The history of video games and more ( skip if you want )

From the earliest days of computers, people have found ways to play games on them. These early computer programmers weren't just wasting time or looking for new ways to goof off. They had practical reasons to create games.

During the 1940s and 1950s, computers took up entire rooms and were so expensive that only universities and large companies could afford them. Most people had both a limited understanding of what these electronic behemoths were able to do and an unfamiliarity with the types of mathematical equations these machines were regularly programmed to compute. Games like tic-tac-toe or William Higinbotham's 1958 Tennis for Two were excellent ways to attract public interest and support. As an added bonus, computer programmers were able to learn from the creation of games as well because it allowed them to break away from the usual subroutines and challenge the computer's capabilities.

It was this mindset that led a group of MIT students during the 1960s to create one of the first and most groundbreaking computer games. Students Steve Russell and his friends were granted access to the school's new PDP-1 computer providing they used it to create a demonstration program that (1) utilized as many of the computer's resources as possible and "taxed those resources to the limit," (2) remained interesting even after repeated viewings, which meant that each run needed to be slightly different and (3) was interactive.

Inspired by the science fiction novels Russell and his friends enjoyed, these computers "hackers" decided to create a dueling game between two spaceships. The result, called "Spacewar," caused a sensation on campus and variations on the game soon spread to other universities that had computer engineering programs.

Although Spacewar was fun to play, it was never destined for released to the general public, since computers were still too expensive for personal use. To play Spacewar one needed access to a research facility's computer, which kept the game's influence limited to the small computer technology sphere.

In fact, video games did not get their true start from computer programmers, but from an engineer skilled in another major invention of the 20th century: the television set. By the 1960s, millions of Americans had invested in televisions for their homes, but these television sets were only used for the viewing of entertainment. Engineer Ralph Baer was certain this technology could be used to play games.

In 1966, while working for Sanders Associates, Inc., Baer began to explore this idea. In 1967, assisted by Sanders technician Bob Tremblay, Baer created the first of several video game test units. Called TVG#1 or TV Game Unit #1, the device, when used with an alignment generator, produced a dot on the television screen that could be manually controlled by the user. Once Baer had established how it was possible to interact with the television set, he and his team were able to design and build increasingly sophisticated prototypes.

Sanders senior management were impressed with Baer's progress and assigned him the task of turning this technology into a commercially viable product. After a few years and numerous test and advancements, Baer and his colleagues developed a prototype for the first multiplayer, multiprogram video game system, nicknamed the "Brown Box." Sanders licensed the Brown Box to Magnavox, which released the device as the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972.

With fewer than 200,000 units sold, Magnavox Odyssey was not considered a commercial success. Among the contributing factors, poor marketing played a large role. Many potential consumers were under the impression—sometimes encouraged by Magnavox salesmen—that Odyssey would only work on Magnavox televisions. Ultimately, the problem was that Magnavox saw Odyssey as a gimmick to sell more television sets. Executives at Magnavox lacked the vision to see that television games had the potential to become an independent industry, and did not give the product the support it needed.

Meanwhile, a creative young entrepreneur named Nolan Bushnell remembered playing Spacewar during his years as a student at the University of Utah. He began to think of ways that the game could be retailed. Bushnell had past experience with amusement park arcades and had witnessed firsthand the popularity of pinball machines. He believed that Spacewar would make a successful coin-operated machine.

In 1971, Nutting Associates, a coin-op device manufacturer, released Bushnell's idea as "Computer Space." However, while Spacewar had been an enjoyable game, Computer Space proved too complex for the casual game player to understand quickly. The changes that were required to convert the two-player Spacewar to a one-player game made Computer Space frustratingly difficult for those who did learn how to play.

Though Computer Space was a flop, Bushnell still believed that coin-operated video games could be successful. After seeing a demonstration of Magnavox Odyssey's table tennis game in May 1972, Bushnell set about trying to create an arcade version of the same game. He and his business partner, Ted Dabney, formed Atari, Inc., in June 1972, and released Pong, an arcade ping-pong game, that same year. The first Pong machine was installed in Andy Capp's Tavern, a bar located in Sunnyvale, California. A few days later, the tavern owner called Atari to send someone out to fix the machine. The problem turned out to be that the cashbox was filled with too many quarters. The coins had overflowed and jammed the machine. Atari clearly had a sensation on its hands.

