The history of video game controllers is incredible and fascinating, with origins tracing back to the first computers, military operations, aerospace technology, and medical applications.
What was the first game controller?
The very first game controller to be showcased on this ultimate video game controller timeline is the control box for the immensely influential space combat video game Spacewar!, which is the first known game to be publicly distributed and played on multiple computer installations. It was created in 1962 by computer scientists for the DEC PDP-1 minicomputer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The game featured two spaceships, “the wedge” and “the needle”, which engaged in a dogfight while trying to evade a lethal gravity well.
At first, the game was controlled by the front panel of the minicomputer, but this proved to wear down quickly and be cumbersome for two players. To combat this difficulty, computer programmer Bob Saunders developed an early gamepad, which is the first controller on this timeline.
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