Eric Smith wrote: > When we restored the PDP-1 at CHM, we *really* wanted to make sure > that the public could interact with it, though in a limited > fashion. Ken Sumrall and I built quick-and-dirty Spacewar control > boxes out of particle board and arcade switches, which were intended > for restoration team use, and we originally thought that we would > later build some "more authentic" control boxes. (The control boxes > used in Boston had disappeared, and in any case we don't know whether > they were "original".) However, Steve Russell (author of the Spacewar > game) pointed out that our hastily knocked together control boxes > actually were "authentic" in the sense that the originals were also > hastily knocked together out of whatever was at hand.
Random tidbit. I heard from Richard Greenblatt the PDP-1 Spacewar consoles (original or not, I don't know) had a really great feel, and when Spacewar was ported to the PDP-6 the new consoles were not as good. Asking around about this, Michael Beeler said he make the PDP-6 consoles and conceded the original consoles were better.