[game_preservation] National Game Registry Blog

[Martin Goldberg]

Devin -

I'm not sure what you mean by "discovery", it was known all along to
people in the electronics/display field.  Ralph even cited it in his
initial patent.

The 1947 patent is not for any sort of video game, which is something
attributed to it in an almost urban legend manner.

The cathode ray tube amusement device is simply a patent for using a
cathode ray tube as part of a game mechanism - in the literal
mechanical sense.  The device is an analog electromechanical (EM) game
to which the CRT is more an interchangeable aspect in the device as a
whole.  You basically have a CRT with some paper targets affixed to
the screen.  The player uses controls to manually move the dot created
by the CRT beam (like an etch-a-sketch or a manual vector CRT) to
"hit" the targets.  The control gears are designed to make it
challenging to accurately move the dot on the screen, and "collision"
with the paper targets is detected mechanically (like any EM game).
Because everything is done mechanically (range of motion of the beam
gun to detect predetermined positions of the paper targets), the
device could have just as easily substituted a flashlight and cloth
screen in the mechanism and had the same result.  I.E. the presence of
the CRT is more of a novelty for appearance of a glowing dot.

Ralph cited it because it represents an almost primordial attempt at
having a person interact with a CRT.


Marty


On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 4:39 PM, Devin Monnens <dmonnens at gmail.com> wrote:

> Marty,

> What was the story behind the discovery of the 1947 patent? It's referenced

> a lot these days, but who discovered it and how did that discovery come

> about?

> -Devin

>

> On Fri, Dec 25, 2009 at 8:14 PM, Martin Goldberg <wgungfu at gmail.com> wrote:

>>

>> Devin, considering the recent talk about mainframe games and games on

>> systems like Plato, I forgot Digibarn has some of the Alto's game

>> material up.

>>

>> http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/xerox-alto/

>>

>> http://www.digibarn.com/collections/books/xerox-parc-1970-80/alto-article/index.html

>>

>>

>> Marty

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>

>

>

> --

> Devin Monnens

> www.deserthat.com

>

> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>

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