1976 in video gaming
Encyclopedia
Events
- In October, Warner CommunicationsWarner CommunicationsWarner Communications or Warner Communications, Inc. was established in 1971 when Kinney National Company spun off its non-entertainment assets, due to a financial scandal over its parking operations and changed its name....
acquires AtariAtariAtari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
from Nolan BushnellNolan BushnellNolan K. Bushnell is an American engineer and entrepreneur who founded both Atari, Inc and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters chain...
for $28 million USD. Bushnell stays on as chairman.
Notable releases
- AtariAtariAtari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
releases F-1F-1 (arcade game)F-1 is a racing arcade game developed by Namco and distributed by Atari Inc., originally released in 1976.-Technology:F-1 is based on electromechanical projection technology. The race track is a pre-rendered animation stored on film and projected on the screen...
and Night DriverNight DriverNight Driver is a 1976 arcade game by Atari Inc. It was one of the earliest first-person racing games, and is believed to be one of the first published games to display real-time first-person graphics.... - In April, AtariAtariAtari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
releases Breakout (whose prototype was designed by Apple ComputerApple ComputerApple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
cofounders Steve JobsSteve JobsSteven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...
and Steve WozniakSteve WozniakStephen Gary "Woz" Wozniak is an American computer engineer and programmer who founded Apple Computer, Co. with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne...
) to video arcadeVideo arcadeAn amusement arcade or video arcade is a venue where people play arcade games such as video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, merchandisers , or coin-operated billiards or air hockey tables...
s. - In August, Fairchild SemiconductorFairchild SemiconductorFairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. is an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957, it was a pioneer in transistor and integrated circuit manufacturing...
releases the Video Entertainment System (later known as the Channel F), the first cartridge-based video game consoleVideo game consoleA video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
.
- ExidyExidyExidy was one of the largest creators of arcade video games during the early period of video games, from 1974 until at least 1986 . The company was founded by H.R."Pete" Kauffman...
releases Death RaceDeath Race (1976 game)Death Race is a controversial arcade game, released by Exidy in 1976. While not the first violent video game to appear, it was the first video game to inspire a great deal of protest and controversy in the United States.-Overview:...
, a racing gameRacing gameA racing video game is a genre of video games, either in the first-person or third-person perspective, in which the player partakes in a racing competition with any type of land, air, or sea vehicles. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to entirely fantastical settings...
based on the filmFilmA film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
Death Race 2000Death Race 2000Death Race 2000 is a 1975 cult action film directed by Paul Bartel, and starring David Carradine, Simone Griffeth and Sylvester Stallone. The film takes place in a dystopian American society in the year 2000, where the murderous Transcontinental Road Race has become a form of national entertainment...
, to video arcades. The game sparks a public outcry over violence in video games, and is bannedBan (law)A ban is, generally, any decree that prohibits something.Bans are formed for the prohibition of activities within a certain political territory. Some see this as a negative act and others see it as maintaining the "status quo"...
in many areas. - ColecoColecoColeco is an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as "Connecticut Leather Company". It became a highly successful toy company in the 1980s, known for its mass-produced version of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game consoles, the Coleco Telstar and...
releases the TelstarColeco TelstarThe Telstar is a series of video game consoles produced by Coleco from 1976 to 1978. Starting with Telstar Pong clone based on General Instrument's AY-3-8500 chip in 1976, there were 14 consoles released in the Telstar branded series.-Models:...
, a console cloneClone (computer science)In computing, a clone is a hardware or software system that is designed to mimic another system. Compatibility with the original system is usually the explicit purpose of cloning hardware or low-level software such as operating systems...
of PongPongPong is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade video games such as Computer Space came before it, Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity...
based on General InstrumentGeneral InstrumentGeneral Instrument was an electronics manufacturer based in Horsham, PA specializing in semiconductors and cable television equipment. The company was active until 1997, when it split into which was later acquired by Vishay Intertechnology in 2001, CommScope and NextLevel Systems General...
's AY-3-8500 microchipIntegrated circuitAn integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
. - Radofin releases the 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System1292 Advanced Programmable Video SystemThe 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System is a video game console released by European company Radofin in 1976. It is part of a group of software-compatible consoles which include the Interton VC-4000 and the Voltmace Database...
video game console in EuropeEuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. - While working at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, Don Woods discovers and expands Will Crowther's AdventureColossal Cave AdventureColossal Cave Adventure gave its name to the computer adventure game genre . It was originally designed by Will Crowther, a programmer and caving enthusiast who based the layout on part of the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky...
. Later in the year, James GilloglyJames GilloglyJames J. Gillogly is an American computer scientist and cryptographer.-Biography:Gillogly wrote a chess-playing program in the Fortran programming language in 1970, and in 1977 he ported the code for "Colossal Cave" from Fortran to C....
portsPortingIn computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
Woods's version of the interactive fictionInteractive fictionInteractive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...
title from FortranFortranFortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
to the C programming languageC (programming language)C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
for UnixUnixUnix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
-based computers.