A TIMELINE OF COMPUTERS & GAMING
Charles Babbage designed a steam-powered machine that could follow instructions — a computer a hundred years before electricity made them real.
Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithm meant for a machine, and saw that computers could do far more than arithmetic.
Alan Turing imagined a simple machine that could compute anything computable — the idea every computer is built on.
One of the first electronic computers filled a whole room, weighed 30 tons, and was programmed by rewiring it by hand.
A tiny switch the size of a fingernail replaced bulky tubes — the seed of every chip in every device today.
A physicist wired up an oscilloscope to bounce a dot over a net — arguably the first video game, made just for fun at a science fair.
Students on a room-sized computer built a duel of two ships circling a star's gravity — the first game that spread from lab to lab.
▶ Play our version: Star DuelAtari's simple paddle game launched the arcade industry; the very first machine broke because its coin box overflowed.
▶ Play our version: Electronic Table TennisA teacher's game about a covered-wagon journey became the most beloved learning game ever made.
▶ Play our version: The Great TrekRows of descending aliens were so popular in Japan they were blamed for a coin shortage; it was among the first to save a high score.
▶ Play our version: Galactic DefenderBurn your fuel just right to touch down softly — real rocket physics turned into a game.
▶ Play our version: Eagle DescentDesigned to welcome everyone to arcades, the pizza-shaped hero became gaming's first true mascot.
▶ Play our version: Troll MuncherA carpenter named Jumpman climbed girders to rescue a captive — he was soon renamed Mario.
▶ Play our version: Math Climber ▶ Play our version: Troll MountainGuide a frog across busy roads and a river of logs — simple to learn, fiendishly hard to master.
▶ Play our version: Toad StoolPilot a lone spaceship through a field of tumbling rocks — shoot them into smaller pieces or thrust out of the way, but they never stop coming.
▶ Play our version: Meteor StormDig holes to trap guards and collect the gold — a dig-and-climb puzzle classic, and it shipped with a level editor.
▶ Play our version: Gold RunnerAtari's vector-graphics cockpit shooter let you pilot an X-wing down the Death Star trench. Despite the video game crash of 1983, it proved Atari could still be serious about arcade games.
▶ Play our version: Vector WingA mail-order computer kit put real computing on hobbyists' desks — and inspired two young programmers to start Microsoft.
Atari's cartridge-based console brought the arcade into the living room — Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and hundreds more could be swapped in and out.
▶ Play our version: Troll SkogOne of the first computers ordinary families could buy and use, color graphics and all.
IBM's personal computer set the template most desktop computers still follow today.
Born in the Soviet Union, falling blocks you rotate and fit became one of the most-played games of all time.
▶ Play our version: Fraction SmithAfter a crash nearly killed gaming, Nintendo revived it; Mario could run and explore a whole kingdom.
▶ Play our version: Thor's QuestA maze game where you gobble correct answers made arithmetic drills genuinely fun in classrooms everywhere.
▶ Play our version: Number CrunchersPrograms like Mavis Beacon turned learning to type into a game, on glowing green-and-amber screens.
▶ Play our version: Keys of the Realm ▶ Also play: SpellKeepChess where the pieces walked over and fought when they captured — it made an old game feel brand new.
▶ Play our version: War ChessTim Berners-Lee invented a way to link documents across the internet — the web that ties all these machines together.