1909 - Skee Ball (originally called Box Ball) is possibly the first arcade game ever made. It was designed by Jonathan Dickinson Este as a gift for his son. "Originally the alleys were kept 36ft long, but as you could imagine, it took a lot of strength to roll a wooden ball down a 36ft alley. This limited the audience of the game to mostly men. In 1928, Maurice decided to broaden the audience by reducing the alley's size to 14ft. This tremendously increased its popularity since it could be enjoyed by women, children & the elderly and also allowed for Skee-Ball machines to be placed indoors." http://www.techdose.com/articles/The-History-of-SkeeBall-Machines/405/page1.html
1947 - The interest in pinball games was renewed "due to the invention of flippers in 1947 by the D. Gottlieb Co. in a game called "Humpty Dumpty"." http://www.bmigaming.com/pinballhistory.htm Pinball machines were no longer games of chance, but rather skill.
1980 - Toru Iwatani creates PacMan (at first Puck-Man, but the name seemed to be offensive), which became one of the most successful games appealing to all kinds of people. It is also the first game with the animated main character.
1981 - Donkey Kong (or Kong) is being released. "Donkey Kong introduced a number of wholly original game-play ideas to the platform genre. It was the first ever game to feature multiple play-fields, for example. It was also the first game that allowed players to jump over objects." http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=donkey-kong&page=detail&id=666
1997 - MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) started allowing to play multiple games on just one machine. It continues being developed and not only allows to play earliest arcade video games but also modern ones.http://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/FAQ:About
2013 - Namco releases one of the first (if not the first) 4D arcade game - Dark Escape 4D. This is a horror game with 3D glasses, surround sound and air blowers providing fuller experience when playing it. In addition it has panic sensors recording every panic attack. http://www.namcoamerica.com/game.php?gameid=37
Ancient (80-? B.C) - Antikythera Mechanism. "This ancient clockwork device
is thought to have been constructed around 87 B.C.E, but was lost in 76
B.C.E when the ill-fated cargo ship carrying it sunk. It’s thought that
this bronze instrument was a kind of mechanical “computer” used to
calculate the positions of astronomical objects." http://www.iflscience.com/technology/new-ancient-treasures-recovered-antikythera-shipwreck
1946 - ENIAC, invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania, was finally completed from its start date of 1943.
"It occupied about 1,800 square feet and used about 18,000 vacuum tubes,
weighing almost 50 tons. Although the Judge ruled that the ABC computer
was the first digital computer, many still consider the ENIAC to be the
first digital computer because it was fully functional." http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm
1949 - EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) was a first British computer built in University of Cambridge. It's "considered to be the first stored program electronic computer." http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm
The computer was massive and occupied a large space or the room it was in as well as required large power supply.
"EDSAC used 32 mercury delay lines (or "long tanks") storing 1024
words. Each tank stored 16 words of 35 bits. EDSAC also used 3
monitor tubes (CRTs), one of which displayed the contents of one
of the long tanks. Thus, the display was a matrix of 35 x 16 dots.
EDSAC was not very stable but worked pretty well. It operated 600
instructions per second." http://www.pong-story.com/1952.htm
1951 - NIMROD is the first computer ever designed specifically to play games. "NIMROD was the first digital computer designed specifically to play a game, though its actual purpose was to illustrate the principles of the digital computer to the public when almost no one had seen or interacted with a computer. " http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=4471
1952 - OXO (or Noughts and Crosses) is a first interactive, electronic game. It simulated noughts and crosses and it was played against artificial intelligence. OXO was created by Sandy Douglas on the EDSAC computer.
1958 - Tennis for Two is considered as video game ever, although is second. It was designed and created by nuclear physicist, William
Higinbotham. "Two people played the electronic tennis
game with separate controllers that connected to an analog computer and
used an oscilloscope for a screen." https://www.bnl.gov/about/history/firstvideo.php
1962 - Spacewar!, designed by Steve Russell, was the first popular and sort of influential game. "It took the team about 200 man-hours to write the first version of
Spacewar. Steve Russell wrote Spacewar on a PDP-1, an early DEC (Digital
Equipment Corporation) interactive mini computer which used a cathode-ray tube type display and keyboard input." http://inventors.about.com/od/sstartinventions/a/Spacewar.htm
1973 - PLATO IV is the first widespread and the first [widely] used touchscreen given to schools and used in exams. "With only limited touchscreen specific functionality, the PLATO IV was only used on a limited basis for student functions and exams. Though it was not the fanciest creation ever invented, it started what has been a wonderful growth of better technology." http://briskfx.com/history-of-touchscreen/
1974 - "Maze War (also known as The Maze Game, Maze Wars or simply Maze) was the first networked, 3D multi-user first person shooter game. Maze first brought us the concept of online players as eyeball "avatars" chasing each other around in a maze)."http://www.digibarn.com/history/04-VCF7-MazeWar/
1976 - First Apple computer is created by Steve Wozniak and advertised by Steve Jobs. In this year it was shown to the public. "[Other] PCs were not user friendly enough so he wrote a BASIC language assembler into the ROM [they intended] that every user should be allowed to know everything about their computer." http://applemuseum.bott.org/sections/computers/a1.html
1977 - ARCNET is the first ever LAN (Local Area Network), developed by Datapoint Corporation in Texas. "It was the simplest, and least expensive type of local-area network. It used a token-ring architecture, supported data rates of 2.5 Mbps, and connected up to 255 computers. A special advantage of ARCnet is that it permitted various types of transmission media to be mixed on the same network." http://www.old-computers.com/history/detail.asp?n=23&t=3
1980 - "Microsoft focuses on a new operating system—the software that manages, or runs, the computer hardware and also serves to bridge the gap between the computer hardware and programs, such as a word processor. It’s the foundation on which computer programs can run. They name their new operating system "MS‑DOS."" http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/history#T1=era0
1981 - Adam Osborne developed the first true portable computer, named Osborne 1. It was much lighter and looked like a laptop with closable screen and keyboard.