Emboldened by Pong's success, Atari partnered with Sears, Roebuck & Company to produce a home version of the game in 1975. Magnavox sued for patent rights infringement. The case was heavily in Magnavox's favor. Ralph Baer had carefully documented his work. Magnavox could prove that they demonstrated Odyssey to the public in 1972 and that Bushnell had attended the demonstration. (It was even confirmed later that Bushnell had played Odyssey's tennis game.) Rather than face a lengthy and undoubtedly unsuccessful court case, Atari settled with Magnavox.

The home version of Pong was just as successful as the arcade version. Atari sold 150,000 units in 1975 alone (compared to the 200,000 Odysseys that took Magnavox three years to sell.) Other companies soon began to produce their own home versions of Pong. Even Magnavox began to market a series of modified Odyssey units that played only their tennis and hockey games. Of these first-generation video game consoles, the most successful was Coleco Telstar, due in part to some luck and the help of Ralph Baer.

Coleco, a toy company that later became known for the wildly popular Cabbage Patch Doll in the early 1980s, was just beginning to branch out into video games. Acting on a recommendation from Ralph Baer, Coleco was the first company to place a major order for General Instruments' AY-3-8500 chip, on which most Pong console clones were based. When General Instruments, which had underestimated the interest in the chip, had trouble meeting production demands, Coleco was at the top of the priority list. While Coleco's competitors waited for months until General Instruments could complete their orders, Coleco cornered the market.

At a crucial moment, Coleco Telstar did not pass the interference tests needed for Federal Communications Commission approval. Coleco had a week to fix the problem or the unit would need to be totally redesigned before it could be resubmitted for FCC approval. The process could potentially take months, putting the company well behind its competitors. Without FCC approval, Coleco would be stuck with warehouses full of units that they could not sell.

The company turned to Sanders and Ralph Baer in hopes that Baer's experience would be able to help them. Baer found their solution within the week and Coleco received its FCC approval. Telstar sold over one million units in 1976, before being overshadowed by the next generation of video game consoles.

Produced between 1976 and 1983, these second-generation consoles, such as the Atari VCS (also known as the Atari 2600), Mattel's Intellivision, and ColecoVision, featured interchangeable game cartridges that were retailed separately, rather than games that came preloaded in the unit. This advance allowed users to build a library of games. There was soon a wide variety of games to choose from, but, ironically, this surplus proved to be the one of the key reasons that the industry faced a serious crash during the early 1980s.

In a classic case of supply outpacing demand, too many games hit the market, and many were of inferior quality. Further complicating matters, there were too many video game consoles from which to choose. Beyond the flooded market, video games consoles now faced growing competition from computers.

The bulky, room-sized expensive computer behemoths were a thing of the past. The age of the home computer had arrived. For many, purchasing a versatile computer, like the Apple II, Radio Shack's TRS-80, or the Commodore 64, which could play games in addition to running a multitude of other programs, seemed a more logical investment than buying a system devoted solely to gaming.

Sales of video game consoles and cartridges plunged in 1983 and 1984. Many companies like Mattel and Magnavox discontinued their video game lines completely, while Atari, the leader in the field, struggled to remain afloat. Video games remained popular arcade features, but it seemed that the era of home video game systems had ended.

But in 1985, a small Japanese company proved just the opposite. That year, Nintendo released its Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), whose popularity and commercial success surpassed any previous game console. No longer a novelty, video games found a firm foothold mainstream American life, just as Ralph Baer had predicted they would.

the Amiga. The first dedicated sound cards for IBM PC compatibles were released starting in 1987, which provided digital sound conversion input and output far exceeding the computer's internal speakers, and with Creative Labs' Sound Blaster in 1989, the ability to plug in a game controller or similar device.

In 2008 Sid Meier listed the IBM PC as one of the three most important innovations in the history of video games.[73] The advancement in graphic and sound capabilities of the IBM PC compatible led to several influential games from this period. Numerous games that were already made for the earlier home computers were later ported to IBM PC compatible system to take advantage of the larger consumer base, including the Wizardry and Ultima series, with future installments released for the IBM PC. Sierra On-Line's first graphical adventure games launched with the King's Quest series. The first SimCity game by Maxis was released in 1989.[74]

The Apple Macintosh also arrived at this time. In contrast to the IBM PC, Apple maintained a more closed system on the Macintosh, creating a system based around a graphical user interface (GUI)-driven operating system. As a result, it did not have the same market share as the IBM PC compatible, but still had a respectable software library including video games, typically ports from other systems.[65]

