There is a lot written about computers nowadays, about howl we live in an information age and how soon everyone will have a,, computer. For years my answer to such writing was, "Pishtwaddle!" Boring, complex machines that are no quicker than a manual game, and not near as fun. I can no longer live by this blind prejudice in the face of many years of hard facts. Computers are here, and they are already making a unique contribution to gaming. I am not going to come close to covering exactly how much they have done but I hope that we can discuss this in future EGGs (and that people more Informed than I can educate the rest of us). First a bit of history. To my knowledge, up to the end of WW2 military simulations were moving clearly toward freer and looser rules (free Kriegspiel). Then came the first computers. Big number crunchers yes, slow and energy inefficient too, but they allowed for the accurate crunching of game equations (like - how many men do I hit? or what is the effect of my atomic blast?). Since computer programs follow rigid rules of logic, rigid kriegspiel came back strong and ousted free kriegspiel from government simulations. The Rand Corporation used big clunky computers to game nuclear war back in the 50's. To look at the programs now, they seem primitive (even by my novice appreciation). Business an academic gamers begain picking up the computer in the late 50's and early 60's. Great reems of paper accumulated, hidden from the eyes of us middle class amateur gamers. We were effected though even without any direct contact. The advent of board games of the type put out by Avalon Hill and later SPI show the distinct biase toward rigid kriegspiel that has reigned supreme over the last 40 years. Miniature gaming, since it predates computers, seems to be much less effected by their number crunching virtues. It seems as though the general public quickly bought Into the idea that merely by having more numbers, a game would automatically by more realistic. This type of thinking has a natural limit due to the fact that use human players are not computers (and thus lack all those wonderful number crunching abilities). Computers did finally hit the general public, but no tthrough wargames. In the early 70's Pong hit the arcades. I know, it's boring now, but it mesmerized us then. I was never any good at it, which in part accounts for my old computer bias. They got better with time, and by the 80's Atari, and now Nintendo games are talked about by children all across the country. I first ran across computers in 1977, at about the same time I started to play wargames. The computer terminals at the local college were open to whoever wanted to use them so my brothers and I proceeded to burn up hundreds of dollars of computer time. For the most part, I just played games (though what programing know I learned then). Not arcade games, but instead games that seemed to simulate a situation. Really, these games were the descendants of the Rand Corporation's nuclear war games from the 50's. The main difference was that these games were light hearted and not at all serious. I recall a lot of games that used mazes and of course Star Trek. The flashing lights soon lost interest for me so by 1980 I was once again in the ranks of the computer outsiders. The micro computer revolution that we've all heard so much about In the last 10 years is finally bringing home some of the changes the experts and science fiction writers were predicting back as far as 40 years ago. The machines became available to do the jobs us number illiterate humans were constitutionally unfit to do. The biggest change is in our ability to communicate. How many of our journals are played out on a computer (EGG is, without my trusty PC, I could never dream of writing this much - let along type it!). Desktop publishing programs make cranking out quality material easy. Then there are the games. Board games refereed by the computer, using exactly the same rules at first. Maze games that are now actually calling themselves computer "role play" games And the ubiquitous arcade game. The all use numbers and other data files "recreate" reality. Now I hear tell of "virtual reality" programs, that are aimed at adding sound, smell, an( touch to their games. Exciting stuff, definitely important stuff, but I don't think you have to worry if you fear the end of manual games. The computer generated world is not as interesting as the real issue. Of course, neither do manual games (be they miniatures, role playing or boardgames), but that is not important because it is the interaction of the players playing the game that makes it fun. (Controversy, controversy, if you don't agree with what I just said blast me out of the water in a letter). Please write in and tell me your oppinion of how these infernal machines are changing our hobby. They are here to stay so we had best learn how to get along with them. Back to Experimental Games Group # 3 Table of Contents Back to Experimental Games Group List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1989 by Chris Engle This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com