135-543: The Magnavox Odyssey is the first commercial home video game console . The hardware was designed by a small team led by Ralph H. Baer at Sanders Associates , while Magnavox completed development and released it in the United States in September 1972 and overseas the following year. The Odyssey consists of a white, black, and brown box that connects to a television set, and two rectangular controllers attached by wires. It
270-536: A felt coating. Traditionally white, the predominant colour was gradually changed to optic yellow in the latter part of the 20th century to allow for improved visibility. Tennis balls must conform to certain criteria for size, weight, deformation , and bounce to be approved for regulation play. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) defines the official diameter as 65.41–68.58 mm (2.575–2.700 in). Balls must weigh between 56.0 and 59.4 g (1.98 and 2.10 oz). Tennis balls were traditionally manufactured in
405-409: A racket and balls. The components of a tennis racket include a handle, known as the grip, connected to a neck which joins a roughly elliptical frame that holds a matrix of tightly pulled strings. For the first 100 years of the modern game, rackets were made of wood and of standard size, and strings were of animal gut . Laminated wood construction yielded more strength in rackets used through most of
540-430: A tennis racket strung with a cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net and into the opponent's court . The object is to manoeuvre the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return. If a player is unable to return the ball successfully, the opponent scores a point . Playable at all levels of society and at all ages, tennis can be played by anyone who can hold
675-448: A "lite" version with five games and a version with four controllers and a dozen new or updated games. Baer proposed an add-on that would add sound to games, and a putting controller and associated golf game. Magnavox rejected the proposals, instead releasing four games for sale in 1973, designed wholly or in part by Emry. Although still only available at Magnavox dealers, national marketing for Odyssey began in late 1973. The company lowered
810-470: A Sanders patent attorney recommended contacting television manufacturers. Baer demonstrated the system to several companies, who all expressed enthusiasm; only RCA wanted to purchase the device, however, and an agreement could not be reached. Soon afterwards, though, RCA executive Bill Enders left RCA for Magnavox and convinced them to look at the console again. The creators of the Brown Box again demonstrated
945-422: A battery or battery pack. Earlier home consoles were typically built from a selection of standard and highly customized integrated computer chips, packaged onto circuit boards and cases. Over time, home console design has converged to a degree with personal computers , using similar component and system design, including standardization with main computer chip architecture. Consoles remain as fixed systems, lacking
1080-535: A best-of-five, wins the match. Only in the final sets of matches at the Olympic Games and Fed Cup are tiebreaks not played. In these cases, sets are played indefinitely until one player has a two-game lead, occasionally leading to some remarkably long matches . In tournament play, the chair umpire announces the end of the match with the well-known phrase " Game, set, match " followed by the winning person's or team's name. A game point occurs in tennis whenever
1215-523: A boxed set which included a net, poles, rackets, balls for playing the game – and most importantly you had his rules. He was absolutely terrific at marketing and he sent his game all over the world. He had very good connections with the clergy, the law profession, and the aristocracy and he sent thousands of sets out in the first year or so, in 1874." The world's oldest annual tennis tournament took place at Leamington Lawn Tennis Club in Birmingham in 1874. This
1350-616: A call from the server to his opponent. It was popular in England and France, although the game was only played indoors, where the ball could be hit off the wall. Henry VIII of England was a big fan of this game, which is now known as real tennis . An epitaph in St Michael's Church, Coventry , written c. 1705 , read, in part: Here lyes an old toss'd Tennis Ball: Was racketted, from spring to fall, With so much heat and so much hast, Time's arm for shame grew tyred at last. During
1485-447: A chasing game, a light gun game, and three types of controllers: joysticks for the chase game, a rifle for the light gun game, and a three dial controller for the ping-pong game. Campman felt that the system was advanced enough to begin trying to find a manufacturer to buy it; they had decided to sell the rights to produce the console, as Sanders was not in the business of making and selling commercial electronics. The team first approached
SECTION 10
#17328451690681620-552: A doubles team. The single player gets to utilize the alleys normally reserved only for a doubles team. Conversely, the doubles team does not use the alleys when executing a shot. The scoring is the same as for a regular game. This format is not sanctioned by any official body. "Australian doubles", another informal and unsanctioned form of tennis, is played with similar rules to the Canadian doubles style, only in this version, players rotate court position after each game, each player taking
1755-416: A final product. They designed the exterior of the machine and re-engineered some of the internals with consultation from Baer and Harrison; they removed the ability to display color, used only the three dial controller, and changed the system of selecting games from a dial to separate game cards that modified the console's circuitry when plugged into the console. At the time, color televisions were still seen as
1890-550: A group of American and French tennis players playing exhibition matches to paying audiences. The most notable of these early professionals were the American Vinnie Richards and the Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen . Players turned pro would no longer be permitted to compete in the major (amateur) tournaments. In 1968, commercial pressures and rumours of some amateurs taking money under the table led to
2025-414: A license in exchange for US$ 1.5 million (equivalent to $ 10.3 million) and access granted to Magnavox to all technology produced by Atari from June 1976 to June 1977; other defendants paid higher penalties. Over the next twenty years, Sanders and Magnavox sued several other companies over the issue, focusing on " paddle-and-ball " type games like Pong and Table Tennis that more clearly violated
2160-494: A luxury item, and the ability to show color would have added additional expense and time spent dealing with FCC testing and regulations. The internal circuitry had been designed with discrete components rather than integrated circuits due to cost concerns, and although integrated circuits were becoming common by 1972 Magnavox did not redesign the circuitry to use them. The games for the system were designed by Ron Bradford of Bradford/Cout Design and adman Steve Lehner, based largely on
2295-414: A more focused prototype machine with fewer components, but found that to even come near to Baer's initial price target of US$ 25 the console would require so much to be excluded that the resulting product would not be very enjoyable. Baer additionally felt that he was not proving successful at designing fun games for the system; to make up for this he formally added Bill Rusch, who had helped him come up with
