SPACEWAR

games A space-combat simulation game, inspired by

E. E. "Doc" Smith's "Lensman" books, in which two spaceships

duel around a central sun, shooting torpedoes at each other

and jumping through hyperspace. This game was first

implemented on the PDP-1 at MIT in 1960--61.

SPACEWAR aficionados formed the core of the early hacker

culture at MIT. Nine years later, a descendant of the game

motivated Ken Thompson to build, in his spare time on a

scavenged PDP-7, the operating system that became Unix.

Less than nine years after that, SPACEWAR was commercialised

as one of the first video games; descendants are still

feeping in video arcades everywhere.

["SPACEWAR" or "Space Travel"?]

[Jargon File]

(1994-11-07)