At the beginning of the 1970s, video games existed almost entirely as novelties passed around by programmers and technicians with access to computers, primarily at research institutions and large companies. 1970 marked a crucial year in the transition of electronic games from academic to mainstream, with developments in chessartificial intelligence and in the concept of commercialized video games.
While the technology that later became theOdyssey byMagnavox was stalled in development, the game which would becomeComputer Space began development in this period. In computer games,BASIC games written by high school and college students circulated among differenttime-sharing computer networks via user’s societies. Some of these programs would later be distributed as type-in listings via books and magazines. The first national competition of chess programs was held, drawing attention to advances in artificial intelligence across various fields.
The special events for ACM 1970 included the first computer chess championship.
April –Georgy Adelson-Velsky, Arlazov, Bitman, Zhivotovskii and Uskov publish their paperProgramming a computer to play chess inRussian Mathematical Surveys. In addition to discussion of the mathematical problems involved, the paper includes examples of humans playing against the computer, presented usingchess notation.[1]
Summer –Nolan Bushnell andTed Dabney begin work on an adaptation of theSpacewar! mainframe game. Originally the game is intended to run off aData GeneralNova 1200 computer with support hardware. This would eventually lead to the development ofComputer Space (1971).[2]
The newsletter EDU is first published byDigital Equipment Corporation. Edited byDavid Ahl, the newsletter became one of the first commercial outlets of type-in listings for games. Ahl later published101 BASIC Computer Games based on listings he collected for publication in EDU.[8]
September 12 – Christopher Gaylo, a student at Syosset High School inSyosset, New York, completes a finalized version of the BASIC game Highnoon. It was distributed on the Huntington Project time-sharing network. The code was later posted by Gaylo online.[9]
^Adel'son-Vel'skii; Aralazarov; Bitman; Uskov (1970). "Programming a computer to play chess".Russian Mathematical Surveys.25 (2):221–262.
^Smith, Alexander (November 27, 2019).They Create Worlds: The Story of the People and Companies That Shaped the Video Game Industry. Vol. 1: 1971 – 1982.CRC Press. pp. 68–73.ISBN978-1-138-38990-8.
^"Computer Chess Is 'Like Playing Tennis Without a Ball'".The Journal News. 1970-09-03. p. 8.
^Kozdrowicki, Edward; Cooper, Dennis (July 1973). "COKO III: The Cooper-Koz Chess Program".Communications of the ACM.16 (7):411–427.
