1950s All Decades 1970s

1960s

Mainframes rule, the space race drives innovation, and integrated circuits miniaturise electronics.

69
Events
10
Years

1960

7 events
Birth

Andrew Braybrook born

Paradroid’s meticulous mastermind
Birth

Anita Sinclair born

Pioneer of interactive fiction
techniques

Fixed-Point Maths

Fixed-point arithmetic gives 8-bit systems sub-pixel precision for smooth movement, physics, and animation—all with fast integer operations.
Birth

François Lionet born

Creator of AMOS and STOS
Birth

Richard Bartle born

Father of MUDs
companies

Sega

From American slot machines to Japanese arcades to console wars with Nintendo, Sega's journey defined competitive gaming.
Birth

Will Wright born

Architect of simulation

1961

4 events
Birth

Koji Kondo born

The sound of Nintendo
companies

Sinclair Research

Clive Sinclair's company created the ZX80, ZX81, and ZX Spectrum, making home computing affordable and sparking the British games industry.
Birth

Yoshiki Okamoto born

Capcom's arcade visionary

World

Yuri Gagarin becomes first human in space

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbits Earth aboard Vostok 1, winning a major victory in the Space Race and inspiring a generation.

1962

8 events
Birth

Charles Cecil born

Broken Sword's creator
techniques

Emulation Techniques

Emulation techniques translate one computer architecture to another, preserving playable software when original hardware becomes scarce.
Birth

Grant Kirkhope born

Sound of Rare's N64 era
Birth

Hironobu Sakaguchi born

Final Fantasy creator
Birth

Jeff Minter born

The llama-loving wizard of Llamasoft
Birth

Mark Ferrari born

Palette cycling master
Birth

Scott Miller born

Shareware visionary
techniques

The Game Loop

Every game runs on the same fundamental pattern: read input, update state, render graphics, repeat. Understanding the game loop is the first step to building anything interactive.

1963

3 events
Birth

Brian Fargo born

Interplay founder
Birth

Hideo Kojima born

Metal Gear's cinematic auteur

World

President Kennedy assassinated

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas shocks the world and marks a turning point in American political culture.

1964

7 events
techniques

BASIC Curricula

BASIC curricula in schools introduced millions of students to programming concepts through hands-on coding on classroom computers.
culture

BASIC Programming Culture

BASIC put programming within reach of ordinary people, creating a generation of developers who learned to code by typing in magazine listings.
Birth

David Braben born

Co-creator of Elite and Frontier founder
Birth

Ed Boon born

Mortal Kombat creator
Birth

Julian Rignall born

From ZZAP! to IGN
Birth

Manami Matsumae born

Voice of Mega Man
Birth

Ron Gilbert born

Father of the adventure game verb

1965

7 events
Birth

David Jones born

From Lemmings to liberty
Birth

Julian Gollop born

Father of tactical strategy
Birth

Manabu Takemura born

Metal Slug animator
Birth

Manfred Trenz born

Master of the impossible
Birth

Satoshi Tajiri born

Pokémon's creator
Birth

Shinji Mikami born

Survival horror creator
Birth

Tim Cain born

Fallout creator

1966

12 events
techniques

ASCII Art

ASCII art creates images using text characters, from simple emoticons to elaborate scenes that adorned BBS systems, demos, and NFO files.
Birth

Ben Daglish born

Melody maker of the SID scene
Birth

Graeme Devine born

7th Guest creator
Birth

Jez San born

3D pioneer
Birth

Ken Sugimori born

Pokémon's artist
Birth

Koji Igarashi born

Master of the castle
Birth

Mark Sibly born

Blitz Basic creator
Birth

Martin Galway born

The SID chip's orchestrator
Birth

Matt Furniss born

Sega sound specialist
Birth

Matthew Smith born

Manic Miner’s teenage architect
Birth

Neil Baldwin born

NES audio innovator
Birth

The Darling Brothers born

Codemasters founders

1967

10 events
Birth

David Perry born

Earthworm Jim creator
Birth

David Simons born

Simons' BASIC creator
Birth

David Wise born

Rare's musical soul
Birth

Eric Schwartz born

Amiga animator
Birth

Jonathan Dunn born

Ocean's musical voice
Birth

Raffaele Cecco born

The artist-programmer
techniques

Run-Length Encoding

Run-length encoding compressed data by storing repeated values as count-value pairs, dramatically reducing storage for graphics with large uniform areas.
companies

Tecmo

Tecmo developed challenging action games and the Dead or Alive fighting series before merging with Koei to form Koei Tecmo Holdings.
Birth

Tim Schafer born

Adventure game auteur
Birth

Yuzo Koshiro born

Techno warrior of the Mega Drive

1968

6 events
Birth

Chris Hülsbeck born

Germany's game music maestro
Birth

Chris Roberts born

Wing Commander creator
Birth

Henk Nieborg born

Amiga art excellence
companies

Marshall Cavendish

British publisher whose part-work magazines including Input taught computing to a generation through weekly collectible issues.
Birth

Mike Dailly born

Lemmings co-creator
Birth

Tobias Richter born

From Amiga to Hollywood

1969

5 events
Birth

John Tobias born

Mortal Kombat artist
companies

Konami

Japanese arcade pioneer Konami created Frogger, Gradius, and Castlevania, plus gaming's most famous cheat code.
companies

MOS Technology

MOS Technology created the 6502 processor and the engineers who designed the SID and VIC-II—the silicon heart of the Commodore 64.
Birth

The Oliver Twins born

Double Dragon of Dizzy

World

Apollo 11 Moon landing

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to walk on the Moon, watched by an estimated 600 million people worldwide.