2430-451: A pair which described how the Odyssey showed player-controlled objects, or dots, on a video monitor and described a number of games that could be played with the system, with one patent by Baer and one by Rusch. The judge, John Grady, ruled in early 1977 that Baer's patent for the Odyssey constituted "the pioneering patent of the video game art", held the defendants' games as infringing, and set
2565-518: A potential hit, and it became the company's first game. Pong was very successful, and in turn helped drive sales of the Odyssey; Baer noted that customers bought the console because of Table Tennis , in turn because of Pong , and joked that they may as well have stopped designing games after that game card. In April 1974, however, Magnavox sued Atari along with several competitors, including Allied Leisure, Bally Midway , and arcade distributor Empire, for infringing on its patents for video games played on
2700-459: A precedent that any video game where a machine-controlled visual element hit and bounced off a player-controlled element violated Rusch's patent. At the time of judgement, only Seeburg Corporation and Chicago Dynamic Industries—though bankrupt—remained out of the defendants of the initial three lawsuits, with all other companies having settled out of court. Atari's settlement, made in June 1976, granted it
2835-506: A presence in the game development and licensing space. Nintendo remains the only competitor having taken a blue ocean strategy by offering more original console concepts such as motion sensing in the Wii and the hybrid design of the Nintendo Switch . Within the home video game console market, the leading consoles have often been grouped into generations, consoles that were major competitors in
SECTION 20
#17328451690682970-535: A racket, including wheelchair users . The original forms of tennis developed in France during the late Middle Ages . The modern form of tennis originated in Birmingham , England, in the late 19th century as lawn tennis . It had close connections to various field (lawn) games such as croquet and bowls as well as to the older racket sport today called real tennis . The rules of modern tennis have changed little since
3105-413: A sequence of games played with service alternating between games, ending when the count of games won meets certain criteria. Typically, a player wins a set by winning at least six games and at least two games more than the opponent. If one player has won six games and the opponent five, an additional game is played. If the leading player wins that game, the player wins the set 7–5. If the trailing player wins
3240-485: A sequence of sets. The outcome is determined through a best of three or five sets system. On the professional circuit, men play best-of-five-set matches at all four Grand Slam tournaments, Davis Cup, and the final of the Olympic Games and best-of-three-set matches at all other tournaments, while women play best-of-three-set matches at all tournaments. The first player to win two sets in a best-of-three, or three sets in
3375-522: A series of home video game consoles begins in a generation and lasts to another generation, it is listed in the generation the series began. This list does not claim to be complete. This list does not include other types of video game consoles such as handheld game consoles , which are usually of lower computational power than home consoles due to their smaller size; microconsoles , which are usually low-cost Android-based devices that rely on downloading; retro style consoles ; or dedicated consoles past
3510-410: A single dedicated game, such as home Pong consoles. Documented consoles of this generation can be found at list of first generation home video game consoles . 128-bit (SIMD) 128-bit (SIMD) 128-bit extensions Tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles ) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles ). Each player uses
3645-450: A solicitor, and his friend Augurio Perera developed a game that combined elements of racquets and the Basque ball game pelota , which they played on Perera's croquet lawn in Birmingham , England. In 1872, along with two local doctors, they founded the world's first tennis club on Avenue Road, Leamington Spa . This is where "lawn tennis" was used as the name of an activity by a club for
3780-406: A television screen. Two more lawsuits joined it by 1975, against Sears , Nutting, Williams Electronics , and others. Baer later stated that the lawsuits were not filed right away because Magnavox and Sanders needed to wait until they could expect to be awarded more money than it would cost to pursue the suits. The root of the conflict was a set of patents by Baer and the development team—particularly
3915-556: A tennis court at the Staten Island Cricket Club at Camp Washington, Tompkinsville, Staten Island , New York. The first American National championship was played there in September 1880. An Englishman named O.E. Woodhouse won the singles title, and a silver cup worth $ 100, by defeating Canadian I. F. Hellmuth . There was also a doubles match which was won by a local pair. There were different rules at each club. The ball in Boston
4050-459: A turn at playing alone against the other two. As such, each player plays doubles and singles over the course of a match, with the singles player always serving. Scoring styles vary, but one popular method is to assign a value of 2 points to each game, with the server taking both points if he or she holds serve and the doubles team each taking one if they break serve. Wheelchair tennis can be played by able-bodied players as well as people who require
4185-405: Is a let or net service , which is void, and the server retakes that serve. The player can serve any number of let services in a point and they are always treated as voids and not as faults. A fault is a serve that falls long or wide of the service box, or does not clear the net. There is also a "foot fault" when a player's foot touches the baseline or an extension of the centre mark before the ball
Magnavox Odyssey - Misplaced Pages Continue
4320-499: Is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television , and an external power source as to play video games . While initial consoles were dedicated units with only a few games fixed into the electronic circuits of the system, most consoles since support the use of swappable game media, either through game cartridges , optical discs , or through digital distribution to internal storage. There have been numerous home video game consoles since
4455-580: Is a popular worldwide spectator sport. The four Grand Slam tournaments (also referred to as the majors) are especially popular and are considered the highest level of competition for the sport. These tournaments are the Australian Open , played on hardcourts ; the French Open , played on red clay courts ; Wimbledon , played on grass courts ; and the US Open , also played on hardcourts. Additionally, tennis
4590-408: Is a predesigned piece of electronic hardware that is meant to be placed at a fixed location at one's home, connected to a display like a television screen or computer monitor, and to an external power source, to play video games on using one or more video game controllers . This differs from a handheld game console which will have a built-in screen, controller buttons/features, and a power supply like
