Computer Space

The game takes place in outer space. The player controls a rocket ship. The enemies in the game are a pair of flying saucers.

The rocket ship controlled by the player can be manuevered through space using rotational buttons and a thrust button. The fire button is used to make the rocket ship fire missiles.

When the two enemy flying saucers attack, they will fire missiles at the rocket ship. The player must have the rocket ship fire missiles at the flying saucers to destroy them.

The object of the game is for the player to have the rocket ship to destroy the flying saucers more times than the flying saucers can destroy the rocket ship, the player must also try to have the rocket ship outscore the flying saucers in order to get extended play in hyperspace. If the player attains hyperspace the playfield will turn from black to white and feature a vision of daylight in outer space. The game will end if the flying saucers outscore the player's rocket ship and time has expired.

This was the first arcade video game. Its creator, Nolan Bushnell, set forth the basic design that all dedicated arcade games would follow. A board or set of boards to run that particular game not a multipurpose computer, a display, controls, coin acceptor and separate power supply. The coinbox in this game was a paint-thinner can.

According to one estimate, 1500 of the twoplayer cabinets were released.

A yellow Computer Space cabinet can be seen in the 1975 movie, Jaws, during the arcade beach scene approximately 40 minutes from the beginning.

Computer Space also appears in the 1973 movie, Soylent Green, starring Charlton Heston. It appears briefly on screen being played by a woman while policeman Heston is visiting the apartments owner.

A yellow Computer Space game can be seen several times in the music video Brimful of Asha by the band Corner Shop.

This game is housed in a fiberglass cabinet. Most of them had metal-flake paint jobs of varying colors. The one-player and two-player cabinets differ slightly. The one-players control panel is offset, and the cabinet molded along a sweep to accompany it. The player controls are all buttons. The twoplayer cabinet has a Chevron shaped control panel, a vague V shape to the lower front of it, and uses both joysticks and buttons for the player controls. Both machines have a single coinslot in the control panel. In April 2007, we were able to find and obtain the only white Computer Space machine ever made. It was a prototype taken to a tradeshow back in 1971 to demonstrate the first created coin-operated videogame, and is the oldest coin-operated videogame known to exist.

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