Normally, when talking about the first video game in history, all eyes go straight to ‘Pong’. And it’s normal: it made history in 1972 despite its simplicity that, in fact, even had a new evolution (‘Pong Quest’) on Nintendo Switch a couple of years ago. But ‘Pong’ is far from being the first game ever shown in public: for that we have to go much further back, back when World War II was over and scientists had to occupy their time with something.
Simplicity is the fun in simplicity
The Canadian National Exhibition is an annual event that began in 1846 as an agricultural fair and has evolved to the present day, where everything has a place. For example, in 1937 there was a roller coaster built of wood and today there are even aeronautical demonstrations with F-35s speeding by. In 1950 there was not so much excitement at the limit, but there was an unexpected novelty.
It was ‘Bertie the brain’, the first video game in history. Four meters high of chips and wires made up a computer that was able to play, thanks to its prodigious artificial intelligence… tic-tac-toe. You could even adjust the difficulty level for those who believed that a machine could never beat them. Since then to the PS5 we have evolved a little bit, yes.
Subtitled as “Rogers Majestic’s electronic marvel”, ‘Bertie the brain’ was only alive from August 25 to September 9, 1950. Afterwards, as soon as the exhibition was over, it was dismantled and no longer remains even as a simple curiosity. It is normal: the idea was not to promote the game, but the Additron, an electron tube that did not have (never better said) greater repercussion.
There are doubts about whether ‘Bertie the brain’ can really be considered a video game since it does not have motion graphics, or if it is different from the chess simulators or the “Cathode Ray Tube Entertainment Device” that was registered in 1947 and never even went on sale. In any case, a curiosity of history for those who want to dig into the truth: Or would ‘Baldur’s Gate 3‘ have existed without this cybernetic Tic-Tac-Toe?
