The History of Computer Games: Part One: 1975-1982


© Dan Finkelstein
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Dec 17, 1996


What was the first computer game you ever played?

Have you been around long enough to remember "Adventure" or "Zork I"?

Or was your first gaming experience "Oil's Well" on the Commodore 64 or "Choplifter" on the Apple II?

For my first big article at Suite 101, I have decided to go back in time, to the days when computer games came on one single-density disk, and when text games were considered the state of the art. In this four-part editorial, we'll travel back more than 20 years--to the dawn of the computer game industry. So, without further adieu--here we go!


The exact year of the first game played on a computer is a little hard to pin down. Many people think that it was "Adventure", a text game that appeared on large main-frame computers in the late 1970's. The game was pretty simple, consisting of commands such as "look at tree", or "move north". Little did the designers of this game know that it game would set the precedent of text-based adventure games for years to come.

Meanwhile, 1977 was the year the Atari 2600 took the country by storm. Games such as "Burgertime" and "Pac-Man" were finally available to play at home, and parents were all-too-happy to buy their kids a 2600, thinking that it would have to be less expensive than shelling out quarters in the arcade.

Starting in the 80's, computer game companies began forming like wildfire. Epyx, Broderbund, Sierra On-Line (then called "On-Line Systems"), and SSI all were formed in the 80's and started publishing games.

In 1981, home-computers started to gain popularity. Apple's, Atari's, and TRS-80's, were the leaders in the market, with dozens of games being produced for them. Also in 1981, the switch was being made from distributing the games on tape (which was the dominant medium at the time) to 5 1/4 floppy disc. Like the change from floppy to CD-ROM in the early 90's, the 5 1/4 disc was chosen because it was faster (programs would actually load in a few seconds, compared with minutes with the tape) and could store more data.

The newly formed companies kept producing more games in 1982. "Zork I" was published for the Apple II, "Choplifter!" was produced by Broderbund, and even a young Microsoft got into the action, releasing "Olympic Decathlon". Microsoft's foray into the computer gaming field was not very successful, which may explain why Microsoft didn't publish another game until just a few years ago. Gaming companies that are producing the hits of today were formed in 1982. Access Software, Electronic Arts, and Lucasfilm Games (now LucasArts) were founded in this year.

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Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: View all related messages
1.   Aug 22, 2001 12:16 AM
Dan Finkelstein wrote, "Meanwhile, 1977 was the year the Atari 2600 took the country by storm. Games such as BurgerTime and Pac-Man were finally available to play at home, and parents we ...

-- posted by Random_Terrain



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