1984 - Amstrad CPC 464 (CPC stands for Colout Personal Computer) revolutionised the computer market by having great graphics and good sound. It competed with Spectrum and Commodore 64, but it was said to be much better than them. It was designed to be the gaming computer and had free games sold with it.
"“Games were very important for the 464,” continues Perry. “[...] for me the CPC 464 was 100 percent a games machine.” The 8-bit CPC was impressive. Amstrad decided to use tapes as the storage medium because they were cheap. It was a good decision – it placed the CPC within the affordable reach of children and so the machine slowly became a strong games contender."http://www.retrogamer.net/profiles/hardware/amstrad-cpc-464/
MAD (Multi Access Dungeon) is the first global MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) game. It was developed by two French students; Bruno Chabrier and Vincent Lextrait. "It ran on the BITNET node [...]. MAD was the first MMORPG in Europe, and the first offered for free." http://www.lextrait.com/Vincent/mad.html
1993 - Doom (developed by id Software) was a game that revolutionised gaming. "Incredibly ahead of its time, this game has influenced modern video gaming to the point of a formation of a brand new genre." http://www.nubimagazine.com/doom-changed-everything/
1994 - Hawaii High: the Mystery of the Tiki, created by Trina Roberts (creator of Barbie and Wonder Woman), was the first game to be targeted at girls. It wasn't a successful game, but it established factors for future games for girls (character-centered plot, relationships and friendships, etc.) [link to google books]
1996 - The very first Dream Machine is created - the first computer which you can build completely by yourself and freely upgrade. It was predominantly meant for games. "Most people bought prefab boxes and upgraded the weaker components (if the PCI slots weren’t blocked by ribbon or power cables, that is. Most manufacturers assumed no one would ever open the case.)" http://www.maximumpc.com/check-out-the-original-dream-machine/
2003 - Steam is oficially released by Valve. It is "the pioneering game platform that distributes and manages thousands of
games directly to a community of more than 65 million players around the
world." http://www.valvesoftware.com/ By now, it has over 125 million active users.
2015 - Windows 10 is distributed to people free for the first time in Microsoft company. It also moves from the big and stable releases into the frequent actualisations in response to customer use.
1967 - The first video game console was named Brown Box, since it was a wooden box. It was a prototype created by Ralph Henry Baer (American of German origin), also knows as the "Father of Video Games".
1972 - The new technology was presented to and licensed by company Magnavox, who produced the first official home console - Magnavox Odyssey. The console had 6 cartriges with 2 games each (12 in total): "Table tennis , Simon says , Submarine , Analogic , Haunted house , Roulette , States , Ski , Football , Cat and mouse , Hockey and Tennis."http://www.magnavox-odyssey.com/Standard%20games.htm
1975 - Atari created home TV version of Pong arcade game, "it turns out to be one of the hottest selling items for the 1975 holiday shopping season with people waiting several hours in line to purchase."https://www.atari.com/history/1972-1984-0
1977 - Atari Video Computer System was produced to compete with Magnavox Odyssey. It featured the game Combat and 9 other games. "This system, later renamed the Atari 2600, would come to dominate the industry for many years."http://www.atariage.com/2600/
1983 - Nintendo (the company that started by distributing Hanafuda - Flower cards) produced its first home console FAMICOM, Family Computer, "later renamed Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) when it launched worldwide". https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Corporate/Nintendo-History/Nintendo-History-625945.html Some of the games developed for the sonsole were Metroid, Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. which became the most popular than the others.
Myron Krueger created and introduced the first multi-touch human device called Video Place. It included several devices and cameras monitoring the movement and processing it onto the screens as silhouettes.
