We’ve all seen snapshots of the scene in Soylent Green where Leigh Taylor-Young is playing Computer Space at the beginning of the film. Click below to watch the clip. It may seem short but this is really all there is to the scene.

Here is a short clip from an interview with Nolan Bushnell himself where he talks about the early days of Computer Space. This is extracted from a longer series of interviews on the Atari's Greatest Hits CD. There are several versions of this collection, most of which contain these interviews. I highly recommend the collection. Here is a site detailing the CD. http://www.backntime.net/Atari%20Interactive/Arcade%20Hits%201/FrameAtari_Int.html

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Everyone has wondered what the gameplay really looks like (including myself until I got mine). Here is a short clip showing regular play.

Recently decided it would be a good idea to provide some close up footage.

Here is a nice clip showing one of the flying saucers hovering and then darting out of view.

Here is a good closeup clip of both the rocket making its way through space plus a little skirmish.

 If desired, an “extended play” mode can be enabled where the ships enter a kind of hyperspace inverted world. Here’s some footage of the transition from normal space to hyperspace. The hyperspace mode is not exactly an inversion, I made a crude graphic to show what happens to the stars and ships.

And a strange fact regarding the early computational capabilites of Computer Space is that the game did not work in standard decimal values. It actually ran hexadecimal. The score for the player actually went to 15 before returning to 0 and since the machine could not display hexadecimal values, odd looking characters would appear. If you click on the image below, it will open a 16 megabyte video of these unusual characters. Be patient as it takes a while to load.

Even stranger, the flying saucers do not get this luxury, they are limitted to a maximum possible score of 7, after that, their score resets.

A few years ago, the group Cornershop made a music video for their song “Brimful of Asha” which sported a Computer Space in the background. Here is that music video.

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Icons TV show

On G4 Tech TV there is an excellent show called "Icons" which had two episodes mentioning Computer Space. Episode 2 of their first season was devoted to Nolan Bushnell and all his creations, while episode 8 of the second season was all about the birth of the video arcades. Alas, since the following two clips are briefly touching on Computer Space, the same clip of Steven Kent appears in both segments so apologies for the repetition.

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Computer Space in print

There are many books about the history of video games. Two that make direct reference to Computer Space.

The first is the excellent and highly regarded book by Steven L. Kent "The Ultimate History of Video Games," also found under its original title "The First Quarter." In this highly detailed volume, Kent goes into intricate detail on the entire history of all video games in depth. Only a few passages discuss Computer Space, unfortunately, but click on the cover of the book below to read what Kent has to say.

In addition to this book, another shows some of the most signficant game machines released with great photographs and a timeline indicating some of the important issues of the year in question. The book is "Arcade Fever by John Sellers. There is a two-page spread about Computer Space at the beginning of the book. Click the links below to see these pages.

Computer Space Page 1 Computer Space Page 2

Additionally, this very own website was recently mentioned in a Russian magazine. Click on the image to see the Russian page. UPDATE: The Russian artical has now been translated. Click here to read what it says.

3D Model

A fellow by the name of Dan Ludemann made a very nice 3D model of Computer Space for the 3D Arcade website (http://3darcade.mameworld.net). I have asked Dan how to get his model to rotate the way it does in the Model section of 3D Arcade but haven't heard back from him yet. In the meantime, here is a way to view his fantastic model.

Click on this html file and it should open a new window, prompting you to download and install the latest Macromedia Shockwave plugin. Once you have installed that, the 3Dmodel should appear. If it doesn't, click to run this executable to manually do the plugin install. NOTE: part of the Shockwave install has a checkbox to also install the Yahoo browser bar for your Internet Explorer or Netscape. I would recommend not having a checkmark in that box, personally.

Wallpapers

Following are a couple of wallpapers I have found on the web. The third I made by a few Photoshop adjustments.

