Good morning/afternoon everyone. Today I will be giving a speech on William Higinbotham.

William
Alfred Higinbotham was an American Physicist who was also part of the group who had helped in the
development of the first nuclear bomb. He was also the inventor of video games, which is the main
topic of this speech.

Before going on I want to talk about William Higinbotham’s achievements as a physicist. William
Higinbotham worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and headed the electronics department
of the laboratory. During the end of World War II, William Higinbotham’s team developed
electronics for the first atomic bomb which was under development by J. Robert Oppenheimer in
the same laboratory. William Higinbotham also created the radar displays for the B-28 Bomber, an
experimental plane that carries B-28 nuclear bombs. In 1947, Higinbotham took a place in the
Brookhaven National Laboratory as the head of the instrumentation division. It was during this time
that William created the first ever video game.

Now let’s talk about the invention of the video game. William Higinbotham, during his time as the
head of the instrumentation division at Brookhaven, noticed that how static and non-interactive
most science exhibits were at that time. He created the first ever video game quote on quote stating
that “it might liven up the place to have a game that people could play, and which would convey the
message that our scientific endeavours have relevance for society.” This was the reason why he
created the first ever video game. But the question arises, what was the game itself? The game was
called tennis for two, a simple game which was played on analog computers with two custom
controllers. The game was rendered as a horizontal line, representing the tennis court, and a short
vertical line in the centre, representing the tennis net. The first player would press the button on
their controller to send the ball, a point of light, over the net, and it would either hit the net, reach
the other side of the court, or fly out of bounds. The second player could then hit the ball back with
their controller while it was on their side, either before or after it bounced on the ground. The game
was also played on Oscilloscopes in the science exhibitions. Hundreds and Thousands came to
play tennis for two and was a huge hit for the Brookhaven Science Exhibition. William Higinbotham
never patented tennis for two, which resulted to what we know as modern day ‘pong’. This was the
invention of the VIDEO GAME.

Thank You for your time.

Side Note: I am very happy that this guy invented video games or else I would be writing down math
formulas or doing something dumb like DOING HOMEWORK during my free time.