William Higinbotham
William (Willy) Alfred Higinbotham (born October 25, 1910 in Bridgeport , Connecticut , † November 10, 1994 in Gainesville , Georgia ) was an American physicist and the first general secretary of the Federation of American Scientists . He is considered to be the inventor of the first video game , Tennis for Two (1958).
career
Higinbotham began his physics studies at Williams College and finished it at Cornell University , New York, until the outbreak of World War II . This was followed by a call to scientific work in the field of radar technology at the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and later the move to the Manhattan Project .
From 1945 Higinbotham was head of the electronics department at the Los Alamos Research Center, where he worked on timing circuits for the first atomic bombs and on the radar device. According to his own statements, he was not proud of the work on the atomic bomb.
After 1945 he became the first general secretary of the Federation of American Scientists , an association of scientists who campaigned against nuclear weapons.
From 1947 he was head of the Instrumentation Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and worked in a department for measurement and analysis instruments. During this time he used analog computers for public relations at the BNL .
Later he worked for the American atomic control authority and fought for the safe storage of nuclear waste .
Tennis for Two
In October 1958, on the open day in the gym of the BNL, Higinbotham presented Tennis for Two , an arrangement of an analog computer and oscillograph , in which two people could play a simplified kind of tennis against each other. Higinbotham never applied for a patent on this invention. He was summoned as a witness by the Nintendo company in 1982 during a trial against Magnavox . Magnavox filed license claims for the home video game patent. Through an out-of-court settlement between the two companies, Higinbotham was never officially recognized as the inventor of the video game .
Web links
- Video recording of "Tennis for Two" (English)
- The Dot Eaters - The History of Video Games
- Brookhaven National Laboratory ( Memento of January 6, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- Telepolis - Article on William Higinbotham's "Tennis for Two"
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Higinbotham, William |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Higinbotham, William Alfred (full name); Higinbotham, Willy |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 25, 1910 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bridgeport (Connecticut) |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 10, 1994 |
| Place of death | Gainesville, Georgia |