History of Video Game Composition: Generation I

So I'm starting a new little mini-series on video game music, where I'll talk about the limitations of the hardware, and the challenges the composers had to face. Why am I doing this? Because I think it's really interesting where video game music came from, and it's fascinating to compare the old with the new, even just between 4 or 5 years.

So today we start at the beginning, the first generation of video game consoles, spanning more or less the years between 1972 and 1976. Popular consoles included the Magnavox Odyssey, the original Atari, the Coleco Telstar, and the Nintendo "Color TV Game."

This is the Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972. The unit displayed no colors (instead one could purchase a translucent overlay to place on the TV), and it produced no music or sound. Most of the games were sports related, as were many of the first video games, mostly because with limited technology it was very difficult to convey any kind of story or dialog in a game, so instead game designers stuck with what most people already understood how to play; sports. It also had stored its games on removable cartridges, and was the only one of its kind to do so in this generation. All the other consoles simply released a whole new damn console with a new set of games. How expensive. Since this is a blog about music and sound, there's really not much more for me to say about the Odyssey 1, except this: Check out this amazingly hilarious commercial from the 1970's! Listen to that music that's on the commercial! Look how every single game displayed looks EXACTLY the same! Absolutely Priceless.

Now here's a console every gamer should be familiar with (I hope). This is the original Sear Tele-Games Atari. This is NOT the Atari 2600, or Atari ST, it's the old, old, very old Atari (sorry, old readers) from 1975. Ever heard of Pong? Well, this is where it started. Sure, the Odyssey's games all pretty much looked like pong, too, but the Atari also displayed the score and *gasp* had sounds! Holy crap, right!? How was the sound made? Well, remember trigonometry? Sine waves, square waves, triangle waves, and all that old stuff?

Remember this formula?

Well, in the interest of keeping this blog approachable for most readers, I'll just say "those things make noises." This is an amazing page on an amazing site. Experiment on that page for a bit, and you'll begin to understand how these shapes (sine, square, etc) make different tones. It's a little tough, but try drawing your own square wave. Notice that, the more complete "loops" or repetitions you fit in, the higher the pitch of the noise is! Each of these consoles had a sound engine or some sort, and the game designers would (in some way) program in that formula above to output a certain wave at a certain moment (like when the ball hits the paddle on the screen), and the sound engine would interpret that forumla as a noise and send it out to the speakers on your TV! Now, the technology was incredibly limited back then, so they could really only produce one sound at a time, making music, well, not that feasible.

Alright, this is the Coleco Telstar 6040, the first model of its kind, which came out in 1976. It was very similar to the other consoles, in that it was basically the same game (pong) with slightly better controls and graphics (sounds like today's first person shooters HIYO please don't hurt me). Here's a commercial you can check out. You'll see that, while it's faster and a little more advanced, it's really just more of the same, especially audio-wise. At least to the extent of my knowledge, it is. It's surprisingly difficult to find more information on this console. All I really know is that this console was very popular (over 1 million sold, which is pretty great for 1976), and a TON of different versions were sold over the years featuring new games, and new peripherals, but again ... to a music blog, there's not much else to say. If anyone has more information, I'd love to hear it! Leave some comments!

Which brings us to the Nintendo "Color TV Game." Gotta love those Japanese names. It was released in 1977, and as the name would imply, it was in color! And as this entire blog post would imply, it let you play pong (sigh). But it had color! And okay, new models came out over the next couple years introducing some new games, like birds-eye racing games, and it's own version of Atari's breakout. In audio news, it's really just more of the same, but here's another commercial complete with a hilarious jingle at the end that will show you some gameplay, and what it sounded like (exactly like all the others).

Well, that wraps up generation I for us. Stayed tuned for next week which will be, quite obviously, generation II. Also, it will be a little more interesting. But you can't expect me to cover a somewhat thorough history of video games and completely leave out pong, can you? Come on.

Thanks for reading, and have yourself a good week!