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Introduction
In April 1962 the first issue of the newsletter for the Digital Equipment Computer Users’ Society announced both the establishment of a “program library” at the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and the nascent popularity of the video game SPACEWAR at MIT (see Fig. 1). The program library would be managed by Beverly Clohset, a graduate of Central Michigan University with an interest in mathematics, and its purpose was to test and catalogue programs written for DEC’s PDP-1 computer for the benefit of users.1 In the same month, Steve Russell and fellow MIT students were perfecting SPACEWAR, one of the first examples of a video game as we understand them today (see Fig. 2). Collaborators Dan Edwards and Martin Graetz reported to Decuscope newsletter editor Elsa Newman: “…SPACEWAR is an exciting game for two players, many kibitzers, and a PDP-1. The game starts with each player in control of a spaceship (displayed on PDP's scope face) equipped with propulsion rockets, rotation gyros, and space torpedos.” By the summer on 1962 the inventors of SPACEWAR dispersed to different institutions, bringing copies of the video game with them. Graetz reported that program tapes were already showing up all over the country on any research computer with a CRT -- perhaps copies obtained through the DEC library.2
Fig. 1.
The first issue of Decuscope: Information for Digital Equipment Computer Users, April 1962.
[Figure omitted. See PDF]
Fig. 2.
Spacewar! running on the PDP-1 at The Computer History Museum. Photograph by Joi Ito, CC-BY-2.0.
[Figure omitted. See PDF]
The 1962 Decuscope newsletter elucidates how the proliferation of new formats of information and the need for libraries to store and circulate that media responded to the co-evolution of computer technology and early video game development. Over half a century later, video games have blossomed into one of the most prevalent forms of media in the world and remain at the forefront of not only technological, but also artistic, innovation. As a result, university libraries began including video games in their collections to support research across disciplines as well as for their entertainment value. This article considers the state of current university library collections of video games and includes a review of recent literature of the topic...