IEEE Annals of the History of Computing

The collection of articles in this volume takes the history of computer games seriously. The topics run the gamut from early computer games to recent game platforms. View full abstract»

The earliest digital games emerged out of laboratories and research centers in the 1960s and 1970s. The intertwined histories of Nolan Bushnell's Computer Space and Pong illustrate the transition from these "university games" to accessible entertainment and educational games as well as the complicated historical relationship among the arcade, computer, and videogames. View full abstract»

Since the 1950s, digital games in Finland have bridged gaps between professional users and the public as well as institutional and domestic environments. The early significance of Finland's 1970s and 1980s computer games hobbyist and hacker cultures is still evident: clear connections exist between the country's rich history of such subcultures and its modern international success in multimedia an... View full abstract»

Videogame developers have utilized many types of display technology, from oscilloscopes to Teletypes to high-definition LCD displays. Two significant early display technologies, raster scan and random scan CRTs, played a significant part in the history and evolution of videogames. A study of these technologies shows how the choice of one or the other, and the need to port games between the two, in... View full abstract»

The Danish computer company Regnecentralen developed a computer version of Piet Hein's game Nimbi, a variant of the ancient game Nim, in 1962 and 1963. Piet Hein envisioned computers playing against humans, while Regnecentralen hoped Nimbi would illustrate the potential of computers to the public. Although technologically successful, Nimbi never fulfilled its promise due to hardware constraints an... View full abstract»

Much of what modern digital rights management (DRM) systems attempt to accomplish was actually forcefully implemented on videogame consoles beginning with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and SEGA Genesis system in the early 1980s. Examining the links between modern DRM mechanisms and these early production and copy protection systems can help contextualize the future of media production an... View full abstract»

We are unconstrained by the shackles of decades of prior scholarship and find ourselves with an abundance of relevant, important topic areas for which there is high demand. We are fortunate that our focus lies on a moving technological area that constantly presents us with new material for research. Moreover, the history of computing is a foundational field for even newer, hotter fields of inquiry... View full abstract»