Mosaic

I recently heard from an Australian visitor to my site who has created a number of Mosaics. I asked him how easy it would be to create one of those mosaic posters of a Computer Space machine using some of the images seen in my collection of other people's machines. Below is a sample version. See if you can spot your machine in there! Mosaic created by Moose O'Malley .

Fine Art

A recent posting mentioned how a series of arcade-related characters and icons were recently rendered in varying artisitc styles. Paintings and sculptures of well known arcade characters are currently available for sale. Within the list is the painting below of the famous Computer Space ad (click on the frame to see the entire painting by Nikki Van Pelt) which is now sold and went for $450.

The remaining artworks can be browsed here.

Videotopia

A site detailing the road trip of a couple of attendees to the Maryland Videotopia show took a good close up of the exhibit's write up for Computer Space's history. Click on the thumbnail below to read the sheet. Here is a link to the original website detailing the group's trip to Videotopia.

Computer Space on a PSP

As mentioned in the list of other people's machines, Serial Number 10439 used to be seen on the G4TechTV show Electric Playground, hosted by Tommy Talarico and Victor Lucas http://www.elecplay.com Well, another show they do is Reviews on the Run, where new games and hardware are showcased and compared. Not too long ago, they compared the Sony PSP against the Nintendo DS and one feature they showed for the PSP is the ability to watch videos. The producers obviously decided to use some footage from Electric Playground and as irony would have it, they chose a scene of Tommy Talarico standing in front of Serial Number 10439. I say 'ironic' because if ever there were two opposing extremes of computer gaming, you probably cannot get much farther than Computer Space and a PSP. Click the image to watch the 30 second video.

Wired Magazine http://www.wired.com had an issue detailing the video games industry, its history, and its future. Within its pages, a boardgame-style chronology of significant games throughout history were shown and Computer Space made its mark right next to the Odyssey and Pong.

To see the entire choronology, click on the three links below for each section (it was a very large item to scan) or just go buy the magazine.

Left section Middle section Right section

Retro Gamer magazine article

Early in 2006, Retro Gamer magazine posted an article interviewing Archer MacLean and in the article, detail was given on his Computer Space. Click the logo to see the magazine cover plus article, click here to see Archer's machine in my database of people's Computer Space's.

Found this very artsy rendition of the classic Computer Space poster from the following website. They have some nice artwork in there, check it out.

Philly Classic :

Recently discovered a video clip showing SN30619 at the Philadelphia Classic gaming convention "Philly Classic 3" from 2002. Click on the thumbnail below to watch the video (approximately 50 megabytes)

CNBC Special on the history of video games clip

In November 2006, a 2-hour documentary appeared on the CNBC network detailing the history of video games. Everything from Tennis-for-Two right up to the Wii and Playstation 3 was covered. Of course, no such program could exist without at least one reference to Computer Space and there was a very nice, minute long segment. Click on the image to launch the video. Click here to read more about the show.

Huge monitor panel image

A visitor to this site has recently scanned in and cleaned up a Computer Space monitor panel image. This may be handy for collectors who wish to create labels, stickers, reproductions, etc. Click on the thumbnail below to open the large 800k jpg image.

SN10439 was recently showcased on The Electric Playground www.elecplay.com in a story they did about the formation of Atari. Click the thumbnail for the one-minute video.

Nolan Bushnell appeared on the Spike TV show Game Head in March of 2007, discussing his new venture uWink and also talking about his early days in Atari. A very brief glimpse of Computer Space can be seen 1:50 into this five minute long clip.

Click here to see the entire video

The owner of unit 10290 has actually made a video of his collections from the U.K. over the various trips he has made and posted it on YouTube. Half-way through (around the 2 minute mark) you will see SN10290. Appropriate choice of music for the scene!

Another artsy rendition of Computer Space can be seen below. It was located at the following website http://www.thebalconest.com, an unusual collection of odd news items, strange videos, and alternative musings on all aspects of life. Enjoy an exploration into the strange as you visit the site.