The first major video game publishers arose during the 1980s, primarily supporting personal computer games on both IBM PC compatible games and the popular earlier systems along with some console games. Among the major publishers formed at this time included Electronic Arts,[75] and Broderbund, while Sierra On-Line expanded its own publishing capabilities for other developers.[76] Activision, still recovering from financial impacts of 1983 video game crash, expanded out to include other software properties for the office, rebranding itself as Mediagenic until 1990.[26]

Early online games

See also: History of massively multiplayer online games

Dial-up bulletin board systems were popular in the 1980s, and sometimes used for online gaming. The earliest such systems were in the late 1970s and early 1980s and had a crude plain-text interface. Later systems made use of terminal-control codes (the so-called ANSI art, which included the use of IBM-PC-specific characters not part of an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard) to get a pseudo-graphical interface. Some BBSs offered access to various games which were playable through such an interface, ranging from text adventures to gambling games like blackjack (generally played for "points" rather than real money). On some multiuser BBSs (where more than one person could be online at once), there were games allowing users to interact with one another.

SuperSet Software created Snipes, a text-mode networked computer game in 1983 to test a new IBM Personal Computer–based computer network and demonstrate its abilities. Snipes is officially credited as being the original inspiration for NetWare. It is believed to be the first network game ever written for a commercial personal computer and is recognized alongside 1974 game Maze War (a networked multiplayer maze game for several research machines) and Spasim (a 3D multiplayer space simulation for time shared mainframes) as the precursor to multiplayer games such as 1987's MIDI Maze, and Doom in 1993. In 1995 iDoom (later Kali.net) was created for games that only allowed local network play to connect over the internet. Other services such as Kahn, TEN, Mplayer, and Heat.net soon followed after. These services ultimately became obsolete when game producers began including their own online software such as Battle.net, WON and later Steam.

The first user interfaces were plain-text—similar to BBSs— but they operated on large mainframe computers, permitting larger numbers of users to be online at once. By the end of the decade, inline services had fully graphical environments using software specific to each personal computer platform. Popular text-based services included CompuServe, The Source, and GEnie, while platform-specific graphical services included PlayNET and Quantum Link for the Commodore 64, AppleLink for the Apple II and Macintosh, and PC Link for the IBM PC—all of which were run by the company which eventually became America Online—and a competing service, Prodigy. Interactive games were a feature of these services, though until 1987 they used text-based displays, not graphics.

Meanwhile, schools and other institutions gained access to ARPANET, the precursor of the modern internet, in the mid-1980s. While the ARPANET connections were intended for research purposes, students explored ways to use this connectivity for video games. Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) originally was developed by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle at the University of Essex in 1978 as a multiplayer game but limited to the school's mainframe system, but was adapted to use ARPANET when the school gained access to it in 1981, making it the first internet-connected game, and the first such MUD and an early title of massively multiplayer online games.[77]

The home console recovery

mover had been Tencent, which made numerous investments into foreign firms over the 2010s, which included full acquisition of Riot Games and partial ownership of Supercell and Epic Games, as well as minority stake in publishers Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard and Paradox Interactive. In exchange, Tencent had helped these companies refine their monetization approaches using their past experience with their own games.[209]

Mixed, virtual and augmented reality games

The Oculus Rift headset

See also: Virtual reality and Augmented reality

Virtual reality (VR) systems for video games had long been seen as a target for VR technology and had been in development as early as the 1990s, but had been hampered by their high cost and impractical for consumer sales. One of the initial attempts, Nintendo's Virtual Boy in 1996, used a monochromatic stereoscopic display to simulate 3D, but the unit was impractical and failed to gain developers, leading it to be a commercial failure for Nintendo. Breakthroughs in consumer-ready VR hardware came in the early 2010s with the development of the Oculus Rift by Palmer Luckey. The Rift was demonstrated at trade shows in 2013, and proved popular enough to lead Facebook to purchase the company and technology for $2 billion in 2014. Shortly afterward, Valve and HTC announced the HTC Vive, first released in 2015, while Sony released its PlayStation VR in 2016. Valve later developed its own VR hardware line, the Valve Index, released in 2019. While numerous VR games took advantage of VR effectively over "flat-screen" games (those lacking VR capabilities) for immersive experience, VR's "killer app" came by way of Half-Life: Alyx, released by Valve in 2020. Half-Life: Alyx brought several new ideas for integrating first-person shooter gaming into a VR app, and spurred sales of the Index.[210]

