OXO

Overview

OXO in an early computer game based on tic-tac-toe, also known as noughts-and-crosses or Xs and Os, an abstract strategy game that dates as far back as ancient Egypt (pre-dating even chess). OXO only ever saw release on the EDSAC (Eletronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator), an early computer based at the University of Cambridge's Mathematical Laboratory.

Alexander "Sandy" Douglas (1921-2010), the game's creator, designed OXO in 1952 whilst working on his PhD thesis. He was investigating human-computer interactions, and required an example in order to prove his theories. At the time, Cambridge University was home to the second stored-program computer in the world, and Douglas used the EDSAC to program OXO as an early example of a game played against an artificial intelligence, and the very first example of a computer game that used a graphical display.

Douglas himself did not name his game aside from simply "noughts and crosses"; it acquired the name OXO later when computer historian Martin Campbell-Kelly created a simulation of the original EDSAC system.