OXO

For other meanings, see Oxo.

OXO
OXO played in an EDSAC emulator for System 6/System 7 running in Classic in Mac OS X v10.4.3.
Developer(s)	A.S. Douglas
Designer(s)	A.S. Douglas
Platform(s)	EDSAC
Release date(s)	1952
Genre(s)	Traditional game and Paper and pencil game
Mode(s)	Single player
Media/distribution	Delay line memory

OXO was a computer game written for the EDSAC computer in 1952, an implementation of the game known as Noughts and Crosses in the UK, or tic-tac-toe in the United States. It was written by Alexander S. Douglas as an illustration for his Ph.D. thesis on human-computer interaction for the University of Cambridge. OXO was the first digital graphical game to run on a computer.^[1]

The simulation was played using a rotary telephone controller. OXO is often listed as the first computer game.^{[citation needed]}

In OXO the player played against the computer, and output was displayed on the computer's 35×16 pixel cathode ray tube. The source code was short, yet it played a perfect game of noughts and crosses. OXO did not have widespread popularity because the EDSAC was a computer unique to Cambridge.

Startscreen

9 8 7       NOUGHTS AND CROSSES
6 5 4               BY
3 2 1       A S DOUGLAS, C.1952

LOADING PLEASE WAIT...

EDSAC/USER FIRST (DIAL 0/1):  

Program output

EDSAC/USER FIRST (DIAL 0/1):1
DIAL MOVE:6
DIAL MOVE:1
DIAL MOVE:2
DIAL MOVE:7
DIAL MOVE:9
DRAWN GAME...
EDSAC/USER FIRST (DIAL 0/1):

See also

• First video game

References

1. ^ http://www.pong-story.com/1952.htm

External links

• Edsac Simulator: An emulator of the EDSAC, including the code for OXO
• PONG-Story: A.S. Douglas' 1952 Noughts and Crosses game