4725-556: Is acknowledged that this stereotype still exists). In 1954, Van Alen founded the International Tennis Hall of Fame , a nonprofit museum in Newport, Rhode Island. The building contains a large collection of tennis memorabilia as well as a hall of fame honouring prominent members and tennis players from all over the world. Part of the appeal of tennis stems from the simplicity of equipment required for play. Beginners need only
4860-482: Is called the doubles alley, playable in doubles play. The line that runs across the centre of a player's side of the court is called the service line because the serve must be delivered into the area between the service line and the net on the receiving side. Despite its name, this is not where a player legally stands when making a serve. The line dividing the service line in two is called the centre line or centre service line. The boxes this centre line creates are called
4995-409: Is capable of displaying three square dots and one line of varying height on the screen in monochrome black and white, with differing behavior for the dots depending on the game played. Players place plastic overlays on the screen to display additional visual elements for each game, and one or two players for each game control their dots with the knobs and buttons on the controller by the rules given for
5130-434: Is hit. If the second service, after a fault, is also a fault, the server double faults , and the receiver wins the point. However, if the serve is in, it is considered a legal service. A legal service starts a rally , in which the players alternate hitting the ball across the net. A legal return consists of a player hitting the ball so that it falls in the server's court, before it has bounced twice or hit any fixtures except
5265-516: Is not played, the set is referred to as an advantage set , where the set continues without limit until one player leads by a two-game margin. A "love set" means that the loser of the set won zero games, colloquially termed a "jam donut" in the US. In tournament play, the chair umpire announces the winner of the set and the overall score. The final score in sets is always read with the winning player's score first, e.g. "6–2, 4–6, 6–0, 7–5". A match consists of
5400-417: Is often the same width as the others. The players or teams start on opposite sides of the net. One player is designated the server , and the opposing player is the receiver . The choice to be server or receiver in the first game and the choice of ends is decided by a coin toss before the warm-up starts. Service alternates game by game between the two players or teams. For each point, the server starts behind
5535-422: Is unusual in that it is played on a variety of surfaces. Grass , clay , and hard courts of concrete or asphalt topped with acrylic are the most common. Occasionally carpet is used for indoor play, with hardwood flooring having been historically used. Artificial turf courts can also be found. The lines that delineate the width of the court are called the baseline (farthest back) and the service line (middle of
Magnavox Odyssey - Misplaced Pages Continue
5670-632: The French Championships date to 1891, although until 1925 they were open only to tennis players who were members of French clubs. Thus, Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open and the Australian Open (dating to 1905) became and have remained the most prestigious events in tennis. Together, these four events are called the Majors or Slams (a term borrowed from bridge rather than baseball ). In 1913,
5805-685: The Magnavox Odyssey 2 . While it showed the potential of video game consoles and was an early part of the rise of the commercial video game industry , the Odyssey is not generally considered a major commercial success. Magnavox produced no more games for the console after 1973 and rejected proposals for different versions of the console or accessories. While a few clone systems were produced in limited quantities, and multiple dedicated systems—generally focused on ping-pong game variants—were created by several companies, no other home video consoles capable of playing separately-produced games were released until
5940-606: The World Covered Court Championships for indoor courts were awarded annually; Sweden, France, Great Britain, Denmark, Switzerland and Spain each hosted the tournament. At a meeting held on 16 March 1923 in Paris, the title "World Championship" was dropped and a new category of "Official Championship" was created for events in Great Britain, France, the US and Australia – today's Grand Slam events. The impact on
6075-443: The 1890s. Two exceptions are that until 1961 the server had to keep one foot on the ground at all times, and the adoption of the tiebreak in the 1970s. A recent addition to professional tennis has been the adoption of electronic review technology coupled with a point-challenge system, which allows a player to contest the line call of a point, a system known as Hawk-Eye . Tennis is played by millions of recreational players and
6210-525: The 18th and early 19th centuries, as real tennis declined, new racket sports emerged in England. The invention of the first lawn mower in Britain in 1830 is believed to have been a catalyst for the preparation of modern-style grass courts, sporting ovals, playing fields, pitches, greens, etc. This in turn led to the codification of modern rules for many sports, including lawn tennis, most football codes, lawn bowls and others. Between 1859 and 1865, Harry Gem ,
6345-518: The 1976 Fairchild Semiconductor Channel F . Due to his work on the Odyssey, Baer has been referred to as the "Father of Video Games". In 2004, Baer was awarded the National Medal of Technology for "his groundbreaking and pioneering creation, development and commercialization of interactive video games, which spawned related uses, applications, and mega-industries in both the entertainment and education realms". The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) added
6480-406: The 20th century until first metal and then composites of carbon graphite, ceramics, and lighter metals such as titanium were introduced. These stronger materials enabled the production of oversized rackets that yielded yet more power. Meanwhile, technology led to the use of synthetic strings that match the feel of gut yet with added durability. Under modern rules of tennis, the rackets must adhere to
6615-511: The Brown Box, was shown to several manufacturers before Magnavox agreed to produce it in January 1971. After releasing the console through their dealerships, Magnavox sold 69,000 units in its first calendar year and 350,000 by the time the console was discontinued in 1975. The console spawned the Odyssey series of dedicated consoles as well as the 1978 Magnavox Odyssey 2 . One of the 28 games made for
6750-625: The IOC decided to reintroduce tennis as a full-medal sport at Seoul in 1988. The Davis Cup , an annual competition between men's national teams, dates to 1900. The analogous competition for women's national teams, the Fed Cup , was founded as the Federation Cup in 1963 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the ITF. In 1926, promoter C. C. Pyle established the first professional tennis tour with
6885-634: The International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF), now the International Tennis Federation (ITF), was founded and established three official tournaments as the major championships of the day. The World Grass Court Championships were awarded to Great Britain. The World Hard Court Championships were awarded to France; the term "hard court" was used for clay courts at the time. Some tournaments were held in Belgium instead. And