Augmented reality (AR) games, where the game takes a real-time video game image and renders additional graphics atop it, had also existed before the 2010s. Some PlayStation console games used the EyeToy, PlayStation Eye, or PlayStation Camera as part of the gameplay, as well as Xbox 360 and Xbox One games using the Kinect. Most of the games were more experimental since cameras were fixed and limited what interactions could be made. As handheld consoles including the PSP and the Nintendo DS line, and mobile phones incorporated video camera capabilities, new AR possibilities opened up on portable devices. Initial games were still more experimental and toys without comprehensive gameplay loops. AR-based games took off with the release of Pokémon Go in 2016, which combined AR with location-based games. Players would use their mobile device to guide them to where a virtual Pokémon may be found, which they searched for and attempted to capture using AR atop their device's camera.[211]

2020s

Ray-tracing and photorealistic graphics

See also: Ninth generation of video game consoles

NVidia and AMD introduced graphics cards in 2020 with hardware support for real-time ray tracing, which was also a major component introduced with Microsoft and Sony's next consoles, the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, both released in November 2020. Significant improvements in technology also furthered the ability to display highly detailed textures, allowing for photorealism in rendered video game scenes at high resolutions and high frame rates. These changes necessitated larger storage space for texture memory on the hardware and greater bandwidth between the storage memory and graphic processor. Both new consoles included specialized SSD options designed to provide high-bandwidth storage options, which had the added benefit of virtually eliminating loading times in many games particular those featuring in-game streaming for open world games.

The metaverse, blockchain and NFT games, and video game acquisitions

Moving into the 2020s, the concept of the metaverse grew in popularity. Similar in nature to the social spaces of Second Life, the concept of a metaverse is based on using more advanced technology like virtual and augmented reality to create immersive worlds that not only can be used for social and entertainment functions but as well as for personal and business purposes, giving the user the ability to earn from participation in the metaverse.[212] Roblox is a more recent example of an open world game that allows players to build their own creations within game with the potential to earn money from these creations.[213]

The metaverse in the early 2020s was yet well defined but those developing the nascent technologies recognized that a financial system would be tied to these systems. Avoiding the pitfalls of prior game currency systems, the development of cryptocurrency-based games and systems that used decentralized blockchain technologies started to grow in popularity. These blockchain games were frequently based on the trading of non-fungible tokens that players created and improved through the game, mimicking how metaverse content would function.[214] Some video game companies have expressed strong support for using blockchain and NFTs in their games, such as Ubisoft, but there has been generally negative feedback from players and game developers that consider cryptocurrency and NFT a scam.[215]

Regardless of these developments, interest in the metaverse had led to a large number of major acquisitions in the video game industry at the start of the 2020s as large publishers gathered more studios and other publishers within their folds as to be able to offer their properties within the parent's version of the metaverse, diversify their offerings, and preparate for futures where gaming platforms shift away from traditional systems.[216] Tencent Holdings has gained stake in numerous video game developers since the 2010s, including full ownership of Riot Games and minority ownership of Epic Games.[217] Epic Games themselves have also used Tencent's investment and further funding to acquire numerous additional video game developers and middleware developers in the 2020s as part its goal to build out its version of the metaverse using its Unreal Engine.[218] Embracer Group also launched a large series of acquisitions leading into the 2020s as to broaden its portfolio, including Gearbox Software.[219] Other major acquisitions in the 2020s in support of the metaverse includes Take-Two Interactive's purchase of mobile game publisher Zynga,[220] Sony Interactive Entertainment purchase of developer Bungie for supporting live-service games,[221] and Microsoft's purchases of ZeniMax Media (including Bethesda Softworks) and Activision-Blizzard.[222][223]

Name Release date Manufacturer CPU "Bits"

Atari Game Brain cancelled (supposed to be released in June 1978) Atari (U.S.) ? ?

Atari 2700 cancelled (supposed to be released in 1981) Atari, Inc. (U.S.) MOS Technology 6507 8-bit (CPU)

Video Arcade System cancelled (supposed to be released in 1983) Ultravision (U.S.) ? ?

RDI Halcyon[f] cancelled (supposed to be released in January 1985) RDI Video Systems (U.S.) Zilog Z80 8-bit (CPU)

Control-Vision cancelled (supposed to be released in 1989) Digital Pictures & Hasbro (U.S.) ? ?

Кроха[30][g] cancelled SKB Kontur (СКБ Контур) (Russia) K580VM80A 2 MHz ?

