Spacewar! (1962)

JavaScript PDP-1 Emulator

How to Play

This game requires two players. Each player controls one of the ships and must attempt to shoot down the other ship while avoiding a collision with the star or the opposing ship. Players respawn after a few seconds. Beware of limited rockets & fuel!

Controls

	Player 1	Player 2
Fire Weapon	W	i
Forward Thrust	S	J
Rotate Left	A	K
Rotate Right	D	L

History

This is an authentic version (not a clone) of the game Spacewar! with the original game code from 1962, which many consider to be the first true video game. It has been rebuilt with an assembler written in PERL, and the resulting binary runs in a PDP-1 emulator written in JavaScript, embedded in an HTML file. The entire project is only 320 KB.

Spacewar! was developed in 1962 by Steve Russell in collaboration with Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen, Bob Saunders, Steve Piner, and others. It was written for MIT's newly installed PDP-1 computer. The reassembler and emulator were released in 2006 by Vadim Gerasimov, Barry Silverman, and Brian Silverman.