Lessons Learned from Space Invaders
Christmas 1980-- The greatest gift of all time (from the eyes of this 4th grader)-- Our uncle purchased an Atari 2600 for my sister and me! An Atari 2600 was probably the first, successful home, video game console. Considering this was a time when our family still had a black and white television, no cable, and only one corded phone in the house, having an Atari was cutting edge for the day and for our family. I remember thinking my uncle was the coolest guy-ever. To this day when I think of video games, my mind goes to classics like Pitfall, Pac Man, Combat, Donkey Kong , and... Space Invaders. The concept of Space Invaders was pretty simple. Alien "invaders" gradually slipped towards the ground where the player was equipped with one "gun" that was controlled by a joystick and one button to shoot bullets at the invaders. The player moved the gun back and forth with the plan to shoot as many invaders as possible. As you moved along in lev...