Article View: alt.folklore.computers
Article #168Re: spacewar and TECO
From: M... Michael A. Patton
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1989 15:19
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1989 15:19
18 lines
1504 bytes
1504 bytes
In article <80...@viscous.sco.COM> ev...@sco.COM (Evan A.C. Hunt) writes:
cos...@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) says:
>Don't know who did the first version of SpaceWar [...]
Slug Russel.
Yes. Steven R. ("Slug") Russell was only one of several people who
worked on the original PDP-1 version of spacewar. He was, however,
still in possession of some listings and was called as a witness in
some court case concerning a patent on the concept of computer arcade
games. He was used as part of the defendants claim that the patent
was invalid due to "prior art". As I recall, the court declared
spacewar a bona fide example of what the patent was to apply to and
since the listings predated the patent, it was disallowed.
--
For those who are tracking sources, the above is my memory from many
personal conversations with Steve at the Tech Model Railroad Club.
Technical Details
Message-ID:
<MAP.89Dec14161911@gaak.LCS.MIT.Edu>Path:
mbox-mo1.pugleaf.net!gmdzi!unido!mcsun!sunic!luth!eru!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!mintaka!Mintaka!mapReferences:
<8067@viscous.sco.COM>Show Full Headers
Complete Article Headers
Path: mbox-mo1.pugleaf.net!gmdzi!unido!mcsun!sunic!luth!eru!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!mintaka!Mintaka!map From: M...@LCS.MIT.Edu (Michael A. Patton) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: spacewar and TECO Message-ID: <MAP.89Dec14161911@gaak.LCS.MIT.Edu> Date: 14 Dec 89 15:19:11 GMT References: <8067@viscous.sco.COM> Sender: ne...@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu Distribution: alt Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science Lines: 18 Posted: Thu Dec 14 16:19:11 1989 In-Reply-To: evanh@sco.COM's message of 13 Dec 89 19:52:59 GMT MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit