[Ads-l] Antedating of "Video Game"

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Spacewar! Was one of the first video games.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar!

[Begin excerpt]
Spacewar! is a space combat video game developed in 1962 by Steve
Russell in collaboration with Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen, Bob
Saunders, Steve Piner, and others. It was written for the newly
installed DEC PDP-1 minicomputer at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
[End excerpt]

Between 1962 and 1972 someone might have referred to "Spacewar!" as a
video game. There were other early games, e.g., "Snoopy and the Red
Baron" which Stewart Brand mentioned in 1972. The term "video game" is
a natural label, but I do not know whether anyone employed it in the
1960s. Some M.I.T publication might contain an early instance of
"video game".

Stewart Brand published an article titled "Spacewar: Fanatic Life and
Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums" in the December 7, 1972 issue
of Rolling Stone (This date is after Nolan Bushnell letter), but Brand
did not use the term "video game" in the article.

https://www.wheels.org/spacewar/stone/rolling_stone.html

Garson

On Tue, Jan 3, 2023 at 8:35 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> The OED's first use for the term "video game" is dated 25 Sept. 1973.  A very thorough website
>
> https://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-etymology-of-term-video-game.html
>
> has images of the following two citations.  The first of these may be the actual coinage.
>
> 1972 Nolan K. Bushnell Letter to John A. Britz 10 July  My projected delivery date for the flipper mock-up is September 1, 1972 with the video game to be finished November 15. ... The video game has a hockey theme which has a great amount of two player speed and excitement.
>
> 1973 Cash Box 10 Mar.  Braun also reveled [sic] that two new allied amusement products began shipping to his distributors last Thursday: a video game called 'Paddle Battle' and a machine gun target novelty called 'Rapid Fire'.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org