![]() ![]() While there remains some uncertainty about how Bouncing Ball was originally played, the simulation of the ball's movements is not a difficult or ambiguous problem. See The History of How We Play for a detailed discussion the game's origins and possible authorship. However, one thing the Bouncing Ball clearly had over its predecessors was a video display.Īuthorship of the original bouncing ball game is uncertain, though likely contributors include Charles Adams, Oliver Aberth, and Jack Gilmore. ![]() In fact, Bouncing Ball is considered by some to be the very first video game, though opinions differ on what constitutes a video game and whether Bouncing Ball fits all of the criteria. At this point, Bouncing Ball went from simulation to game. The initial versions of the program were just a simulation, but sometime in subsequent versions, a hole was added to floor as an objective. The problem of computing the trajectory of a bouncing ball was used as a classroom demonstration of how a computer could solve differential equations. The Whirldwind computer was originally developed to be a flight simulator which would assist the US Navy with training flight crews, but programmers at MIT also applied it to a range of general mathematical and physical problems. You can also have the edges of the hole displayed by pressing the silver button in the upper right corner of the panel while the simulation is active.īouncing Ball started its life as a demo on MIT's Whirlwind I computer sometime in 1951-1953. If you click/press the right half of the knob, it will make positive adjustments (clockwise), and if you click/press on the left side of it, it will make negative adjustments (counter-clockwise). You can make adjustments to the bouncing ball using the black knobs on the panel. The goal of the game is to get the ball to fall through the hole by adjusting the speed, bounce, and/or gravity. If you look carefully, you'll see a hole in the floor in the lower right corner. After pressing the switch, a spot will move in a straight line across the bottom of the window showing the floor that the ball is going to bounce on. To play the Whirlwind Bouncing Ball Simulator (WhiBBS), press the red switch in the upper left corner of the control panel.
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