SECTION 50
#17328451690687020-753: The Magnavox Odyssey to its permanent collection of video games in 2013. MoMA's Paul Galloway described the console as "a masterpiece of engineering and industrial design" and stated that it was "hard to overstate the importance of [Ralph Baer's] place in the birth of the industry". The Brown Box prototype and the TV Game #1 prototype are located in Washington, D.C. at the Smithsonian Institution 's National Museum of American History . In May 1972, Nutting Associates chief engineer Nolan Bushnell , designer of
7155-509: The Odyssey and other Magnavox products. Continuing demand led Magnavox to manufacture an additional 27,000 units for the 1973 holiday season, selling 20,000 of them according to Baer. It was released in 1974 in limited quantities in 11 other countries: Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, the Soviet Union, Spain, Switzerland, and Venezuela. It was additionally released at some point in other countries, such as Mexico, where it
7290-464: The Odyssey and the regular television input cable, and presents itself like a television channel on channel three or four, which thereafter became the standard for game consoles. The controllers, designed to sit on a flat surface, contain one button marked Reset on the top of the controller and three knobs : one on the right side of the controller, and two on the left with one extending from the other. The reset button resets individual elements depending on
7425-410: The Odyssey marked the beginning of the first generation of video game consoles and was an early part of the rise of the commercial video game industry . The Odyssey consists of a black, white, and brown oblong box connected by wires to two rectangular controllers . The console connects to the television set through an included switch box, which allows the player to switch the television input between
7560-458: The Olympics after the 1924 Games , but returned 60 years later as a 21-and-under demonstration event in 1984. This reinstatement was credited by the efforts of then ITF president Philippe Chatrier , ITF general secretary David Gray and ITF vice president Pablo Llorens, with support from International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch . The success of the event was overwhelming, and
7695-521: The U.S. market. The NES helped to revive the console market and gave Nintendo dominance during the late 1980s. Sega took advantage of the newfound U.S. growth to market its Sega Genesis against the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in the early 1990s in the so-called "console wars" and emphasized the notion of " bits " as a major selling point for consumers. The consumer adoption of optical discs with larger storage capacity in
7830-601: The United States and Europe. Although the process of producing the balls has remained virtually unchanged for the past 100 years, the majority of manufacturing now takes place in the Far East . The relocation is due to cheaper labour costs and materials in the region. Tournaments that are played under the ITF Rules of Tennis must use balls that are approved by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and be named on
7965-553: The abandonment of this distinction, inaugurating the Open Era , in which all players could compete in all tournaments, and top players were able to make their living from tennis. With the beginning of the Open Era, the establishment of an international professional tennis circuit, and revenues from the sale of television rights, tennis's popularity has spread worldwide, and the sport has shed its middle-class English-speaking image (although it
8100-408: The ability to connect and interface with a particular handheld game system, which certain games can leverage to provide alternate control schemes, second screen gameplay elements, exclusive unlockable content or the ability to transfer certain game data. The first commercial video game console was the Magnavox Odyssey , developed by a team led by Ralph H. Baer and released commercially in 1972. It
8235-454: The arm than most strings. Most synthetic strings are made from monofilament or multifiliament nylon strings. Monofilament strings are cheap to buy, and are used widely by many recreational level players for their all round performance, while multifilament strings are created to mimic natural gut more closely by weaving together fibres, but are generally more expensive than their monofilament counterparts. Polyester strings allow for more spin on
SECTION 60
#17328451690688370-432: The ball than any other string, due to their firm strings, while keeping control of the ball, and this is why many players use them, especially higher player ones. Kevlar tennis strings are highly durable, and are mostly used by players that frequently break strings, because they maintain tension well, but these strings can be stiff on the arm. Hybrid stringing is when a tennis racket is strung with two different strings for
8505-410: The baseline, between the centre mark and the sideline. The receiver may start anywhere on their side of the net. When the receiver is ready, the server will serve , although the receiver must play to the pace of the server. For a service to be legal, the ball must travel over the net without touching it into the diagonally opposite service box. If the ball hits the net but lands in the service box, this
8640-406: The baselines, dividing it into two equal ends. It is held up by either a cord or metal cable of diameter no greater than 0.8 cm ( 1 ⁄ 3 in). The net is 3 feet 6 inches (1.07 m) high at the posts and 3 feet (0.91 m) high in the centre. The net posts are 3 feet (0.91 m) outside the doubles court on each side or, for a singles net, 3 feet (0.91 m) outside
8775-447: The cable television industry, and the prototype attracted the attention of TelePrompTer Corporation , who had seen it during a visit. After a few months of talks, cash-flow problems forced TelePrompTer to back out in April 1968. The same economic downturn that caused TelePrompTer's problems caused financial difficulties at Sanders as well, which put the project on hold after the fifth prototype
8910-442: The chair umpire in tournament play. A break point occurs if the receiver, not the server , has a chance to win the game with the next point. Break points are of particular importance because serving is generally considered advantageous, with servers being expected to win games in which they are serving. A receiver who has one (score of 30–40 or advantage), two (score of 15–40) or three (score of love–40) consecutive chances to win
9045-512: The concept of using a television to play games, and the next morning wrote up a four-page proposal for a "game box" that would plug into a television screen, costing around US$ 25 (equivalent to about $ 230 in 2023). The proposed device would transmit a signal that the television set could tune into like a television channel, which Baer referred to as Channel LP, short for "let's play", and he described several games that could be played on it. While electronic computer games had been developed since
9180-660: The console, to go along with the plastic overlays for the games designed by Bradford that enhanced the primitive visuals. The new additions helped raise the price of the console to US$ 99.95 (equivalent to about $ 730 in 2023). Baer was upset with the board game additions, which he felt were pointless add-ons that would go unused by players. Magnavox performed market surveys and playtests in Los Angeles and Grand Rapids, Michigan, and demonstrated it to dealers in Las Vegas in May 1972. The console
