Tennis for Two being played. (Image source: Wikipedia.)

Today there are millions of video games in existence. But how did we get here? Before there was Fortnite, Minecraft, and Call of Duty, there was Tennis for Two. Invented by William Higinbotham in the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1958, it was a simple game that used an oscilloscope to display a side view of a tennis court. Players used the buttons and rotating dials of the device to control an invisible tennis racket. Despite using an analog computer, the ball, a small moving dot, moved in a surprisingly realistic path, taking into account wind resistance as well as gravity.

Higinbotham created this game not for profit, but to spread scientific passion. He recognized that most science exhibits were static, and sought to create a more interactive station for the lab’s annual exhibition. It quickly grew popular, with hundreds of visitors waiting in line for a chance to play. This game eventually inspired the creation of pong in 1972, leading to the modern era of video games with multiplayer, hyperrealistic, and even virtual reality options.