Konix Multisystem cancelled (supposed to be released in August 1989) Konix (UK) Intel 8086 based processor 16-bit (CPU)

Atari Panther cancelled (supposed to be released in 1991) Atari Corporation (U.S.) Motorola 68000 32-bit

WOWOW[31] cancelled (supposed to be released in 1992) Taito (Japan) Motorola 68000 16-bit / 32-bit (CPU)

SNES-CD cancelled (development stopped in 1993) Nintendo (Japan) ? 16-bit

Sega Neptune cancelled (supposed to be released in Fall 1995) Sega (Japan) ? 32-bit

L600 cancelled (development stopped in April 2001) Indrema (U.S.) x86 @ 600 MHz 32-bit

Panasonic M2 cancelled (supposed to be released in 1997) Panasonic (Japan) Dual PowerPC 602 Processors @ 66 MHz 64-bit (dual 32-bit)

Phantom cancelled (supposed to be released in September 2005) Phantom (U.S.) ? ?

Chameleon cancelled (supposed to be released in 2016) Coleco Holdings Retro ? ?

See also

Edit

List of best-selling game consoles

List of game controllers

List of video game console emulators

List of video game consoles

List of dedicated consoles

List of handheld game consoles

List of microconsoles

List of retro style video game consoles

List of video games

Notes

Edit

The Videopac+ G7400 was planned to be released in America as the Odyssey³ Command Center, with a different case design, but it never occurred, although some prototypes exist.

Add-on to Famicom - Japan only.

SNK created the Neo Geo CD as a much cheaper alternative to the AES, lowering the price of games considerably, from ~300$ to ~50$ . It's essentially an AES console with a media format change from cartridges to CDs, placing it in the fourth generation.

Starting with Microsoft's fiscal quarter ending June 2014 (Q4), the company stopped divulging individual platform sales in their fiscal reports and subsequent Xbox sales are based on industry estimates.[20][21][22][23]

The Nintendo Switch was released during this period, but has been referred to as a hybrid video game console, combining features of home and handheld systems. This is why the Switch appears in both the list of home video game consoles and the list of handheld game consoles.

Although fully developed, functional, and with 2 games ready, the few Halcyon units that exist were handmade for investors of the company to try out the product, it is not believed that it ever went into full production or entered the market at all. Less than 12 main control units (Halcyon 200LD, the console itself) are known to exist, but more Halcyon branded Laserdisc players (LD-700, made by Pioneer) exist.[citation needed]

The Кроха (Read as "Krokha", meaning "Baby") was a Soviet console that was ready to launch in 1990, but production halted, only one game was made, and the approximately 200 consoles were given out to employees of the factory that manufactured it.[30]

This number is always up to date by this script.

References

Edit

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"AtGames to Launch Atari Flashback 4 to Celebrate Atari's 40th Anniversary!" (Press release). PR Newswire. November 12, 2012. Archived from the original on November 27, 2012. Retrieved April 11, 2014.

"Connor VideoSmarts, ComputerSmarts, and VideoPhone (partially lost VHS-based and cartridge-based edutainment games; 1986-1990) - The Lost Media Wiki". lostmediawiki.com. Retrieved August 1, 2020.

"Family Driver by Sega – The Video Game Kraken". Retrieved August 3, 2020.

"Picno by Konami – The Video Game Kraken". Retrieved August 1, 2020.

Blake Snow (May 4, 2007). "The 10 Worst-Selling Consoles of All Time". GamePro.com. Archived from the original on September 5, 2008. Retrieved October 20, 2018.

"EDGAR Pro". google.brand.edgar-online.com.

Numérique, Planète (January 27, 2021). "DVD Kids : une télécommandes et des jeux intéractifs pour jeunes enfant en DVD-Video signé Berchet !". Planète Numérique. Retrieved January 27, 2021.

"VP Final - MP4". YouTube. December 20, 2008. Retrieved August 14, 2012.

"Earnings Release FY13 Q4". Microsoft. Retrieved May 7, 2014.

"Earnings Release FY14 Q1". Microsoft. Retrieved May 7, 2014.

"Earnings Release FY14 Q2". Microsoft. Retrieved May 7, 2014.

"Earnings Release FY14 Q3". Microsoft. Retrieved May 7, 2014.

"PlayStation 3 Sales Reach 80 Million Units Worldwide". Sony Computer Entertainment. Retrieved November 6, 2013.

"IR Information: Sales Data - Hardware and Software Sales Units". Nintendo Co., Ltd. December 31, 2016. Retrieved January 31, 2017.

