Tetris for Gameboy and Commercial PC UNIVAC I Coming (PCGH Retro June 14th)

… 1951: After ENIAC has already been around for a few years, another computer will go into service today, June 14th – and it will be the first commercially manufactured one. Its name: UNIVAC I, a gallant abbreviation for the bulky construct Universal Automatic Computer. Bulky here, however, more in the physical sense, because with a height of around 2.6 meters, a width of 2.5 meters and a length of almost five meters, the UNIVAC I is not exactly what you would put in the living room as an HTPC today. After all, it can “remember” up to 1,000 numbers and read or write 10,000 characters per second via its magnetic tape memory. UNIVAC I can add, subtract, divide, multiply, sort and even take square and cube roots. UNIVAC I was built by the Remington Rand Corporation for the US Bureau of Census.

… 1989: Do you remember the game and watch handhelds from the early eighties? No? Then just have a look here. We digress: In 1989, Nintendo brought a game idea that was around five years old to the general public: Tetris was released for the Gameboy and was later included with every single handheld sold in Europe. The catchy, Russian-style dodle melodies were soon ubiquitous in the republic’s schoolyards and on public transport. In any case, Tetris not only had nerves, but also an enormous and still unbroken addictive factor. Tetris was ranked number one in Electronic Gaming Monthly’s 100th edition of the Greatest Games of All Time and ranked number two in IGN’s 2007 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time. It all started on June 14, 1989.