From Pong to Nintendo: teacher key

How Video Games Are Made, grade 6 edition, written for 6th grade. Follow the early games and game machines, from Tennis for Two in 1958 to Pong, the Odyssey, cartridges and the NES.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. Which game was made to show off what the PDP-1 computer could do?
   • Pong
   • Spacewar! (answer)
   • Computer Space
2. Who started finding ways to play games on a television in 1966?
   • Allan Alcorn
   • Ralph Baer (answer)
   • A Sears worker
3. Why did the first Pong machine in the Sunnyvale bar stop working?
   • It was full of quarters (answer)
   • It was too old
   • It lost its cartridge
4. What did the Fairchild Channel F do first, in 1976?
   • It was the first game console to use swappable game cartridges (answer)
   • It was the first game made at MIT
   • It was the first game played in a bar
5. Why was a game like Computer Space called coin-operated?
   • A player put in a coin to play it (answer)
   • It was made of metal
   • It was played at MIT

Words

• cartridge: game holder
• console: game machine
• arcade: coin games
• laboratory: science workplace
• slump: sharp drop