From Atomic Bombs to Table Tennis: The Birth of Video Games

What do the electronic systems that were used to arm and deploy the atomic bombs during World War II and the first video game ever made have in common? They were both created by William Higinbotham. Now, what do I have in common with video games? We were both born on Long Island.

William Higinbotham received his undergraduate degree in physics from Williams College. He then began pursuing a PhD in physics from Cornell, but left in 1943 to work at Los Alamos Nation National Laboratory. He served as the head of the electronics division of the Manhattan Project from 1943 to 1945, before taking a position at Brookhaven National Laboratory, (“BNL”) located in Upton New York, in 1947. While at BNL, Higinbotham’s focus was the peaceful uses of atomic power. Higinbotham dedicated his life to the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons: he founded and served as the chairman of the Federation of American Scientists, a group dedicated to the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and the safe use of nuclear energy.

Each October, BNL invited members of the public to take a tour of the lab and view various presentations. During this event in 1958, people got their first taste of video games. William had made an interactive display for the public so that they could see how BNL’s work had a tangible relevance. The game he created was called Tennis for Two, which took him two hours to design and two weeks to create. To develop the game, Higinbotham used a Donner Model 30 analog computer, which was used to calculate ballistic missile trajectory. He modified an analog computer with an oscilloscope (pictured above) to display simulations of balls bouncing across a horizontal line and over a small vertical line. The system would calculate the path of the ball and reverse that path when the user hit a button or the ball hit a surface.

The players were given a controller with a knob, which controlled the angle of the shot, and a button, which was used to hit the ball (right).

Tennis for Two was even able to simulate the effect that wind resistance would have on the ball, as calculating wind resistance was critical in determining missile trajectory. Tennis for Two was a huge hit (especially with high schoolers). The game had the longest line of any display at the BNL event. The following year, Higinbotham even created an upgraded version with different levels of gravity and a larger screen.

Higinbotham never patented the game.  Even if he had tried to, the Federal Government, and not Higinbotham would have ownership of the patent. Higinbotham developed Tennis for Two while working for the Federal Government, as a result the Government had ownership rights over his projects. When asked about the game years later, he commented that he rarely thought about it and would rather be remembered for his work in the field of nuclear nonproliferation. In 2011, Stony Brook University opened the William A. Higinbotham Game Studies Collection, which is dedicated to collecting and preserving the texts and various works that document the history of video games and the work of early game innovators, as well early video games themselves.

Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/15/obituaries/william-a-higinbotham-84-helped-build-first-atomic-bomb.html

https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/libspecial/videogames/tennis.html