"Oh fuck! This is it??"
Ethan was caught off guard by what appeared on the screen.
"I told you this stuff was easy!" Evelyn replied with a smug grin, Then she added, "The light gun response system? That tech's been around since the 1920s! Photoelectric sensors? Engineers had that mastered decades ago. What people now call video games—they're really just combinations of these existing technologies. Nothing revolutionary. Just clever assembly."
But Ethan wasn't listening anymore. "Can I play it now?"
Right now, he didn't want another technical breakdown. No circuits. No schematics. No lectures. He just wanted the joystick. He just wanted to play.
Because this wasn't some intangible piece of code running on a faraway server.
This was 1975. What sat in front of him wasn't software magic—it was physical brilliance. Tangible. Real. Alive.
And Evelyn was beaming. As an engineer, there was nothing more satisfying than seeing your work appreciated—genuinely, enthusiastically, and without reservation.
"Wait a second. I'll hook up the joystick," Evelyn said, cutting off the power supply once more.
She crouched beside the table and connected the circuit board's wiring to an old-style controller, the kind with mechanical linkages and a chunky grip. Once the connections were set, she powered the system back on.
This time, the TV screen didn't flicker. It lit up cleanly.
Ethan picked up the joystick. Because joysticks of this era used mechanical linkages, they couldn't rotate like modern analog sticks. They relied on a crossbar design—one hand for horizontal movement, the other for vertical.
But that didn't matter at all. Ethan had played Snake on an Nokia phone. Compared to that, this joystick was pure elegance.
In less than two minutes, he was immersed. The little white snake glided smoothly across the screen. Every time it "ate" a square pixel of food, it grew longer. Bit by bit, the glowing trail filled the black void.
And when the screen could hold no more—The game ended.
Staring at the darkened screen, Ethan clenched his right fist and pumped it in the air.
"This is it! This is what I wanted! This is amazing!"
He turned to Evelyn, "Evelyn! Thank you! I love you!"
Before she could react, he tossed the joystick aside, lunged forward, and scooped her up in a tight hug, he spun her around the garage.
"Whoa—!" Evelyn gasped, completely caught off guard by the sudden affection. But her surprised squeal quickly turned into a helpless laugh, and her face lit up with a bright, joyful smile.
When her feet finally touched the ground again, she was panting. She tossed her hair back and laughed breathlessly. "Okay! Okay! Ethan! I get it—you're very satisfied! But next time you celebrate, could you not spin me around like that? My head... is spinning!"
"Okay, okay! I'll try," Ethan replied with mock solemnity. "But I can't promise anything. This is just—this is too exciting!"
This wasn't just a game. It was a beginning. Because Snake didn't just mean fun—it meant money.Opportunity.
In other places, maybe money wasn't everything. But in America—the land where anything could be bought or sold—money was practically a everything. And who didn't love green bills?
Just as Ethan was about to say something dramatic and inspiring about it all, a sudden thud-thud-thud broke through the garage.
The sound made him pause, frowning slightly. Evelyn tilted her head and whispered, "Thomas."
Sure enough, when she opened the door that led from the garage to the house, Thomas walked in—still in his pajamas, hair a mess, fury written all over his face.
The look he wore was the kind a man gets when he's been yanked out of a peaceful dream by the sound of overenthusiastic inventors.
"Children!" he barked. "It's midnight! Why are you still being so damn loud?!"
He shot a glare at Evelyn."Evelyn—I know it's the weekend and you don't have school tomorrow."
Then to Ethan:" And you—I know you're unemployed and don't have to be anywhere!"
He raised a hand like Moses parting the sea. "But me! Your father! I have to get up early tomorrow to go to the orchard!"
His voice grew more theatrical with every sentence. "Yes, the spring oranges have already been picked, but guess what? The trees are going to blossom again soon! And I'm busy! Busy, you hear me?!"
"I'm glad you two made up. Really. That's touching. But it's bedtime now. Whatever you're doing—save it for daylight!"
Then "GET OUT!!"
Spittle flew. Ethan and Evelyn stood there, blinking.
Then they slowly turned to each other.
One raised an eyebrow. The other shrugged. And both burst into uncontrollable laughter.
