TITLE
Meet Bertie the Brain, the world’s first arcade game, built in Toronto
AUTHOR
Chris Bateman
PUBLICATION
Spacing Toronto
YEAR
2014
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
Almost two decades before the first video game found its way into an arcade, the Canadian National Exhibition hosted a strange electronic device with an brightly lit scoreboard. It read: “computer brain” versus “human brain.”The gigantic machine was positioned among the latest televisions and radios in the Rogers Majestic exhibit. The company, a distant predecessor of today’s Rogers Communications, specialized in vacuum tubes, a common electrical component in the years before computer chips.
“Bertie the Brain,” as the 4-metre-tall device was affectionately named, played tic-tac-toe. Challengers made moves using an illuminated keypad and Bertie immediately countered on the game board, invariably winning. It didn’t matter whether it went first or second.
From a modern perspective, Bertie the Brain looks like a cumbersome and not particularly entertaining arcade game, but in 1950 it was one of the first games of its kind in the world, a remarkable milestone in the development of computers.
GAMES MENTIONED
Bertie the Brain
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Josef Kates