Galaxy Game is a space combat arcade game. It was developed in 1971 during the early era of video games. Galaxy Game is an expanded version of the 1962 Spacewar!, which may have been the first video game to be used on multiple computers. The game has two spaceships, "the needle" and "the wedge," fighting in a dogfight near the gravity of a star. Both spaceships are controlled by human players.
Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck created the game. The first version cost US$20,000 (about $159,000 in 2025) to build. It used a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11 minicomputer connected to a wooden console with a monitor, controls, and seats. Players paid 10 cents to play one game or 25 cents for three games. Many people gathered to play, forming lines up to ten people deep. This was one of the first video games that people could play for money. The first version was installed in November 1971 at Stanford University’s Tresidder student union building, only a few months after a similar game called Computer Space was displayed. This made Galaxy Game the second known video game to charge money for play.
Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck built a second version of the game in June 1972, replacing the first one at Tresidder. This version could show four games at once, but only two were set up because of space limits. The consoles had blue fiberglass covers, and the PDP-11 computer was placed inside one of the consoles. By the time the second version was installed, the creators had spent US$65,000 (about $500,000 in 2025) on the project. However, they could not make the game successful for sale.
The second version stayed in the student union building until 1979, when it stopped working. It was fixed and moved to Stanford University’s computer science department in 1997. Later, it was sent to the Computer History Museum in 2000, where it remained as of 2017.
Background
In the early 1970s, video games were mostly seen as fun things that programmers and technicians shared among themselves, especially at research centers and large companies. One of these games was Spacewar!, created in 1962 for the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-1 minicomputer by Steve Russell and others at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This two-player game lets players control spaceships that fight each other in a starfield, with a central star pulling the ships with gravity. After its release, Spacewar! was copied to other early minicomputer systems at American universities, possibly making it the first video game available outside a single research institute. The game became very popular among programmers in the 1960s and was later played on other minicomputers and mainframe computers, eventually moving to early microcomputer systems. In 1972, computer scientist Alan Kay said, "The game of Spacewar! appears wherever there is a computer with a graphics display," and in 1981, contributor Martin Graetz noted that the game was found on "almost any research computer that had a programmable CRT." Despite its popularity, the game’s reach was limited because the PDP-1 computer, which cost $120,000 (about $954,000 in 2025), was expensive and only 55 units were sold, most without monitors. This kept the game from reaching a wider audience. The original creators of Spacewar! considered ways to sell the game but saw no options due to the high cost of the computer it ran on.
In 1966, Stanford University student Bill Pitts, who enjoyed exploring the campus, discovered a building that housed the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Project, which had a DEC PDP-6 time-sharing computer system with 20 Teletype consoles. Fascinated by the computer and having taken some introductory classes, Pitts convinced the project leader, Lester Earnest, to let him use the computer after hours. Soon, Pitts stopped attending classes and spent his nights in the lab playing Spacewar! with graduate and postgraduate students. He often played against Hugh Tuck, a friend from high school who studied at California Polytechnic State University. During one Spacewar! session, between 1966 and 1969, Tuck suggested that a coin-operated version of the game might be successful. However, such a device was not possible at the time because computers were too expensive. In 1971, Pitts, who had graduated and was working at Lockheed as a PDP-10 programmer, learned about the 1970 DEC PDP-11, which cost about $14,000. While still expensive compared to arcade games that cost around $1,000, Pitts and Tuck believed it was affordable enough to build a prototype to test interest and set a price for each game.
Gameplay
The game Galaxy Game, similar to Spacewar!, features two black-and-white spaceships named "the needle" and "the wedge" (their designs were changed for the coin-operated version). Each player controls one ship, trying to shoot the other while moving on a flat surface near a star's gravity well, with a starfield in the background. The ships fire torpedoes, which are not affected by the star's gravity. Each ship has a limited number of torpedoes and fuel, which is used when the player activates the ship's thrusters. Torpedoes are fired one at a time, and players must wait between shots. The ships follow physics rules, continuing to move even when the player stops accelerating, though they can rotate continuously without needing extra force.
Each player must try to destroy the other ship while avoiding crashing into the star. Flying near the star can help a ship gain speed, but it risks losing control and crashing. If a ship moves off one side of the screen, it reappears on the opposite side. A "hyperspace" feature, or "panic button," allows a player to escape enemy torpedoes by teleporting the ship to a random location after a short disappearance, though repeated use increases the chance of the ship exploding. Controls include rotating the ship clockwise or counterclockwise, moving forward, firing torpedoes, and using hyperspace.
Galaxy Game includes optional changes, such as faster ships, faster torpedoes, removing the star's gravity, reversing gravity to push away from the star, or disabling the wraparound effect. Ship movement is controlled with a joystick, while torpedoes, hyperspace, and game settings are managed using buttons on a control panel.
