| slovo | definícia |
spacewar
(encz) | Spacewar, |
spacewar
(foldoc) | SPACEWAR
A space-combat simulation game for the PDP-1 written in
1960-61 by Steve Russell, an employee
at MIT. SPACEWAR was inspired by E. E. "Doc" Smith's "Lensman"
books, in which spaceships duel around a
star, shooting at each other and jumping through hyperspace. MIT
were wondering what to do with a new {vector
video display} so Steve wrote one of the world's first video games
(OXO for the EDSAC came earlier).
SPACEWAR aficionados formed the core of the early hacker culture at
MIT. Nine years later, a
descendant of the game motivated Ken Thompson to build, in his
spare time on a scavenged PDP-7, the
operating system that became Unix. Less than nine years after
that, SPACEWAR was commercialised.
[Was it called "SPACEWAR" or "Space Travel"?]
[Jargon File]
(2025-02-11)
|
spacewar
(jargon) | SPACEWAR
n.
A space-combat simulation game, inspired by E. E. “Doc” Smith's Lensman
books, in which two spaceships duel around a central sun, shooting
torpedoes at each other and jumping through hyperspace. This game was first
implemented on the PDP-1 at MIT in 1962. In 1968-69, a descendant of the
game motivated Ken Thompson to build, in his spare time on a scavenged
PDP-7, the operating system that became Unix. Less than nine years after
that, SPACEWAR was commercialized as one of the first video games;
descendants are still feeping in video arcades everywhere.
|
| |