Tectoy, Qualcomm Aim Emerging Video Game Markets with Zeebo. Zeebo Presents Gaming For The Next Billion Archived August 6, 2011, at the Wayback Machine // XBit Labs, Anton Shilov, March 23, 2009

"IR Information: Sales Data - Hardware and Software Sales Units". Nintendo Co., Ltd. Retrieved February 10, 2017.

Star, Gunz (March 31, 2021). "Cumulative Worldwide Hardware Unit Sales (Sell-in)". www.sie.com.

"Xbox One Sales Reportedly Pass 41 Million as PS4 Nears 100 Million".

"Earnings Release FY14 Q3". Microsoft. April 24, 2014. Retrieved April 24, 2014. Microsoft sold in 2.0 million Xbox console units, including 1.2 million Xbox One consoles.

"Earnings Release FY14 Q4". Microsoft. July 22, 2014. Retrieved August 13, 2014. We sold in 1.1 million consoles in the fourth quarter, as we drew down channel inventory, compared to 1.0 million consoles during the prior year.

Futter, Mike (October 22, 2015). "[Update] Microsoft Will Focus Primarily On Xbox Live Usership, Not Console Shipments". Game Informer. Retrieved October 22, 2015.

"Microsoft Annual Meeting of Shareholders". Microsoft. December 3, 2014. Retrieved January 31, 2015. Finally, our gaming business is thriving with the Xbox One hitting 10 million units sold. I am thrilled to welcome Mojang and Minecraft community to Microsoft.

"Nintendo Switch Has Now Sold Over 107 Million Units". Nintendo Life. May 10, 2022. Retrieved May 24, 2022.

Makuch, Eddie (October 27, 2021). "Xbox Series X|S Sales Reach 8 Million, Game Pass Climbs Above 20 Million - Analyst". GameSpot. Retrieved October 27, 2021.

Hood, Vic; Pino, Nick; June 2021, Adam Vjestica 01 (August 25, 2021). "Xbox Series X review". TechRadar.

"Xbox Series S specs list". September 8, 2020.

Dealessandri, Marie (October 28, 2021). "Sony's quarterly game revenues rise to $10.8bn as PS5 sales pass 13m". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved October 28, 2021.

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"Archived copy". Archived from the original on February 20, 2020. Retrieved February 20, 2020.

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language that does not change its intrinsic nature. With languages such as Scheme and Forth, standards may be considered insufficient, inadequate or illegitimate by implementors, so often they will deviate from the standard, making a new dialect. In other cases, a dialect is created for use in a domain-specific language, often a subset. In the Lisp world, most languages that use basic S-expression syntax and Lisp-like semantics are considered Lisp dialects, although they vary wildly, as do, say, Racket and Clojure. As it is common for one language to have several dialects, it can become quite difficult for an inexperienced programmer to find the right documentation. The BASIC programming language has many dialects.

The explosion of Forth dialects led to the saying "If you've seen one Forth... you've seen one Forth."

Taxonomies

Edit

Further information: Categorical list of programming languages

There is no overarching classification scheme for programming languages. A given programming language does not usually have a single ancestor language. Languages commonly arise by combining the elements of several predecessor languages with new ideas in circulation at the time. Ideas that originate in one language will diffuse throughout a family of related languages, and then leap suddenly across familial gaps to appear in an entirely different family.

The task is further complicated by the fact that languages can be classified along multiple axes. For example, Java is both an object-oriented language (because it encourages object-oriented organization) and a concurrent language (because it contains built-in constructs for running multiple threads in parallel). Python is an object-oriented scripting language.

In broad strokes, programming languages divide into programming paradigms and a classification by intended domain of use, with general-purpose programming languages distinguished from domain-specific programming languages. Traditionally, programming languages have been regarded as describing computation in terms of imperative sentences, i.e. issuing commands. These are generally called imperative programming languages. A great deal of research in programming languages has been aimed at blurring the distinction between a program as a set of instructions and a program as an assertion about the desired answer, which is the main feature of declarative programming.[74] More refined paradigms include procedural programming, object-oriented programming, functional programming, and logic programming; some languages are hybrids of paradigms or multi-paradigmatic. An assembly language is not so much a paradigm as a direct model of an underlying machine architecture. By purpose, programming languages might be considered general purpose, system programming languages, scripting languages, domain-specific languages, or concurrent/distributed languages (or a combination of these).[75] Some general purpose languages were designed largely with educational goals.[76]

A programming language may also be classified by factors unrelated to programming paradigm. For instance, most programming languages use English language keywords, while a minority do not. Other languages may be classified as being deliberately esoteric or not.

( this all belong to Wikipedia , just using for educational reason)