One of them decided that Spacewar deserved a breathtaking backdrop and programmed what he called the “Expensive Planetarium” subroutine. It featured a realistic starscape, stars displayed with five different brightnesses, as viewed from Earth’s equator. The author of the glorious addition: Peter Samson, the young student whose imagination was so captured by Spacewar that he misperceived the night sky above Lowell, Massachusetts.4
