Nintendo's Game & Watch line began in 1980. The success of these LCD handhelds spurred doz

starting with a plain-text interface similar to BBSs (but operated on large mainframe computers permitting larger numbers of users to be online at once), and moving by the end of the decade to fully-graphical environments using software specific to each personal computer platform. Popular text-based

The video game industry as it exists today primarily sprang from two independent sources. The first of these was the coin-operated amusement business that began in the late nineteenth century at amusement parks, boardwalks, bars, and bowling alleys and consisted of mechanical contraptions operated by patrons who inserted coins to make the machines work. Starting in 1948, the jukebox became the most profitable and important coin-operated amusement device, but the most important game was pinball.