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Steve Russell and fellow MIT students wrote Spacewar! on a PDP-1 minicomputer in 1962. The figure is taken from Computer History Museum, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

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Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

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The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

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Spacewar! was one of the earliest interactive computer video games

Steve Russell and fellow MIT students wrote Spacewar! on a PDP-1 minicomputer in 1962

In 1962, programmers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology authored Spacewar! for the DEC PDP-1 mainframe. Two players controlled spacecraft orbiting a central star while shooting torpedoes at each other. The program circulated across university computing centers, serving as an early benchmark test for computer system hardware and displays.

Where this comes from

Computer History Museum

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Tags: gaming, mit, software

Spacewar! was one of the earliest interactive computer video games: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Steve Russell and fellow MIT students wrote Spacewar! on a PDP-1 minicomputer in 1962. The figure is taken from Computer History Museum, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a technology fact?: Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.