Talk:Computer Space

First?

"it is generally regarded as the first coin-op video game." Is it? I thought that would be Pong.
--Furrykef 23:25, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Galaxy Game may have come before Computer Space.

This was definitely before Pong. However, not sure on Galaxy Game. That said, pulled a comment from a mailing list I'm on; essentially, Nutting Associates only manufactured this; it was designed/developed by Syzygy, Nolan's company. Can anyone confirm that?
--Dean 16:54, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Galaxy Game does predate Computer Space, but not my much. I have added a note in the Trivia section, although perhaps it should be more prominant? Maury 12:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

there is no article for galaxy game - i'm dubious that it should be explained here, especially with the conflicting detail about which came first. Aaronbrick 21:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. Galaxy Game.  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 21:35, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

13" or 15" monitor?

Pages that mention computerspace uses a 13" monitor include [1] [2]. Pages that mention 15" include [3]. Does anybody know better than that? There's a manual for the unit posted at KLOV [4], but I can't find anything relevant there, though it's very difficult to search through. --Interiot 23:32, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

This game was cloned/bootlegged in 1972 by For-Play as "Star Trek" [5]

Star Trek for PC?

I have played at least one version of this game, called Star Trek like the "bootleg" arcade version mentioned in the article, but it was a program for a personal computer, using ASCII graphics. B7T (talk) 08:51, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Conflicting Info at an External Link

Some infomation with videos at [6], which is listed in External Links seems to not quite match the article. Specifically the black-to-white change, and the scoring after 9 becoming 0. Someone with more expert knowledge than me should address this. Donimo (talk) 08:34, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

"Non notable per guidelines"?

Why the lines A unit being used as a working prop and actual game play can be seen near the beginning of the original releases of the movie Soylent Green. A young lady is seen playing the game in her apartment and thanking her sugar daddy for the gift are "non-notable"? The famous appearence of the unit of Computer Space in a worldwide known cult movie why shouldn't be notable? And why instead the appearence in an obscure TV show should? --217.203.143.179 (talk) 06:08, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Because it doesn't meet the video game Pop Culture guidelines for notability. Something appearing briefly in the background, and that could be any video game, is considered not notable. Something that is a regular part of a show, and in this case an integral part of the episode is. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 14:15, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Computer Space/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Indrian (talk · contribs) 03:33, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

We've come a long way together, and I am glad to be with PresN here at the end of all things (or at least of this topic). Comments to follow. Indrian (talk) 03:33, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I've much appreciated your in depth reviews of this topic, and I look forward to this last one! --PresN 03:34, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Okay, after far too long a delay, let's knock this one out.

Background

•  Done"In the late 1960s, Nolan Bushnell saw Spacewar running on a PDP-6/10 at the University of Utah where he was a student" - A little mix up here. Spacewar ran on a PDP6/10 setup at SAIL. Bushnell has variously claimed he saw the game running on an IBM or Univac mainframe at Utah. Marty Goldberg lays out these claims here.

• That note just keeps getting longer... fixed. --PresN 14:53, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

•  DoneThe flow is strange between sections. The second paragraph of Background flows more naturally into the first paragraph of Development, so the Gameplay section almost feels like a digression.

• Yeah, it's a bit editorial. Moved that second paragraph down to development. --PresN 15:01, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Development

•  Done"This, in turn, meant that the game would not need four monitors in order to be profitable, but could be a single game" - Awkwardly worded. Does not properly convey that they could go to one instance of the game running on a single piece of hardware.

• Reworded. --PresN 14:53, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

•  Done" Dave Ralstin, a sales associate for Nutting Associates in Mountain View, California" - I believe he was the sales manager.

• Yes, I think Replay had him as an associate when they told that anecdote, and I didn't go back nad fix it. --PresN 14:53, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

•  Done"while Bushnell claims credit for everything but the cabinet, power supply, and monitor" - Both parties agree that Dabney did the sound.

• Fixed. --PresN 14:53, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

•  DoneThe development section is much larger than all the others. I would not cut anything, but I think they final three paragraphs could be their own section.

• Made the last 4 a section, so that it could cover both the MOA show and the test locations. --PresN 15:01, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

•  Done"an initial version was designed by Bushnell and built by Steve Bristow, but the final version was created by a different team" - Again I think this is mixing two things. Bushnell was contracted to do a two-player version, but never did. The version that entered production was the Bristow version.