1991 - "In the first few years of 1990s, there is a notable shift in the medium used for storing games from cartridges to compact discs. What this meant was that there were increased capacities for video gaming, prompting as well a transition of 2D graphics to that of 3D. The first CD console was launched by Philips (1991) – the CD-i. Regrettably, the console was more commonly recognized as a failure for its sub-standard games and frustrating controllers." http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/evolution-of-home-video-game-consoles-1967-2011/
1993 - SEGA Activator for SEGA Genesis is the first full body motion controller. "However, the system was actually designed only for the player to make specific movements that were analogous [above] to buttons pressed on a controller." http://www.giantbomb.com/sega-activator/3000-8/
1994 - Sony, which earlier was only helping out Nintendo technically (by developing CD-ROM drive for them), announced it's first console in 1991 and finally released - PlayStation. "The Play Station would have a port to play Super Nintendo cartridges, as well as a CD-ROM drive that would play Sony Super Discs. The machine would be able to play videogames as well as other forms of interactive entertainment, as was considered important at the time." http://uk.ign.com/articles/1998/08/28/history-of-the-playstation
2001 - Microsoft officially launches Xbox and its best known shooter game - HALO. "Originally dubbed the “DirectX Box,” the console was intended to be the first game system built like a PC and to bring all of the flexibility and power of a gaming rig to the console market." http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/the-history-of-the-xbox/
2002 - Microsoft launched Xbox Live, new multi-player gaming experience allowing worldwide competitions. "Along with being able to connect with friends (and strangers), Xbox Live also made it possible to download new content and take multiplayer interaction to a new level." http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/the-history-of-the-xbox/
2004 - "EyeToy was the first peripheral that allowed a user to play a game with their body by using gesture recognition and computer vision. The cameras were used with a PlayStation 2 and the games were generally fun in nature, such as having to scrub a window clean with your hands."http://listverse.com/2010/05/11/15-firsts-in-video-game-history/
2010 - Kinect, for Xbox 360, is the successful full body motion controller.
"One is infrared to determine depth and two additional cameras to see in 3 dimensions. The most advanced aspect of the device is the software that converts the data captured by the cameras into game input."http://www.giantbomb.com/kinect-for-xbox-360/3000-35/
1884 - Paul Gottlieb Nipkov has developed the first mechanical television. "He succeeded in sending images through wires with the help of a rotating metal disk. This technology was called the ‘electric telescope’ that had 18 lines of resolution." http://www.thehistoryoftelevision.com/
1953 - Winky Dink and You as a first attempt for interactive TV. To take part in this there was a drawing kit including plastic mat and crayons. "The show was an annoyance to some parents when their kids would draw directly on the TV screen without using an overlay." http://www.cedmagic.com/history/winky-dink.html
The first successful colour TV is being sold, though is wasn't popular until "late 1960s when set prices dropped and consumers heard their favorite shows were suddenly in color." http://old.post-gazette.com/tv/20031231colortv1231p3.asp
1967 - The history of television in gaming starts with the first (prototype) console, Brown Box. At this time TVs were only used as a screen projection, supporting newer and newer consoles.
It was the first company to revolutionise making games straight on TV. At this point the games were mostly casual and looked like any mobile games/apps and nothing like next gen.
2001 - Sky is the second company that launched TV gaming, named Sky GameStar (later renamed Sky Games). "Sky Gamestar is the UK's leading provider of television games and is available to over 7.8 million Sky homes in the UK and Ireland.Viewers play the games using their Sky digital remote control or the Sky Gamepad, the first dedicated games controller for digital satellite TV." http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/sky-gamestar-celebrates-4-years
1908 - Nathan Stubblefield patented the first wireless "mobile" phone. "He originally applied his patent to only radio telephones. But by doing this he only meant to create a telephone that could operate with strings." http://mobilephones.umwblogs.org/invention/
1973 - Martin Cooper invented the first portable mobile phone named Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. "[He] used the technology of the police radio and applied it to the technology of the day to make the first working portable mobile phone." http://mobilephones.umwblogs.org/invention/
1993 - Apple Newton, developed by Apple, is the first touchpad (handheld device with touchscreen). "Newton had no external keyboard or buttons, all functionality had to use the touchscreen." http://briskfx.com/history-of-touchscreen/
Simon Personal communicator was developed by IBM and BellSouth. It was the first mobile phone with touchscreen. "It featured paging capabilities, an e-mail and calendar application, an appointment schedule, an address book, a calculator, and a pen-based sketchpad. It also had a resistive touchscreen that required the use of a stylus to navigate through menus and to input data." http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/04/from-touch-displays-to-the-surface-a-brief-history-of-touchscreen-technology/2/
2002 - Nokia 3410 and Siemens M50 are the first phones to support Java. That allowed the better gaming performance.
Microsoft Tablet PC, by Microsoft, is the very first tablet, a mobile computer with touchscreen. "This allowed users to interact with their computers without the need for awkward tools such as the keyboard." http://briskfx.com/history-of-touchscreen/
