common thread among all four of these efforts was the virtualization and algorithmic automation of processes, which previously had to be managed in the real world through material processes.
The theoretical foundation of such virtualization as the basic innovation of digital technology was laid in three steps. First in 1936, Alan Touring conceived the theoretical model of a digital computer as the universal machine.5 Then in 1945, John von Neumann invented the technical model for such a universal machine, which is still valid today.6 Its novel characteristic was the categorical separation of material equipment from the control system. This separation provided the basis for what we now refer to as hardware and software, or more precisely, the software which we refer to as programs.7 The third fundamental innovation occurred in 1948, when Claude Elwood Shannon proposed a method to digitize all communicative processes and artifacts of civilization: the adequate transfer of analog qualities and functions into mathematical values.8 Thereby he provided the universal machine with its universal bit-material: texts, sounds, pictures, etc.; the software which we call files.
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
The technical realization of these concepts proceeded in two phases early in the digitalization process. By the middle of the 1950s, ca. 500 digital mainframe-computers had been built worldwide. They used cathode rays, required large teams for their maintenance and operation, and, with the exception of a few experimental situations, they lacked any sort of interactive in- and output capabilities, such as keyboards or screens. With the advent of microcomputers at the end of the 1950s—the result of transistors and, by the 1960s, of semiconductors as well—, the second phase began, during which procedures for digital sound and image production developed in the fields of telephony, television, and air and space travel. At the same time the first theoretical as well as practical resistance against the industrial-collaborative use of computing power arose. In 1960, J.C.R. Licklider proposed the concept of interactive use of digital computers under the buzzword “man-computer-symbiosis.”9
One year later, at a time when approximately 9,000 computers were running worldwide, about 1,000 of which were mid-sized computers used by individuals,10 MIT students set the standard for ‘rebel computing’ when they programmed the game SPACEWAR! With their deliberate ‘waste’ of expensive processing power, these students replaced work-ethic with play-ethic.11 Thus, the economic efficiency principal of collective organization was displaced by the luxurious pleasure principle of the individual.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
SPACEWAR! was, however, by no means the first digital game. Already in the 1940s the thought had circulated in leading-edge research, originating from Alan Turing’s and Claude Elwood Shannon’s deliberations that computer games in general, but specifically digital versions of CHESS, could eventually demonstrate an attempt at artificial intelligence through competition with human players. Shannon wrote in 1950:
“Although perhaps of no practical importance, the question [of computer Chess] is of theoretical interest, and it is hoped that a satisfactory solution of this problem will act as a wedge in attacking other problems of a similar nature and of greater significance.”12
However, with its high potential of possible moves, CHESS proved to be too complicated at first for algorithmic representation, which requires decontextualizing abstraction. The matchstick game NIM was easier to algorithmatize; this process was made possible through a specially constructed computer, Nimrod.13 Its programmer, John Bennett, like Shannon, connected his digital game with greater hopes:
“It may appear that, in trying to make machines play games, we are wasting our time. This is not true as the theory of games is extremely complex and a machine that can play a complex game can also be programmed to carry out very complex practical problems.“14
Then in 1952, A.S. Douglas programmed NOUGHTS AND CROSSES, a digital version of TIC TAC TOE, as part of his doctoral thesis. In the same year IBM presented the first digital game of CHESS. By 1955 the program was so advanced that it learned from its own mistakes. In the 1960s chess programs started to win against amateurs. However, it would take another two decades until finally, in 1997, IBM’s Big Blue beat reigning world champion Garry Kasparow.
FLIGHT SIMULATION
The second area of research that led to digital games concerned military and civilian flight simulators, which were developed at great cost for training purposes. Analog simulators with limited capabilities existed since the First World War. Their digitalization began in the last months of World War II, when the Servomechanisms Laboratory at MIT received the contract to develop a “universal flight trainer,” a real-time flight simulator that, unlike previous ones, could simulate more than just a single, predetermined airplane model.15 Project Whirlwind was planned as a two-year endeavor. However, this first attempt at the construction of a—first analog, then digitally conceived—computer designated for real-time control of simulations ultimately failed. Only in the 1960s did regular mainframe and microcomputers become powerful enough for such an undertaking.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was the driving force behind this development. Flight training through simulation promised to provide long-term savings in exchange for large short-term investments. However, in the case of the planned moon mission, the only possibility for training was through realistic simulation.16 Already in 1967, General Electric delivered the first electronic real-time 3D simulator to Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. David Evans, together with computer graphics pioneer Ivan Sutherland, constructed another digital prototype in 1968. Their combination of optimized hard- and innovative software calculated new images from digital recordings of real scenes, which could change their perspectives to match the actions of the pilot or astronaut. With the virtual perspectival modeling of 3D images, the basic defining innovation of digital games had been realized.
The first commercial flight simulator, which generated markedly abstract virtual images in real-time, became available in 1971. During this time, after Intel had introduced the microprocessor in 1970, the social and technical construction of the personal computer began in the West Coast hacker-scene in the US. Two types of programs proved to be the most successful because they satisfied needs that were suppressed in the regulated-usage of the expensive mainframes found at universities, in management, and at large companies: the need for personal productivity and creativity as well as for entertainment. Among commercial software products, computer games earned the highest number of sales at the end of the 1970s. They were played both on hobbyist PCs and on consoles equipped with microprocessors. Thus digital games (and among them notably flight simulators) served as a ‘gateway drug’ for a new generation of computer enthusiasts.17
The first flight simulators for personal computers like the Apple II and the Tandy TRS-80 were released at the end of the 1970s. In 1981 one of the most popular Apple programs was FLIGHT SIMULATION by a company called SubLogic, which was later acquired by Microsoft. In 2001, MS FLIGHT SIMULATOR secured a place in the Guinness Book of Records for earning 21 million sales.18
