It had 1.78, 8-bit, 6502C CPU and 16
Kbytes of RAM. It was capable of 320x192
resolution with 16 colors from 256 color palette
and it 4-channel sound. It was the first system
to come equipped with 4 controller ports for
multi-player games. Despite that it had much
better hardware than the Atari 2600, it never
became the success Atari expected. Cheap home
computers started to gain market from video games
in the beginning of the 80's and it took too much
time before quality game titles were developed to
Atari 5200.
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Nintendo Entertainment System
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TETRIS WAS SO ADDICTING!!!!!!
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Sega Genesis
Sega noticed that great games sold systems, so it
took elements from its 16-bit arcade machines and
produced the Mega-Drive in 1989. In America the
machine was called Genesis, and it retailed for
199. It had 16-bit CPU and 72 kbytes RAM in
addition to 64 Kbytes video RAM. The graphics
were capable of 320224 to 320x448 (NTSC)
resolution and 61 simultaneous colors from a
palette of 512 colors and 80 sprites. It had 10
sound channels and Z80 was used as an audio
processor.
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Super Nintendo
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Sega Saturn
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Sony Playstation
The launch of PlayStation was the culmination of
a long-term plan to take a lead in the burgeoning
videogames market. In 1988 Sony had entered into
a arrangement with Nintendo to develop a CD-ROM
drive for the 16bit Super Famicom, a console that
was due on the market in 18 months time. The
technology that was responsible for this deal was
Sony's and Philips CD-ROM/XA, an extension of the
CD-ROM format that combines compressed audio,
visual and computer data, allowing all to be
accessed simultaneously with the aid of extra
hardware. Sony also had plans to develop another
Nintendo compatible machine, a self-contained
entertainment system that would play both SFC
cartridges and a new CD format designed and
solely licensed by Sony. Called SuperDisc this
proprietary format would also form the basis of
Nintendo's own CD-ROM drive - PlayStation was
born!
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Nintendo 64
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Sony Playstation 2
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Nintendo Gamecube
The Gamecube was issued only two years after the
Playstation 2 and uses A 433 mhz console. It
plays tiny cds to run the games from, instead of
the Old cartridges.
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Microsoft XBox
In March 2000, rumors that Microsoft was
developing a game console were confirmed when
Gates took the wraps off the Xbox demo unit. In
January 2001, the demo model, a big chrome "X"
with a green-glowing light in the middle, was
replaced by a more traditional black box. As
analysts predicted, the only part of the demo
model to make it into the final design is the
glowing green light on top of the box. The
sidewinder controller pad used with the demo unit
was also altered for the final Xbox design. 
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Internet Sites to thankwww.nintendo.comwww.ga
mespot.com/gamespot/features/video/hov/http//w
ww.us.playstation.com/peripherals.aspx
www.atariage.com/software_search.html?SystemID26
00 www.tripletsandus.com/80s/80s_games/nesgames.
htm ign64.ign.com www.cyberiapc.com/vgg/sega_s
aturn.htm
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goliath.frostburg.edu/nkarkosh0/XBox20History.htm
www.starpulse.com/Video_Games/GameCube/History
/ Song by Inhumanz- Black Sabbath Vs. Nas
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BY

• Paul Heyne