The First Video Game Was Made in 1958

Long before arcades and home consoles, the ancestor of modern video games was born not for profit, but to liven up a public exhibition. In an era when the public associated nuclear research with atomic weaponry, Brookhaven National Laboratory held annual visitor days to showcase its peaceful scientific work. Physicist William Higinbotham, noticing the static and often dull displays, decided to create something more interactive to capture people's imagination. His solution was a simple electronic tennis game, designed purely to demonstrate the lab's technical capabilities in a fun and accessible way.

The game itself, titled *Tennis for Two*, was a marvel of repurposed technology. It used an oscilloscope, an instrument that visualizes electrical signals, as its screen. The "court" was a simple side-view with a horizontal line for the ground and a small vertical line representing the net. An analog computer performed the calculations, simulating a ball's trajectory with surprising realism by factoring in gravity and bounce physics. Players used a small controller with a knob to adjust the angle of their shot and a button to hit the ball, creating a surprisingly engaging back-and-forth rally for the crowds who lined up to play.

Despite its popularity at the exhibition, Higinbotham saw his creation as little more than a successful demonstration piece. He never considered patenting it, later stating he thought it was a "trivial" invention. The device was dismantled after the event, and its significance wasn't widely recognized until decades later. This simple public outreach project, intended to make a science lab seem less intimidating, stands as the unlikely and humble origin of what would become a global entertainment industry.