9315-455: The console. Magnavox published two catalogs each year, one before the Christmas season and another for its annual sale in January. The Odyssey did not appear in the pre-Christmas 1972 catalog, but the January 1973 catalog depicted the console in a two-page spread with pictures of bundled and optional games and the light gun. Fritsche's team proposed the creation of alternate versions of the Odyssey,
9450-442: The console. The Odyssey was sold only through Magnavox dealers, who handled their own advertising in their local markets; the company hoped that as the video game console was the first such product, consumers would visit its stores specifically for it. There are conflicting reports between Baer and Magnavox employees as to whether Magnavox produced 120,000 or 140,000 consoles in 1972. Magnavox only sold 69,000 units. Baer believed that
9585-418: The console. These cards modify the internal circuitry like a set of switches or jumpers , causing the Odyssey to display different components and react to inputs differently. Multiple games use the same cards, with different instructions given to the player to change the style of the game. The Odyssey is capable of displaying three square dots and a vertical line on the screen. Two of the dots are controlled by
9720-424: The court). The short mark in the centre of each baseline is referred to as either the hash mark or the centre mark. The outermost lines that make up the length are called the doubles sidelines; they are the boundaries for doubles matches. The lines to the inside of the doubles sidelines are the singles sidelines, and are the boundaries in singles play. The area between a doubles sideline and the nearest singles sideline
9855-562: The customization options that personal computer components have, and most consoles include customized components to maximize space and reduce power consumption to provide the best performance for game playing, while lowering costs with reduced storage and memory configurations. Home video game consoles typically can play a multitude of games, offered either as game cartridges (or ROM cartridges), on optical media like CD-ROM or DVD, or obtained by digital distribution . Early consoles, also considered dedicated consoles, had games that were fixed in
9990-446: The device to Magnavox in July 1969; they received a tepid reaction from most of the executives, but Vice President of Magnavox Console Products Planning Gerry Martin was in favor, and Magnavox agreed to produce the console. After a long period of negotiations the two companies finally signed an agreement in January 1971. A team from Magnavox led by George Kent turned the prototype console into
10125-511: The dominant console type of the era, though not all consoles of those eras are of the same type. Some eras are referred to based on how many bits a major console could process. The "128-bit era" ( sixth generation ) was the final era in which this practice was widespread. This list only counts the first iteration of each console's hardware, because several systems have had slim, enhanced or other hardware revisions, but they are not individually listed here. The list also includes unreleased systems. If
10260-481: The early 1990s. A total of 28 games distributed on 11 different game cards were released for the Magnavox Odyssey. 13 games were included with the console—a set of 12 in America and a different set of 10 in other countries—with six others available for purchase either individually or in a bundle; the additional games primarily used the same game cards with different screen overlays and instructions. Another game, Percepts ,
10395-480: The electronic circuitry of the hardware. Some facets may be controlled by switching external controls on the console but the games could not be changed themselves. Most home consoles require a separate game controller, and may support multiple controllers for multiplayer games. Some console games can only be played with special, unconventional game controllers, such as light guns for rail shooters and guitar controllers for music games . Some consoles also possess
10530-504: The first commercial arcade video game , Computer Space , saw a demonstration of the Odyssey. Inspired, when he and Ted Dabney quit Nutting to found Atari , he assigned Allan Alcorn to create a cheap ping-pong arcade game as a training exercise, though he did not tell Alcorn that it was for training nor that the idea was based on the Odyssey Table Tennis game. Alcorn soon developed Pong (1972), which Bushnell recognized as
10665-519: The first commercial unit, the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. Historically these consoles have been grouped into generations lasting each about six years based on common technical specifications. As of 2024, there have been nine console generations, with the current leading manufacturers being Sony , Microsoft , and Nintendo , colloquially known as the "Big 3." Past console manufacturers have included Atari , Fairchild , Mattel , Coleco , Sega , NEC , 3DO , Fujitsu and SNK . A home video game console
10800-399: The first generation, which have games built in and do not use any form of physical media. Consoles have been redesigned from time to time to improve their market appeal. Redesigned models are not listed on their own. The list omits the more than 900 home video game consoles known to have been released in the first generation of video game consoles , those that were generally game consoles for
10935-440: The first time. In Tennis: A Cultural History , Heiner Gillmeister reveals that on 8 December 1874, British army officer Walter Clopton Wingfield wrote to Harry Gem, commenting that he (Wingfield) had been experimenting with his version of lawn tennis "for a year and a half". In December 1873, Wingfield designed and patented a game which he called sphairistikè ( Greek : σφαιριστική , meaning "ball-playing"), and which
11070-481: The first video game light gun . Named the Electronic Rifle, the rifle-shaped device registered a hit when pointed at a light source such as a dot on the television screen. Four shooting-based games were included with the light gun. The light guns were designed and manufactured by Nintendo , based on their 1970 Beam Gun toy. In 1951, while working for military contractor Loral Electronics , engineer Ralph H. Baer
11205-497: The following guidelines; The rules regarding rackets have changed over time, as material and engineering advances have been made. For example, the maximum length of the frame had been 32 inches (81 cm) until 1997, when it was shortened to 29 inches (74 cm). Many companies manufacture and distribute tennis rackets. Wilson, Head and Babolat are three of the most commonly used brands; however, many more companies exist. The same companies sponsor players to use these rackets in
11340-529: The four recipient nations to replace the "world championships" with "official championships" was simple in a general sense: each became a major nation of the federation with enhanced voting power, and each now operated a major event. The comprehensive rules promulgated in 1924 by the ILTF have remained largely stable in the ensuing 80 years, the one major change being the addition of the tiebreak system designed by Jimmy Van Alen . That same year, tennis withdrew from
11475-404: The game (tying the set 6–6) a tiebreak is played. A tiebreak, played under a separate set of rules, allows one player to win one more game and thus the set, to give a final set score of 7–6. A tiebreak game can be won by scoring at least seven points and at least two points more than the opponent. In a tiebreak, two players serve by 'ABBA' system which has been proven to be fair. If a tiebreak
