History of Video Games - The First GAMING Ever Made?

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History of Video Games - The First GAMING Ever Made?

As a devoted retro-gamer, for a while I've been particularly interested in the history of video games. To be more specific, a topic that I am very passionate about is "That was the first gaming available?"... So, I started an exhaustive investigation with this subject (and making this article the initial one in some articles that may cover at length all gambling history).

The question was: Which was the first video game ever made?

The solution: Well, as a lot of things in life, there is absolutely no easy response to that question. This will depend all on your own definition of the word "gaming". For example: When you talk about "the first video game", can you mean the first video game that was commercially-made, or the first console game, or maybe the initial digitally programmed game? Due to this, I made a list of 4-5 video games that in one way or another were the beginners of the gambling industry. You will notice that the first video gaming were not made up of the thought of getting any profit from them (back in those decades there is no Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Sega, Atari, or any video game company around). Actually, the sole notion of a "gaming" or an electronic device which was only made for "doing offers and having a great time" was above the imagination of over 99% of the population back in days past. But because of this small band of geniuses who walked the first steps into the gambling revolution, we're able to enjoy several hours of fun and entertainment today (keeping aside the creation of millions of jobs during the past four or five 5 decades). Without further ado, here I present the "first gaming nominees":

1940s: Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device

That is considered (with official documentation) because the first electronic game device available. It was developed by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann. The game was assembled in the 1940s and submitted for an US Patent in January 1947. The patent was granted December 1948, which also helps it be the initial electronic game device to ever get a patent (US Patent 2,455,992). As described in the patent, it was an analog circuit device with an array of knobs used to go a dot that appeared in the cathode ray tube display. This game was inspired by how missiles appeared in WWII radars, and the object of the game was simply controlling a "missile" so that you can hit a target. In the 1940s it had been extremely difficult (for not saying impossible) to show graphics in a Cathode Ray Tube display. Because of this, only the actual "missile" appeared on the display. The prospective and any graphics were showed on screen overlays manually placed on the display screen.  lido88 's been said by many that Atari's famous gaming "Missile Command" was made following this gaming device.

1951: NIMROD

NIMROD was the name of a digital computer device from the 50s decade. The creators of this computer were the engineers of an UK-based company under the name Ferranti, with the idea of displaying the device at the 1951 Festival of Britain (and later it had been also showed in Berlin).

NIM is really a two-player numerical game of strategy, which is believed to come originally from the ancient China. The rules of NIM are easy: There are a certain number of groups (or "heaps"), and each group contains a certain number of objects (a standard starting array of NIM is 3 heaps containing 3, 4, and 5 objects respectively). Each player take turns removing objects from the heaps, but all removed objects must be from a single heap and a minumum of one object is removed.  lido88  to take the final object from the last heap loses, however there exists a variation of the game where in fact the player to take the last object of the last heap wins.