Tennis For Two

Summary

14 years before Pong established the video game industry, William Higinbotham built the first tennis video game, described here as the first video game of all. Seeking to make an open-day exhibition more engaging, the Brookhaven National Laboratory researcher connected an analogue computer to an oscilloscope. The computer simulated tennis, responding to controller input and calculating the ball’s trajectories.

On the oscilloscope the side view of a tennis court is shown. The game is controlled by a button to hit the ball and another to adjust the bounce angle. Tennis For Two will be shown on October 18, 1958 and is very popular on campus.

Higinbotham never applied for a patent, since it would belong to the state anyway and he also considers his invention to be not particularly innovative.