• Atari Inc. was pretty clear on this one- Nutting contracted with Syzygy to make a 2-player version, Bushnell designed one (though it seems like he just dashed something off, the timeline was way too short for real quality given everything else he was doing at the same time), and Bristow made a prototype. Nutting then chucked it after contracting it out to another engineering team as well. Atari pg. 76: "Steve Bristow and his wife had been there for Nutting, showing off the 2-player version of Computer Space - only it wasn't Nolan's design. Apparently Bill Nutting had simultaneously contracted an engineer to design and build a competing version to the Nolan designed one that Steve and his wife had prototyped, and decided to go with the former." The original mention was on pg. 61: "...what is curious was that Nolan, AFTER signing that document, spent time over June and July designing a 2-player Computer Space for Nutting, which Steve Bristow (now working at Nutting Associates as an engineer) and his wife spent time building for Nutting." Atari Inc. sometimes gets a little enthusiastic with its anecdotes, but I haven't seen any other sources that contradict that Nolan designed a 2-player Computer Space, but the design wasn't used. --PresN 14:53, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

• @PresN:While I generally trust Curt and Marty's research, this one appears to be contradicted by Bristow himself in Retro Gamer 75: "I got married that July and my wife constructed the prototype wire-wrap for a two-player version of Computer Space. She and I took the train to Chicago for the AMOA show that year where Nutting exhibited it. I thought it was pretty neat, but who knew how big videogames would be?" It's not the Bushnell part that's wrong in the article, it's the part about Bristow building the Bushnell version, which did not happen. Indrian (talk) 15:33, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

• @Indrian:Well, I'd trust a statement by Bristow over one by Bushnell that makes himself out to be an aggrieved party; it's exactly the kind of thing he'd exaggerate. I was also surprised that he dashed off a working design that fast while busy with Atari. Changed the sentence to say that Bristow made it, but that Bushnell was supposed to design it and either didn't or his design wasn't used- don't think I can clear up which one happened, or if the whole design contract thing was apocryphal. --PresN 15:41, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

And that's it. Overall this is a wonderful article that does a good job of navigating some of the controversies around this game's development. I will place this  On hold while these minor changes are made. Indrian (talk) 20:39, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

@Indrian: responded to all points. --PresN 15:01, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

@PresN:Now that the second paragraph of background has moved, there needs to be some transitional statement at the end of the background section that links Spacewar to Galaxy Game for flow. Indrian (talk) 18:01, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

@Indrian: Added one. --PresN 19:01, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Sorry to take a few days to get back to this. After another round of copyedits, I am ready to promote. Well done! Indrian (talk) 19:37, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

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Specific claims need citations

If the opening of the article is going to make specific claims, like "it was the first arcade video game as well as the first commercially available video game" and "possibly the first video game to spread to multiple computer installations", then those assertions need a citation. It does not matter if the claim is made in the introduction or the body. Once something specific is asserted, then it needs a citation.

The second claim of "possibly the first video game to spread to multiple computer installations" is especially dubious. It sounds a lot like the author's opinion or wishful thinking to me.

• You are wrong and this article passed a full FA review in this state because a bunch of editors who know Wikipedia policy inside and out were fine with it. I would point you to WP:Lead for more. To summarize though, while citations are absolutely present in a lead sometimes, they are generally not necessary for info unlikely to be controversial or challenged unless that info is not cited anywhere else in the article. Everything of note found in the lead is cited to a source in the body and none of it is controversial to anyone with a solid grasp of the subject matter.

As for this so-called “dubious” Spacewar claim, I grant you that a chess experiment or two may have been shared around if one wants to count AIs trained to play a game as “games,” and it’s certainly possible there is some primordial program that has yet to be discovered, but the very few known games created in the 1950s were all pretty much built for unique hardware and did not travel. The “possibly” in the statement takes into account that something else might have snuck out first, but anything that did was irrelevant to the grand scheme of things. Spacewar is the first game that mattered that spread beyond its original confines, and that is really all the article and the source it is citing to are trying to convey. Indrian (talk) 08:18, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Discrepancy for Units Sold

The current article claims "ultimately 1,300–1,500 units" sold, however a 2001 New York Times article gives a sales figure of 2,000 units. That said, while I don't have access to the source "They Create Worlds" used for the current figure, I'm inclined to believe that a video game historian may give a more accurate figure then one given in a retrospective news article. Basically I'm not sure what, if anything, should be done, but figured I'd note it here. --Mbrickn (talk) 05:57, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't have access to my copy of They Create Worlds, but TCW is just quoting Nolan Bushnell for the 1300-1500 figure. Bushnell was well known for exaggerating, so if it had actually sold 2000, I expect he would have said a number of at least that, not misremember a lower one. It also says, in addition to the cited Benj Edwards source, that the game had an initial production run of 1500, and nothing ever says that they had a second run (since the first one didn't sell out- they sold 1000 by the spring, and had to push distributors to get more sold). I don't know where the NYT got the 2000 number, but it doesn't match the other sources we have. --PresN 11:12, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

That makes sense. In that case I trust the existing figures more. Thanks for your help! Mbrickn (talk) 18:15, 23 June 2022 (UTC)