Vintage video game exhibit a blast from the past
In 1974, Bill Gates and Paul Allen got one of the first personal computer kits, the Altair 8800. They were thrilled by the idea of a computer built for the masses and proceeded to adapt BASIC (a standard programming language at the time) to make the machines easier to use. In 1975, when Gates was just 19, they released Altair BASIC and Microsoft was formed.
You’ll find the Altair 8800, along with a display of computers and video games once regarded as revolutionary at INTERPLAY: The History of Electronic Entertainment, the interactive exhibit showing at Kitchener-Waterloo’s THEMUSEUM until May 13.
Microsoft’s technology bookends the display, beginning with the Altair and ending with a 2013 Xbox One. For an idea of how computing power has grown: the 1975 Altair contained about 5,000 transistors, while the Xbox One contained five billion in roughly the same physical space.
But even more compelling for some will be the opportunity to see and play vintage video games on the ground breaking machines of a bygone era. You can try your luck at Pong, Space Invaders and Pac-Man, for example, all on the original devices. “Almost everyone who grew up around the ’70s and ’80s would remember them,” says Syd Bolton, curator of the exhibit at THEMUSEUM, who owns Canada’s largest collection of video games (17,500 and counting). “I watched a father and son play Pong recently,” he says. “The father won. That’s probably the only time a parent can beat a child at a game.”
Although these antique computers are ultimately “just machines,” says Bolton, people often get misty-eyed re-discovering the old technology. “It’s the people and their stories that I personally find more interesting than anything,” he says. “It’s almost like these computers are time machines because they unlock memories and bring visitors back.”
There’s also a second installation, called INTERPLAY: Thinking Through Games, a collaboration between Montreal’s ‘Technoculture, Art, and Games Research Centre’ (TAG) at Concordia University and the ‘Games Institute’ (GI) at the University of Waterloo. This exhibition explores the spaces and places of games in research institutions. This unique collaboration displays a wide variety of ways that academic researchers are engaging with and studying games, through play and analysis as well as through game creation. The exhibition serves as a space for visitors of all ages to learn about how games are made and studied, showcasing research that looks into the past, present, and future of games. “The Games Institute (University of Waterloo) and the Technoculture, Art, and Games (TAG) Lab (Concordia University) are proud to be able to spotlight games research in an interactive capacity to engage with the community,” says Kaitlin O’Brien, communications and project coordinator for the GI. “Visitors can expect a handson experience that will explore games analysis, game creation and game play.”
Connecting a diverse range of different games and approaches, the exhibition guides visitors through a wide array of practices, from written analytical and theoretical research, to modding and repurposing of blockbuster games like Minecraft and Fallout 4, to the creation of highly experimental alternative controller experiences. The exhibit serves as a playful invitation for visitors to reflect on and engage with possibilities outside of their preconceptions and expectations of what games research looks like. INTERPLAY: Thinking Through Games will run until May 13 as part of Digital Dynamics 2018.