Development
After deciding to create a coin-operated version of the game Spacewar, the two people involved, with help from Tuck's family, purchased a PDP-11 computer and began building a prototype. They spent a total of US$20,000 (about $159,000 in 2025) to build one arcade machine for two players, similar to the original Spacewar. They set the price at ten cents per play or 25 cents for three games, with the winner of a match receiving a free game. The machine used a PDP-11/20 computer (costing US$14,000), a Hewlett-Packard 1300A Electrostatic Display (costing US$3,000), and the rest of the money was used for coin acceptors, joysticks, wiring, and the machine's casing. Pitts built the computer hardware and handled the programming, while Tuck, a mechanical engineer, designed the cabinet. The monitor's display adapter was made by Ted Panofsky, the coin acceptors came from a jukebox company called Rowe International, and the joysticks were found at a military surplus store as leftover parts from B-52 bomber controls. The game's code was based on a version of Spacewar running on a PDP-10 computer at Stanford's artificial intelligence lab, but it included additional features.
Pitts and Tuck changed the game's name from Spacewar to Galaxy Game because of anti-war feelings and started a company called Mini-Computer Applications in June 1971 to manage the project as it neared completion. Building the prototype took about three and a half months. By August, they were working on the game and got permission to test it at Stanford's Tresidder student union building. Around this time, they received a call from Nolan Bushnell, who had heard about their project and wanted to show them his similar work.
Bushnell had also played Spacewar in the 1960s and wanted to create an arcade version of it. He and Ted Dabney started with a US$4,000 Data General Nova computer, thinking it would be powerful enough to run multiple games of Spacewar at once. When it wasn't, they began replacing the computer with custom parts. They discovered that while a general-purpose computer cheap enough for an arcade would not be powerful enough to run enough games profitably, a computer built specifically for one game could cost as little as US$100. By August 1971, when Bushnell called Pitts and Tuck, he and Dabney had already shown a prototype of their game, Computer Space, in a bar near Stanford and had found a manufacturer for the game, Nutting Associates. They were interested in learning how Pitts and Tuck had created a competitive version of the game but were relieved—and slightly disappointed—to find that the pair had not yet solved the problem.
Tuck and Pitts were impressed by Bushnell's hardware but not by the game itself. They believed Computer Space, a single-player game without the central gravity well from the original Spacewar, was not as good as their own Galaxy Game. In November 1971, the Galaxy Game prototype was introduced. The machine had a walnut console with seats for players, was connected to the PDP-11 computer in the attic by a 100-foot cable, and was placed on the second floor of a building. By December, it was moved to a coffee shop on the first floor. It was very popular, drawing large crowds of people. They even added a second monitor above the console so onlookers could see the game better. Although the low prices meant they did not earn back the cost of the PDP-11, they were excited about the game's success and had not intended the prototype to be profitable. The Galaxy Game is believed to be the second video game to charge money to play, after Computer Space.
Because of the positive reception of Galaxy Game, Pitts and Tuck began working on an improved version. For the second machine, they built a full blue fiberglass casing, improved the joysticks with help from a machine shop, and updated the computer with a newer display processor that could support up to four games at once on different monitors. They also placed the PDP-11 inside one of the consoles instead of keeping it separate. Originally, they planned to reduce costs after the first prototype, but the game's popularity led them to focus on creating a better machine that could run multiple games to recover their investment. The new version was installed in a cafe in the student union building in June 1972, though it had only two monitors due to space limits. The original Galaxy Game prototype was shown in other locations but was not as successful as it had been at the student union building. By the time the second prototype was completed, the pair had spent US$65,000 on the project and had no realistic way to recoup the cost through the machine or a wider release. Pitts later said that he and Tuck focused on the technical challenges of making a faithful coin-operated version of Spacewar and paid little attention to the business side of the project. He believed that Computer Space had been more successful because Bushnell focused more on the business aspects of his idea than on the technical details.
Legacy
The second Galaxy Game prototype was on display in the Tresidder building until May 1979, when it was taken down because the display processor stopped working properly. During its time on display, it was popular, with about ten to twenty people gathering around the machines most Friday and Saturday nights when school was in session. Pitts later said that by the time the machine was removed, it had earned back the original cost. After it was taken down, the machine was taken apart, with the computer parts kept in an office and the casing placed outdoors. The unit was fixed in 1997 with a new display processor and displayed for several years in the computer science department at Stanford, where two consoles were attached for students to use for free. Because of space and maintenance problems, it was moved to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, in the displayed storage section in 2000. In August 2010, the museum lent the console to Google to place it at their headquarters campus, as requested by Pitts, who wanted the game to be played as well as displayed. This decision followed a conversation with senior vice president Jonathan Rosenberg, who had been hired as a 13-year-old by Tuck and Pitts in the mid-1970s to keep the machine clean. The console has since returned to the museum as a playable exhibit.