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The first contraption in history that remotely looks like a modern video game was unveiled to visitors at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., on October 18, 1958, 50 years ago. “Tennis for Two” used analog circuitry to display a minimalistic tennis court and the trajectory of a tennis ball on a 5-inch–wide oscilloscope, a tool normally used for visualizing wave forms on a screen. Two players could volley back and forth with rudimentary joysticks, but the machine kept no scores.

According to Brookhaven, the game’s creator, nuclear physicist William Higinbotham, wrote, “it might liven up the place to have a game that people could play, and which would convey the message that our scientific endeavors have relevance for society." It’s unlikely though that Higinbotham knew how video games would later become a multibillion-dollar industry. The first coin-operated video games did not appear until the early 1970s. Visitors to the Brookhaven lab will be able to play on a replica of "Tennis for Two" during an open house on October 24. — Davide Castelvecchi

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