The Origin Of Video Games
Noah Wardrip-Fruin, University of California, Santa Cruz
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Some people just love to play. Give them a ball, or a pen, or a pile of leaves and they’ll find a way to play with it. In fact, enough people love to play that just about any time someone invents something new, people find a way to play with it.
Christopher Strachey didn’t invent modern computers. He didn’t even see one until 1951, several years after others had first created the first ones. But he had been friendly with Alan Turing, who was one of the inventors of modern computers, when he was in college in England.
The Mark I is considered the first computer because it could stor...