Over the next few episodes we’re going to talk about the history of video games. Today, we’re going to start with the first re-programmable computers in the 1940’s. Now, these computers were serious tools. They were for codebreaking and calculating artillery tables during World War II - but like most tools we human use, we eventually looked for ways to make them playthings. And over the next three decades the advances of computer technology and the tentative curiosity of many engineers and programmers would inspire a new culture and eventually the first true coin-operated video game in 1971.