Still chuckling, they quickly gathered their things, stuffing tools and wires back into drawers under Thomas's withering stare. As they passed him on the way out, they called out sweetly:
"Good night, Uncle Thomas~"
"Love you, Dad~"
The only reply was the loud slam of a door. Neither of them took it to heart. They had been a bit rowdy, after all.
At the top of the stairs, they paused outside their rooms.
"Good night, Evelyn," Ethan said with a grin.
"Good night, Ethan." she replied, leaning against her bedroom door. "And don't call me before nine. I want to sleep in."
"You're the boss," Ethan nodded, amused.
Her sleepy expression piqued his curiosity. "Wait—how do you know I'll have something to ask you tomorrow?"
"Because I'm a genius." Evelyn stuck out her tongue. "Anyway—last night—no, wait, the night before last, technically—I rushed the circuit diagram. It only covered the game loop and the photoelectric sensor. That's it. No polish, no extras. So obviously, you're going to ask me to fix that."
Ethan laughed. "Okay, okay, I admit it. You're a genius. Good night."
"Hahaha Good night~"
She wasn't wrong. The Snake game Ethan had just played was thrilling, yes—but also primitive. There was no title screen, no music, no sound effects, not even a score counter. Just the game. A moving dot, a growing trail, and a screen that turned dark when it ended.
If it had been released in the 21st century, it would've been considered a crude, unfinished prototype.
But here in 1975? It was revolutionary. Ethan believed—no, he knew—that with enough time, Evelyn could take a raw circuit board and turn it into a fully functional game console.
And that belief was quickly proven true. The very next morning, Evelyn walked into his room—disheveled, yawning—and asked, "Alright, boss. What exactly do you want this thing to do?"
From there, the real work began. Evelyn drew up new circuit layouts and etched three additional boards, labeled 1, 2, and 3, to manage the game's new startup sequence.
When board No. 1 powered on, it triggered a new start screen. The words Snake Game shimmered into view on the TV display.
Board No. 2 handled the background music. A simple loop, nothing fancy—but enough to feel alive.
Then came board No. 3, linked to a coin detector mechanism. The moment a coin was physically inserted, it activated the main board No. 4, launching the game interface.
Evelyn even revised board No. 4 itself. Originally, it displayed a full NTSC standard grid: 640 horizontal pixels by 480 vertical pixels, with a solid border as the game's walls. But now, she trimmed the active game area to make space for something new.
In the top right corner of the screen, a score counter appeared—simple, glowing numerals. Each time the snake ate a piece of food, a point was added. A discharge pulse triggered a counter. When score counted Because score meant competition. And competition meant quarters.
But she didn't stop there. Board No. 4 was also connected to a fifth board—a sound board.
With a little creativity and a lot of patience, Ethan had recorded himself biting into an apple. The result? Every time the snake consumed a pixel "fruit," the arcade speaker let out a crisp, satisfying click—just like a real bite.
By the time they were done with the core electronics, a full week had passed.
Then Ethan took another day to build a cabinet shell. The final machine was tall, solid, and green—a standing console that looked oddly futuristic. Painted simply, with Snake Game written across the top, it stood like a refrigerator powered by dreams.
Finally, on April 13th, 1975, their homemade arcade machine was complete.
Ethan stood in front of it, arms folded, grinning with pride.
Over the past week, Ethan had been burning the candle at both ends—studying by day, building machines by night.
But Evelyn, energized by the progress and buzzing with joy, didn't seem to notice.
"You look like death," she said, handing him a cup of water.
"Nothing," Ethan replied with a tired smile. "What I really wanted to say is... the next step is selling it."
Evelyn, who had clearly anticipated that part, wasn't surprised. But she still had a point to make—and her tone suddenly shifted, calm but firm.
"No. Before that, there's one more thing."
She said it like their father might: low, deliberate, and just a touch stern.
Ethan blinked. "What?"
"Magnavox," she said plainly.
The name of Ethan's former employer.
"Ah—right," Ethan said, a bit sheepishly.
He rubbed his temple and sighed, then smiled wryly. "Yeah... we do have one more thing to handle. First, we need to find a lawyer. We have to deal with that damn copyright issue before anything else."
"Bingo."
Evelyn grinned and snapped her fingers, clearly pleased that he finally caught up.