11610-411: The game has break point , double break point or triple break point , respectively. If the receiver does, in fact, win their break point, the game is awarded to the receiver, and the receiver is said to have converted their break point. If the receiver fails to win their break point it is called a failure to convert. Winning break points, and thus the game, is also referred to as breaking serve , as
11745-400: The game show What's My Line? on October 16, 1972. As the term "video game" was not yet in use, the company described the console as "the new electronic game of the future" and "closed-circuit electronic playground". Magnavox initially ordered 50,000 units, but before release increased its production capabilities and built a larger inventory, as market testing found an enthusiastic response to
11880-631: The game, such as making a player's dot visible after it is turned off. The system can be powered by six C batteries , which were included; an optional AC power supply was sold separately. The Odyssey lacks sound capability and can only display monochrome white shapes on a blank black screen. Internally, the Odyssey architecture is composed of digital computing parts. The circuitry is implemented in diode–transistor logic using discrete transistors and diodes . The games themselves do not use ROM cartridges like later consoles, but instead, use "game cards" composed of printed circuit boards that plug into
12015-528: The game. The console cannot generate audio or track scores . The Odyssey console came packaged with dice, paper money, and other board game paraphernalia to accompany the games, while a peripheral controller—the first video game light gun —was sold separately. The idea for a video game console was conceived by Baer in August 1966. Over the next three years he, along with Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch, created seven successive prototype consoles. The seventh, known as
12150-565: The hopes that the company name will become better known by the public. There are multiple types of tennis strings, including natural gut and synthetic stings made from materials such as nylon , kevlar , or polyester . The first type of tennis strings available were natural gut strings, introduced by Babolat. They were the only type used until synthetic strings were introduced in the 1950s. Natural gut strings are still used frequently by players such as Roger Federer. They are made from cow intestines, and provide increased power, and are easier on
12285-546: The idea to his bosses. By December 1966, they had completed an initial prototype later christened "TV Game #1", which could display and move a vertical line on a television screen. Baer demonstrated the prototype to the Sanders director of research and development, Herbert Campman, who hesitantly agreed to fund it for US$ 2,000 (equivalent to about $ 18,780 in 2023) for labor and US$ 500 (equivalent to about $ 4,700 in 2023) for materials, making it an official project. Baer spent
12420-412: The initial games for the console, to the project. Though the pair found Rusch difficult to work with, he soon proved his value to the team by coming up with a way to display a third, console-controlled spot on the screen in addition to the previous two player-controlled ones, and proposing the development of a ping-pong game. By November, the team, now on their fourth prototype machine, had a ping-pong game,
12555-433: The low initial sales were due to the high price, and because Magnavox restricted sales to its dealerships and implied that the device only worked with Magnavox televisions. Other sources have stated that dealers may have misled customers to sell more televisions, though advertisements and in-store promotional videos explicitly stated that the Odyssey worked with "any brand TV, black and white or color". Customers unfamiliar with
12690-553: The mains (the vertical strings) and the crosses (the horizontal strings). This is most commonly done with two different strings that are made of different materials, but can also be done with two different types of the same string. A notable example of a player using hybrid strings is Roger Federer, using natural gut strings in his mains and polyester strings in his crosses. Tennis balls were originally made of cloth strips stitched together with thread and stuffed with feathers. Modern tennis balls are made of hollow vulcanized rubber with
12825-460: The marketplace. There have been nine generations of consoles since the 1970s, with a new generation appearing about every five years. There are more than 1000 home video game consoles known to exist, the vast majority of which were released during the first generation: only 103 home video game consoles were released between the second and current generation, 15 were canceled. This list is divided into console generations which are named based on
12960-529: The mid-1995 led many console manufactures to move away from cartridges to CD-ROMs and later to DVDs and other formats, with Sony's PlayStation line introducing even more features that gave it an advantage in the market; the PlayStation 2 , released in 2000, remains the best-selling console to date with over 155 million units sold. Microsoft, fearing that the PlayStation 2 was threatening the competitive edge of
13095-450: The modern style. Louis was unhappy with playing tennis outdoors and accordingly had indoor, enclosed courts made in Paris "around the end of the 13th century". In due course this design spread across royal palaces all over Europe. In June 1316 at Vincennes , Val-de-Marne, and following a particularly exhausting game, Louis drank a large quantity of cooled wine and subsequently died of either pneumonia or pleurisy , although there
13230-399: The net. A player or team cannot hit the ball twice in a row. The ball must travel over or round the net into the other players' court. A ball that hits the net during a rally is considered a legal return as long as it crosses into the opposite side of the court. The first player or team to fail to make a legal return loses the point. The server then moves to the other side of the service line at
13365-452: The new device, seeing it was only sold at Magnavox dealerships, may have misunderstood its interoperability. Magnavox assistant product planner Don Emry said that the sales were in line with the original projections, if not the production run. After the initial holiday season Magnavox considered discontinuing the console, but the modest continuing demand, along with high customer satisfaction reports in surveys, convinced it to continue stocking
13500-459: The new prototype to Campman, who enjoyed the shooting game, increased funding, and recommended Baer demonstrate the project to senior management. Baer demonstrated the console to the board, who were largely uninterested, though a couple of members were enthusiastic; nevertheless, CEO Royden Sanders authorized the project to be continued with the aim of selling or licensing the console as a commercial product. By August 1967, Baer and Harrison completed
13635-465: The next few months designing further prototypes, and in February 1967, assigned technician Bill Harrison to begin building the project. Harrison spent the next few months in between other projects building out successive modifications to the prototype. Baer, meanwhile, brainstormed with engineer Bill Rusch on ideas for games for the console, resulting in a proposal for the basis of many games later created for
