But is it Truth, or Art? -pt. 4

C'est ci n'est pas 'Pong'

 So, I take it that you're familiar with the invention of Nolan Bushnell, the video game that started the entire industry? For those who don't remember Pong, it was a very primitive device. The controllers used a knob, not a joystick or pad. The knob could only move your "paddle" vertically. And the point of the game was to bat the dot back and forth, much like table tennis. You could even ricochet the dot off the sides of the game panel at an angle.

 Many lone players tried to get the paddles positioned so that the dot would bounce metronomically  between paddles. This was surprisingly difficult, as the knobs were very sensitive, and the slightest touch displaced the paddle. Players also often twisted the knob at the last second of contact with the dot, to give it 'english' on the return (the fact that the feature was not actually part of the original game didn't deter this, so it was added to later versions). To make the game more difficult, the paddles could be halved in size, or doubles action could be played...

Now, I want you to look at everything I just said, once again...

Aside from the fact that there was a game called Pong, that Nolan Bushnell invented it... Everything else is bullshit.

To understand why, first you have to appreciate how television monitors work. Back in that day, the televisions were CRT technology. An electronic signal was received and translated by the monitor into information. That information controlled the electron emissions of the cathode ray tube, which caused the screen to phosphoresce tiny dots called 'pixels' by different degrees of intensity. The cathode ray was continually scanned across the entire screen, creating a pattern of illuminated pixels. As the signal changed, so did the pattern. Given multiple microsecond changes in pattern, and persistence of vision  you would interpret this as movement of an object.

So, let's say you're watching a football game on the TV. What you were seeing was the images captured by the television cameras, translated into signals that were broadcast, and translated once again into patterns of light that corresponded to the image you'd see if you were actually at the game. But, those images were of a real game....

With Pong, you had a device with microprocessors (about 8 Bit, if I remember correctly) that attached to the TV antenna leads via a signal splitter. The microprocessors were creating the image patterns based on a mathematical X/Y matrix that computed values for each pixel. Moving the paddle meant changing the values of the group of pixels that comprised it by a formula command like:  Y=Y+ N1 (where N1 was the amount of displacement on the Y axis). So, you weren't actually moving anything but the knob control. What the control did was change the patterns. The same thing is true for the dot moving between the paddles: The dot is not moving, it is a change of pattern of pixels that simulates movement, based on a computer program representation.

I want you to appreciate this moment: with Pong, you did not have a physical game to refer to, you had a simulacrum of a game. It wasn't unusual to refer to something abstract as being real. Describing a fictional character as doing things in a book, for example. But, this time, you were participating in the simulacrum by changing the values of the pattern used to represent it! And we would begin to refer to the representation in terms of it actually taking place! This pattern of thought would carry through to every subsequent video game devised.