Space War is an Atari

Atari

Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...

-brand video game cartridge

ROM cartridge

A ROM cartridge, sometimes referred to as a cart, is a removable enclosure containing read-only memory devices designed to be connected to a computer or games console....

 for the Atari 2600

Atari 2600

The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...

, released in 1978

1978 in video gaming

-Notable releases:* June - Taito Corporation releases the Space Invaders arcade game in Japan.* October - Namco releases their first arcade game, Gee Bee, in Japan.* Cinematronics releases the Space Wars vector graphics arcade game....

. It is an Atari 2600 port of Spacewar!, the famous 1962 computer game

Personal computer game

A PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine...

 by Steve Russell

Steve Russell

Steve "Slug" Russell is a programmer and computer scientist most famous for creating Spacewar!, one of the earliest videogames, in 1961 with the fellow members of the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT working on a DEC Digital PDP-1...

. It was released by Sears as Space Combat, for the Atari 2600-compatible

Computer compatibility

A family of computer models is said to be compatible if certain software that runs on one of the models can also be run on all other models of the family. The computer models may differ in performance, reliability or some other characteristic...

 Sears Video Arcade. The cartridge comes programmed with 17 game variations.

Variations 1–13 are duels between two ships and 14 to 17 are for one player. In some of the variations the ships fight near a planet

Planet

A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...

 which has gravitational attraction. This concept was used in the Star Control

Star Control

Star Control is a science fiction computer game that was developed by Toys for Bob and published by Accolade in the early 1990s. Star Control still enjoys a cult following...

series of games.