13770-408: The official ITF list of approved tennis balls. Tennis is played on a rectangular, flat surface. The court is 78 feet (23.77 m) long, and 27 feet (8.2 m) wide for singles matches and 36 ft (11 m) for doubles matches. Additional clear space around the court is required in order for players to reach overrun balls. A net is stretched across the full width of the court, parallel with
13905-571: The ones developed by Baer, Harrison, and Rusch. The product planning for the console was initially overseen by Bob Wiles of the color television division, but was turned over to product manager Bob Fritsche as its own category of product in September 1971. Magnavox named the console first as the Skill-O-Vision while testing, and then released it as the Odyssey. The rifle game was turned into a separately sold add-on game, Shooting Gallery , and Magnavox added paper money, playing cards, and poker chips to
14040-438: The patent; the final lawsuits ended in the mid-1990s. Defendants included Coleco, Mattel , Seeburg , and Activision ; Sanders and Magnavox won or settled every lawsuit. Many of the defendants unsuccessfully attempted to claim that the patents only applied to the specific hardware implementations that Baer had used, or that they were invalidated by prior computer or electronic games. In 1985, Nintendo sued and tried to invalidate
14175-429: The patents, claiming as prior art the 1958 Tennis for Two game built by William Higinbotham . The court, however, ruled that the oscilloscope -based game did not use video signals and therefore did not qualify as a video game, and ruled again in favor of Magnavox and Sanders. Magnavox won more than US$ 100 million in the various lawsuits and settlements involving the Odyssey related patents before they expired in
14310-403: The personal computer, entered the console space with its Xbox line in 2001. Internet connectivity had become commonplace by the mid-2000s, and nearly all home consoles supported digital distribution and online service offerings by the 2010s. With Sony and Microsoft's dominance in hardware capabilities, most other major manufacturers have since dropped out of the hardware business, but maintain
14445-485: The ping-pong and hockey games from the original Odyssey, while the 200 also had the handball game and a rudimentary on-screen scoring system. The 100 and 200 were released in November 1975 to replace the Odyssey for US$ 69.95 (equivalent to about $ 400 in 2023) and US$ 109.95 (equivalent to about $ 620 in 2023), respectively. Eleven dedicated Odyssey consoles were produced before a follow-up non-dedicated console in 1978,
14580-488: The player who is in the lead in the game needs only one more point to win the game. The terminology is extended to sets (set point), matches (match point), and even championships (championship point). For example, if the player who is serving has a score of 40–love, the player has a triple game point (triple set point, etc.) as the player has three consecutive chances to win the game. Game points, set points, and match points are not part of official scoring and are not announced by
14715-410: The player's scores equal at 40 apiece, the score is not called out as "40–40", but rather as "deuce". If at least three points have been scored by each side and a player has one more point than his opponent, the score of the game is "advantage" for the player in the lead. During informal games, advantage can also be called "ad in" or "van in" when the serving player is ahead, and "ad out" or "van out" when
14850-464: The price to US$ 50 (equivalent to about $ 340 in 2023) if purchased with a television. The console was released that year with different games in the United Kingdom. In late 1973, Magnavox ran a large advertising campaign for its 1974 products, including sponsoring Frank Sinatra 's November television special Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back . Commercials during the special and advertisements for it showed
14985-449: The receiver has disrupted, or broken the natural advantage of the server. If in the following game the previous server also wins a break point it is referred to as breaking back . Except where tiebreaks apply, at least one break of serve is required to win a set (otherwise a two-game lead would never occur). Another, however informal, tennis format is called Canadian doubles . This involves three players, with one person playing against
15120-414: The receiving player is ahead; alternatively, either player may simply call out "my ad" or "your ad". The score of a tennis game during play is always read with the serving player's score first. In tournament play, the chair umpire calls the point count (e.g., "15–love") after each point. At the end of a game, the chair umpire also announces the winner of the game and the overall score. A set consists of
15255-527: The rising popularity of the personal computer and the economic recession of the early 1980s, led to the video game crash of 1983 in the U.S. market. Nintendo , which had released its Family Computer console in Japan that year, took several cautionary steps to limit game production to only licensed games, and was able to introduce it, rebranded as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985 into
15390-471: The second generation and led to a second boom in the video game industry in the United States and around the globe. During this time, Atari Inc. had been sold to Warner Communications , and several programmers left the company and founded Activision , becoming the first third-party developer. Activision's success led to a rush of new developers creating games without any publishing controls for these systems. The market became flooded with games, and combined with
15525-404: The service boxes; depending on a player's position, they have to hit the ball into one of these when serving. A ball is out only if none of it has hit the area inside the lines, or the line, upon its first bounce. All lines are required to be between 1 and 2 inches (25 and 51 mm) in width, with the exception of the baseline which can be up to 4 inches (100 mm) wide, although in practice it
15660-417: The singles court on each side. The modern tennis court owes its design to Major Walter Clopton Wingfield . In 1873, Wingfield patented a court much the same as the current one for his stické tennis (sphairistike). This template was modified in 1875 to the court design that exists today, with markings similar to Wingfield's version, but with the hourglass shape of his court changed to a rectangle. Tennis
15795-468: The start of a new point. A game consists of a sequence of points played with the same player serving. A game is won by the first player to have won at least four points in total and at least two points more than the opponent. The running score of each game is described in a manner peculiar to tennis: scores from zero to three points are described as "love", "15", "30", and "40", respectively. If at least three points have been scored by each player, making
15930-429: The start of the 1950s, they were typically only found in large academic or research institutions, and in 1966 no commercial games or video game industry existed, or any form of video games for consumer television sets. As a "game box" had little to do with the typical military contracts Sanders worked on, Baer picked an empty room and assigned one of his technicians, Bob Tremblay, to work on it with him rather than bring
