vintage video games exhibition

[grantspain]

the science museum in london has an exhibition of vintage video games dating from the 1960's,its called "game on" and starts 21st october-if any of the u.k guys can get to it and maybe get some pictures that would be cool,apparently there are gonna be some classics and a few surprises.
there is gonna be 120 machines on display(i don't know if you will able to play them)but it will range from the start of video's to the present day

[Chris]

Video games from the 1960's?  The earliest I know is Computer Space from 1971.

Wonder they have from the '60's... old computer games that weren't released commercially?  Shooting galleries or racers that used projections rather than true video?

Someone's got to get there and take pics.

[danny_galaga]

maybe theyll have a mainframe running space wars...

edit: i mean spacewar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar%21

[Level42]

Ahhh, the wonders of Google: typed: Science Museum London, found their site and here's all the answers:
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/gameon/

The whole thing is sponsored by Nintendo....
The 60's thing: One of the earliest computer games was Spacewar on the PDP-1 computer, and that was in 1962....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar%21.

However, wikipedia mentions even earlier games, dating back to 1947 ! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_and_video_games

And yes, it says you will be able to play them.

Is that sad or what ? I will be around London in the weekend of  14 th october   Can't they open just one week earlier ?

Oh well......gues my memories of Funspot will have to suffice for quite some time...

[gamecreature]

That Game On exhibition has been around for a while. It's made two stops at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.

I believe the show is meant to cover games from the very beginning to the modern day and beyond. Arcade machines, Console games, PC and so on all get their day in the sun. While there's a lot of interesting things to see there (original art from Dragon's Lair and an envrionmental Discs of Tron, for instance) there's not a lot of answers. I would have liked to have seen some explanation as to why the drive for better graphics led to games like Dragon's Lair and why video games continue to push the technological envelope.

But that's just me. Most of the museum guests seemed to be happy just playing a lot of games for free. My wife, on the other hand, couldn't care less. I don't think she touched a single controller. 

[Level42]

Yup:
http://www.gameonweb.co.uk/

It even was in The Netherlands in 2003, and I managed to miss it 

O well, once I move into that palace I'm dreaming of, I could always hire the entire collection for a month. Only 40.000 UKP per month.....min. 3 months

Mmmm, interesting. Seems like good business for the museum. The average ticket price is about UKP 7,-. If they have something like 50.000 visitors that's UKP 350.000 - (4 months x UKP 40.000) = UKP 190.000

PLUS They have a MAJOR sponsor....

[NightGod]

That Game On exhibition has been around for a while. It's made two stops at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.

Crap-that'll teach me not to keep up with what's going on at the MS&I =x

[Grasshopper]

Cool.

I went to the exhibition a few years ago when it was at the Barbican. I'll definitely be going again.

[NOP]

I also went to this at the Barbican a few years back (2003?)

It's a pretty great collection of games, from the early video games, all the consoles, handhelds and then some future interactive conceptual games (a precursor to a holodeck perhaps).  It's more of a big collection than anything truly informative, and I thought the neatest stuff was seeing some of the original artwork and hand scribbled notes of some of the game designers.  I mean, we all know what a Joust machine looks like-we don't really need to pay to see one, but getting a chance to see the behind the scenes rough designs is what really got to me.

I'd go again in a heartbeat.

The odd thing was that I swear I was about the 4th person in line when it opened on the day I went, and when I went in, there were already like 25 people inside playing games!