Everyone:
Welcome to CSE 40850 History of Computing, which is an elective course that explores the history of a particular subfield in Computer Science and Engineering. This semester, we will be reading, writing, and discussing the history of video games and its related technologies. Additionally, you will be implementing two projects related to video games.
As you can see from the course schedule, we will split the course into two halves:
Retro Gaming: The first half of the course focuses on the origins of the video games and its related technologies. We begin with board games and then progress through the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, touching on various milestones such as arcades, consoles, personal computers, and discussing different companies such as Atari and Nintendo.
Modern Gaming: In the second half of the course, we turn to more modern gaming and discuss different technology related to 3D graphics, online gaming, mobile gaming, modding, bots, and various social and cultural issues related to gaming.
Each week, we will spend the Tuesday class time discussing the historical, social, political, and economic issues surrounding the week's topic. Thursday classes, on the other hand, will focus more on the technical aspects of the topic and may involve different tutorials or hands-on activities.
To help facilitate the discussion and to allow you to share your knowledge, students are required to make at least two individual presentations this semester:
Favorites: This is a presentation about a favorite game, technology, company, or story related to the topic that week. For instance, during our discussion on "Culture", someone may choose to talk about participating in E-Sports or during our exploration of DOS, someone may choose to talk about their favorite DOS game. This presentation should focus on the impact of the favorite object and the story behind it.
Technology: This is a more technical presentation about a particular game, technology, or story. For instance, when talking about emulators, someone may present how to setup a Nintendo emulator and execute ROMs or when discussing 3D graphics, someone may provide a tutorial on how to use Unity3D to make a simple game. This presentation should focus on how to utilize a technique or technoogy, or it should explain how a particular method was utilized.
Each presentation should be between 5-10 minutes and be relevant to the week's discussion. For more involved tutorials, multiple students may team up and present during a longer time slot. To reserve a speaking slot, simply email the instructor ahead of time. More details on these presentations will be provided soon.
To provide a context for our weekly discussions, you will have reading assignments and a corresponding reflection that you must post on your own blog. Unlike in some other courses, the writing reflection is due at the end of the week after we have discussed the week's topic and explored it in class.
In addition to the individual presentations and weekly writing assignments, you will work in teams of 3-4 students on two group projects:
Retro Computing: The first project involves creating a game or related artifact for a resource constrained platform. This could be a game that runs on an emulator, a Raspberry Pi, or Arduino. It could also be a technology demo such as a music synthesizer, or a programming tool such as a tile editor. The main requirement is that it is related to something we discuss during our Retro Gaming half of the semster.
Modern Gaming: The second project involves creating a game or application grounded in modern video game technology. This could be a 3D game, a mobile game, or a web game. It could also be a bot or even a game mod. The main requirement is that is is related to something we discuss during our Modern Gaming half of the semester.
More details about the projects and the associated proposals and progress reports will be provided soon.
The readings for this week revolve around broadly exploring offline gaming. That is, rather than jump right into electronic video games, we will first consider traditional board games and mechanical devices that influenced and lead to the development of video games.
Although you are encouraged to do most of the readings (they will be referenced in lecture), you are expected to at the very least read one or two articles from each section to ensure you have a context for the week's discussion and exploration.
If you find a relevant article or video, please share them in the Slack channel for everyone to see.
As mentioned above, you will have to write a reflection regarding the week's topic. For this course, the reading responses are due by noon on Saturday at the end of the week, after we have discussed the material and explored the related technologies in class. The responses are meant to be a reflection on the week's activities.
For this upcoming week, you are to consider the following questions as you perform the readings, discuss in class, and play some board games:
Why do people play games?
What were your favorite (non-video) games to play growing up?
What are the elements of an entertaining or engaging (non-video) game?
In what ways are board games similar to video games? dissimilar? inferior? superior?
Note, you should not simply list the questions and answer each one directly. Instead, the questions are there to help you brainstorm about the question:
What is the relationship between traditional board games and modern video games?
Your individual reflection should ultimately answer this question.
Each response should be between 500 - 1000 words. Each post will be graded in terms of:
Does the post adequately reflect on the week's prompts?
Does the post reference the readings, class discussion and activities, or other sources to support the writing?
Does the post exhibit thoughtfulness and creative expression?
Does the post utilize proper grammar and style?
To create a blog, you may use whatever platform or service you wish. You will be using this blog to post your reflections throughout the semester. Here are some possible services you can use:
Of course, you are free to write your own blog software or host it anywhere you wish.
To make it easier on the graders, please prefix each blog post title with the corresponding assignment. For instance, for this reading assignment, your blog post can be entitled "Reading 00" or something creative like "Reading 00: Board Games or Bored Games?".
If you are also in CSE 40175 Ethical and Professional Issues, you may use the same blog, but make sure you prefix the Ethics posts with "Ethics Reading" and the posts for these classes as "History Reading" to make it easier for the graders.
Once you have setup your blog, please fill out the following form to let us know where to find it:
To view and submit the form below, you need to be logged into your Notre Dame Google account. The easiest way to do this is to login to gmail.nd.edu and then visit this page in the same browser session.