234:. The game has no specific objectives, other than to attempt to land on the various planets and moons of the system. The planets and most of the moons in the Solar System are represented to scale both in size and distance from each other, though the orbits are simplified to be circles. To land on a body, the player's ship must cross the line representing the surface while moving at a low enough speed. The player is able to control the ship to go forwards and backwards and turn. The ship moves at a constant level of acceleration relative to the scale of the screen, which the player can control; scaling the screen up high enough allows the player to travel across the Solar System in seconds, though they risk overshooting their target and becoming unable to find the Solar System again, and scaling down allows the player to be moving slowly enough to land. The ship is always in the center of the screen, facing the top; turning the ship right or left therefore rotates the Solar System around the ship instead.
249:. This means that a player attempting to land on Phobos needs to allow the ship to fall below the moon's surface until it is close enough to Phobos's center that Phobos's pull becomes the dominant force, at which point the ship snaps back to be landed on the surface. The name of the planet or moon with the current strongest pull is displayed on the screen. Players are able to edit the program to change the conditions; popular variations by the original players were increasing the gravity level and thus the difficulty, or an adjustment to the coordinate display system so that, rather than the ship staying in the center of the screen and the planets moving relative to it, the current dominant planet would always be at the bottom of the screen, with the ship moving relative to it.
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161:. The player flies their ship around a two-dimensional scale model of the Solar System with no objectives other than to attempt to land on various planets and moons. The player can move and turn the ship, and adjust the overall speed by adjusting the scale of the simulation. The ship is affected by the single strongest
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were attached to the central computer, each terminal's program jobs had to be submitted in a queue, resulting in long pauses in the game while the GE 645 worked on jobs for other terminals. Additionally, the system required the user to type in commands rather than press buttons, resulting in the ship
405:
In 1970, however, DEC introduced the PDP-11, which cost $ 65,000 and could be operated directly by the team without support from the computing services department. The team also changed their proposal; the machine was not being requested to develop an operating system, but a system for "editing and
339:
That same year Bell's internal computer departments were split, with the teams working on development put into a new computing research department, while the operation of the internal computing resources, including the GE machines, moved to the computing services department. As a result, computing
385:, rooted in their experience with the Multics file system. This, in turn, demanded some way to start the process running once loaded. More features were continually added to print, edit, delete and move files. Before long, it had become a simple operating system of its own. Thompson then wrote an
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While
Thompson continued working on the PDP-7, the original Multics team had concluded that as Bell had exited the Multics program, there was no reason for the company to continue operating the expensive GE 645, and they believed it would be removed within a few months. They repeatedly asked
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on the system. Multics was a collaborative project between several institutions for an interactive, multi-user operating system that provided convenient access for programming. It was also growing very large and complex, and Bell Labs decided to exit the project in 1969.
41:
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system. When the hard drive arrived in
December the rest of the basic features were added. The team was now committed to the new system, and Brian Kernighan gave it the name Unix, a "somewhat treacherous pun" on Multics.
414:, and the entire team began porting the rudimentary operating system from the PDP-7 to the new machine. During this time it gained the slash-separated hierarchical directories and other features of the
410:. Management saw merit in this proposal and the machine was ordered in May 1970. By this point, the PDP-7 was already considered completely obsolete. The PDP-11 arrived in the summer, without a
402:
system, then US$ 120,000, but this too was rejected. Ritchie later surmised that the company had just exited one operating system project and was in no hurry to spend money to start another.
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241:, though they do not affect one another and only the single strongest pull affects the player's ship. This sometimes results in odd behavior; for example, the gravitational effect of
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434:, and was never distributed beyond its initial locations. As a result, it had no effect on future video games, and its primary legacy is that of sparking the creation of Unix.
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management for a new machine to continue their operating system work. This ultimately culminated in a lengthy proposal to buy some parts and rent others of DEC's new
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services tracked the computer usage internally with a cost system, meaning that each session of playing the game cost US$ 50 to US$ 75 on the internal balance sheet.
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never spread beyond Bell Labs or had an effect on future games, leaving its primary legacy as part of the original push for the development of Unix.
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graphics consisting of white lines on a black background. In it, the player controls a spaceship as it flies through a representation of the
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and then loading it into the PDP-7. Thompson did not use any of the provided PDP-7 code, writing everything from scratch, including a
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which gave it excellent graphics capabilities for the time. As this machine would solve the problems with playing the game, he ported
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computer. As a part of porting the game to the PDP-7, Thompson developed his own operating system, which later formed the core of the
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The tedium of moving the code between the two machines prompted
Thompson to design his own simple
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operating system already present on the GE 645. Thompson and other Bell Labs employees, such as
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This article is about the 1969 videogame. For the general videogaming topic, see
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Thompson learned that a neighboring department had an older, little-used
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for the PDP-7 to avoid using the GECOS computer entirely.
467:"Space Travel: Exploring the solar system and the PDP-7"
710:"'Pong' Turns 40, But It's Not the Oldest Video Game"
629:
Abzug, Charles (2003-12-26). Bidgoli, Hossein (ed.).
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based on some chalkboard ideas by Dennis
Ritchie and
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596:"Yes, A video game contributed to Unix Development"
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759:of installation and gameplay of PDP-7 version of
237:Each planet or moon has a mass, and therefore a
515:"The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System"
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426:developed before the rise of the commercial
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708:Milian, Mark; Chan, Marcus (2012-11-15).
