William Higinbotham

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William (Willy) A. Higinbotham (October 25, 1910 - November 10, 1994), an American physicist, is credited with creating one of the first computer games, Tennis for Two. Like Pong, it is a portrait of a game of tennis or ping-pong, but featured very different game mechanics that have no resemblance to the later game. As the Head of the Instrumentation Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory, he created it on an oscilloscope in 1958, to entertain visitors during visitor days at the national laboratory.

He helped found the nuclear nonproliferation group, Federation of American Scientists, and served as its first chairman and executive secretary.

He earned his undergraduate degree from Williams College in 1932 and continued his studies at Cornell University and MIT. During World War II, he worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory and headed the lab's electronics group in the later years of the war.

He is said to have expressed regret that he would more likely be famous for his invention of a game than for his work on nuclear non-proliferation. When after his death, requests for information on his game increased, his son William B. Higinbotham wrote, "It is imperative that you include information on his nuclear nonproliferation work. That was what he wanted to be remembered for."^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References

A Peril and a Hope, The Scientists' Movement in America 1945-47, Alice K. Smith, Revised Edition, The MIT Press Books, 1971, ISBN 0-262-69026-8
Critical Assembly, A Technical History of Los Alamos During the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945, Hoddeson, Lillian, Henriksen, Paul W., Meade, Roger A. and Westfall, Catherine L. 1993 ISBN: 0-521-44132-3
The New World, A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Volume I 1939-1946, Reissue in paper of 1962 edition, 1990, ISBN: 0-520-07186-7
RADAR IN WORLD WAR II, Vol. I and II, Henry E. Guerlac, Tomash/American Institute of Physics, New York, 1987, ISBN: 0-88318-486-9
Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists (Paperback), Robert Jungk, 1958
Reminiscences of William A. Higinbotham : oral history, 1980-1983, Columbia University, Oral History Research Office
Smartbomb, Chaplin, Heather and Ruby, Aaron, Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2005. ISBN 1-56512-346-8
Basic Computer Games, Microcomputer Edition, Davis A. Ahl, Creative Computing Press, 1978, ISBN: 0-916688-07-0
Who really invented the computer game, Creative Computing Magazine, October 1982, Page 190, Also Video and Arcade, Vol 1 No 1, Spring 1983, John Anderson
Wonderful Willy from Brookhaven, A Scientist You Should Know, Parade Magazine, Page 16, May 18, 1958
The Patriarch of Pong, American Heritage of Invention & Technology Magazine, Fall 1990, Frederic D. Schwarz

Recordings - With Bill Bonyun http://www.thecclc.org/heirloom_records/roll_and_go.htm Heirloom - was Bill's personal recording studio/registered Label. (1) Roll and Go - The Shantyman's Day Aboard a Yankee Clipper, HL-504, 1962 (2) The Civil War - Through its Ballads and Songs, HL- 503, 1961 (3) Songs of Yankee Whaling, American Heritage Publishing, 1960, AHLP/1