16065-430: The system, a ping-pong game, was an inspiration for Atari 's successful 1972 Pong arcade game, in turn driving sales of the Odyssey. Patents by Baer and the other developers for the system and the games, including what was termed by a judge as "the pioneering patent of the video game art", formed the basis of a series of lawsuits spanning 20 years, earning Sanders and Magnavox over US$ 100 million. The release of
16200-416: The system. Harrison began developing some early games in May, beginning with a two-player game where the players repeatedly press a button in competition to fill or empty a bucket of water, and by June multiple games were completed for what was then a second prototype box. These included a game where players controlled dots chasing each other and a light gun shooter game with a plastic rifle. Baer demonstrated
16335-410: The television via static cling to create visuals. Games that use the same game card can have different overlays, which can change a game with the same controls from, for example, a mountain ski path to a movement-based Simon Says game. In addition to the overlays, the Odyssey came with dice, poker chips, score sheets, play money, and card decks. One peripheral controller was released for the Odyssey,
16470-415: The transistors and diodes of the original system, and designed a limited version of the console around them. The result was the first of several dedicated consoles —consoles that could only play games built into the system—in the Magnavox Odyssey series , the Magnavox Odyssey 100 and Magnavox Odyssey 200 , as part of the first generation of video game consoles ; the Odyssey 100 was only capable of playing
16605-424: The two players, and the third by the system itself. The main console has two dials, one of which moves the vertical line across the screen, and one which adjusts the speed of the computer-controlled dot. Different games direct the player to adjust the dials to different positions, such as changing the center line of a tennis game into the side wall of a handball game. The games include plastic overlays that stick to
16740-602: Was also suspicion of poisoning. Because of the contemporary accounts of his death, Louis X is history's first tennis player known by name. Another of the early enthusiasts of the game was King Charles V of France , who had a court set up at the Louvre Palace . It was not until the 16th century that rackets came into use and the game began to be called "tennis", from the French term tenez , which can be translated as "hold!", "receive!" or "take!", an interjection used as
16875-530: Was assigned to build a television set; Baer later claimed that, while doing so, he had the idea to build something into a television set that the owner could control in addition to its normal function of receiving signals from a remote television station. Loral did not pursue the idea, but it returned to Baer in August 1966 while waiting for a bus. Baer, then the head of the Equipment Design Division at military contractor Sanders Associates , came up with
17010-419: Was available for free to players that sent in a survey card. A light gun accessory, Shooting Gallery , was available for purchase, and included four games on two cards that used the rifle. A final four games were released for sale in 1973. The console does not enforce game rules or keep track of scores for the games; that is left up to the players. Home video game console A home video game console
17145-461: Was continued customer demand for the console, Magnavox discontinued production of the Odyssey in the fall of 1975. Rising inflation had raised the manufacturing cost of the system to Magnavox from roughly US$ 37 to US$ 47 (equivalent to about $ 270 in 2023), and Magnavox was unable to raise the retail price to match. Instead, it sought a cheaper alternative; in May 1974 it signed a contract with Texas Instruments for integrated circuits to replace
17280-414: Was developed while simultaneously undergoing large-scale layoffs. It was picked up again in September, this time without Rusch, and went through two more iterations resulting in January 1969 in the seventh prototype, known as the "Brown Box" due to the wood-grain stickers on the casing. With the system now largely complete, as the team began filing for patents they were unsure whom to approach to sell it until
17415-940: Was larger than the one normally used in New York. On 21 May 1881, the oldest nationwide tennis organization in the world was formed, the United States National Lawn Tennis Association (now the United States Tennis Association ) in order to standardize the rules and organize competitions. The US National Men's Singles Championship, now the US Open , was first held in 1881 at the Newport Casino , Newport, Rhode Island . The US National Women's Singles Championships were first held in 1887 in Philadelphia . Tennis also became popular in France, where
17550-769: Was named the Magnavox Odisea, and clone versions were released by other manufacturers such as the Overkal in Spain, which may have been the first console produced in Europe. In 1974, Odyssey appeared in the Sears Wish Book . Magnavox sold 89,000 consoles in total in 1973, 129,000 Odyssey units in 1974, and 80,000 units in 1975. According to Baer the company sold 350,000 Odysseys in total worldwide, though Fritsche stated it reached 367,000. The light gun peripheral sold 20,000 units. Although there
17685-513: Was one of the original Olympic sports , and has been consistently competed in the Summer Olympic Games since 1988 . Historians believe that the game's ancient origin lay in 12th-century northern France, where a ball was struck with the palm of the hand. Louis X of France was a keen player of jeu de paume ("game of the palm"), which evolved into real tennis , and became notable as the first person to construct indoor tennis courts in
17820-552: Was publicly unveiled at a press event at the Tavern on the Green in New York City on May 22, 1972. Magnavox announced the system's launch date of September 1972, with availability restricted to dealers in 18 metropolitan areas, and demonstrated it for the next few months to Magnavox dealerships and media. Magnavox began advertising the Odyssey in mid-September 1972, including an appearance on
17955-492: Was shortly followed by the release of the home version of Pong by Atari Inc. in 1975 based on the arcade game. A number of clones of both systems rushed to fill the nascent home console market and the video game industry suffered a small recession in 1977 due to this. The Fairchild Channel F , released in 1976, was the first console to use game cartridges , which was then used by the Atari VCS and several other consoles of
18090-486: Was soon known simply as "sticky" – for the amusement of guests at a garden party on his friend's estate of Nantclwyd Hall , in Llanelidan , Wales. According to R. D. C. Evans, turfgrass agronomist , "Sports historians all agree that [Wingfield] deserves much of the credit for the development of modern tennis." According to Honor Godfrey, museum curator at Wimbledon, Wingfield "popularized this game enormously. He produced
18225-514: Was three years before the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club would hold its first championships at Wimbledon, in 1877. The first Championships culminated in a significant debate on how to standardise the rules. In the United States in 1874, Mary Ewing Outerbridge , a young socialite, returned from Bermuda with a sphairistikè set. She became fascinated by the game of tennis after watching British army officers play. She laid out
#67932