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750:and other early Unix programs, via the
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245:is much stronger than that of its moon
1529:General Comprehensive Operating System
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303:. During his work, Thompson developed
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632:The Internet Encyclopedia, Volume 3
374:library and other low-level tools.
176:before the rise of the commercial
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992:Cathode-ray tube amusement device
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406:formatting text", essentially a
746:, printed PDP-7 source code of
720:from the original on 2015-02-16
653:from the original on 2022-07-21
606:from the original on 2015-12-10
525:from the original on 2015-06-11
477:from the original on 2015-12-26
1575:Compatible Time-Sharing System
546:Fiedler, David (August 1983).
1:
1506:Multics Relational Data Store
1641:Space flight simulator games
1621:Early history of video games
977:Early history of video games
432:early history of video games
422:Space Travel was one of the
336:being difficult to control.
319:so that it could run on the
182:early history of video games
165:of the astronomical bodies.
21:Space flight simulation game
1636:Science fiction video games
680:The Art of Unix Programming
556:. Vol. 8, no. 8.
350:. This was equipped with a
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985:Analog and lightbulb games
199:computer, and then to the
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1661:Single-player video games
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358:to this platform using a
311:Thompson then ported the
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195:operating system on the
1244:Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr.
907:Associated institutions
752:Computer History Museum
1219:John Makepeace Bennett
296:operating system on a
281:
268:
1094:Early mainframe games
843:Programming languages
829:Plan 9 from Bell Labs
637:John Wiley & Sons
548:"The History of Unix"
424:early mainframe games
274:
260:
224:simulation video game
1430:Michael A. Padlipsky
1041:Early Chess programs
639:. pp. 495–496.
284:In 1969, programmer
1470:Victor A. Vyssotsky
1375:Fernando J. Corbató
1249:William Higinbotham
428:video game industry
178:video game industry
1229:David Champernowne
1170:First arcade games
687:. pp. 30–31.
600:Harvard University
593:Ritchie, Dennis M.
511:Ritchie, Dennis M.
463:Ritchie, Dennis M.
333:computer terminals
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239:gravitational pull
207:operating system.
163:gravitational pull
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1450:Michael Schroeder
1405:Bernard Greenberg
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1127:The Sumerian Game
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817:Operating systems
694:978-0-13-246588-5
646:978-0-471-22203-3
352:graphics terminal
222:is a spaceflight
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1631:Multics software
1611:1969 video games
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1445:Glenda Schroeder
1420:Peter G. Neumann
1400:Robert M. Graham
1385:Peter J. Denning
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1335:General Electric
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513:(October 1984).
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560:. p. 188.
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1515:Multics-like
1486:Space Travel
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1264:Ken Thompson
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60:Ken Thompson
52:Developer(s)
34:Space Travel
25:
1570:Project MAC
1554:Stratus VOS
1425:Joe Ossanna
1390:Jack Dennis
1345:Groupe Bull
1269:Alan Turing
1254:Josef Kates
1204:Mabel Addis
1186:Galaxy Game
979:(1947-1971)
766:Source code
558:McGraw-Hill
379:file system
288:worked for
253:Development
90:Platform(s)
78:Designer(s)
1656:Unix games
1605:Categories
1234:Ted Dabney
1214:Ralph Baer
1013:Carmonette
724:2016-02-04
657:2021-12-04
610:2016-02-04
571:2016-02-04
529:2022-07-17
481:2016-02-04
438:References
412:hard drive
368:punch tape
325:Ravi Sethi
228:monochrome
147:video game
1616:Bell Labs
1524:Domain/OS
1340:Honeywell
1330:Bell Labs
1318:Developer
1209:David Ahl
1159:Star Trek
1119:Marienbad
1111:Spacewar!
1050:Turochamp
914:Bell Labs
714:Bloomberg
566:0360-5280
519:Bell Labs
471:Bell Labs
387:assembler
301:mainframe
290:Bell Labs
174:Bell Labs
170:developed
155:simulates
1592:Category
1479:Software
1135:Hamurabi
1021:Hutspiel
864:Software
772:port of
718:Archived
651:Archived
604:Archived
523:Archived
475:Archived
465:(2001).
315:code to
215:Gameplay
118:Genre(s)
1563:Related
1539:ICL VME
1517:systems
1496:Macsyma
1491:Maclisp
1311:Multics
834:Inferno
430:in the
317:Fortran
294:Multics
292:on the
191:to the
186:Multics
180:in the
129:Mode(s)
109:Release
95:Multics
1549:PRIMOS
1534:GEORGE
1363:People
1197:People
1189:(1971)
1181:(1971)
1162:(1971)
1154:(1969)
1146:(1969)
1138:(1968)
1130:(1964)
1122:(1962)
1114:(1962)
1106:(1952)
1085:(1970)
1077:(1968)
1069:(1967)
1066:Kaissa
1061:(1956)
1053:(1948)
1032:(1958)
1024:(1955)
1016:(1953)
1008:(1951)
1006:Nimrod
1002:(1950)
994:(1947)
919:Google
768:for a
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400:PDP-10
393:Legacy
298:GE 645
247:Phobos
197:GE 635
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1082:Chess
1074:Blitz
935:UTF-8
928:Other
871:Belle
757:Video
345:PDP-7
321:GECOS
279:PDP-7
201:PDP-7
193:GECOS
103:PDP-7
99:GECOS
881:grep
824:Unix
689:ISBN
641:ISBN
562:ISSN
553:Byte
416:Unix
327:and
264:and
243:Mars
205:Unix
112:1969
1325:MIT
1103:OXO
886:sam
366:to
276:DEC
172:at
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