interesting article: GALAXY GAME 1st coin op is at google

This was an interesting article. I've seen the two cabinets at the Computer History Museum* before and didn't know they were on loan to Google.

This is not the first commercially mass-produced coin-op video game as it was never put into mass production and could not have been at $20,000 each and based on a PDP 11 computer (some reports identify the machine as a PDP 11/15, and some as a PDP 11/20. I'm not sure which is accurate).

Computer Space holds the distinction as the first coin-op video game made for distribution.

Note both were inspired by the (non coin-op) Space War. Non coin-op Pong also predates both machines.

And while Galaxy Game might have been the first coin-op videogame, it was predated by other coin-op games that had both logic and a viewing screens. Non-CRT screen/viewing window based coin-op games go back decades earlier, and logic games like trivia quizzes (ie: http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=1637) back at least as far back as the 40s.

* Note: The Computer History Museum has a two-player green Computer Space on display, but the control panel does not look particularly correct, and I don't know if the panel is an operator hack or what.

* Note 2. The article states the games on on loan to Google, which makes sense, but every photo caption says the machines have been donated to Google, which I would be surprised by.
 
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