Very Old Games

On historic games... I have two excellent British books for you:

Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations, by R. C. Bell. and

Oxford History of Board Games by David Parlett.

I'll be happy to loan them to anyone who needs them. I also have a book somewhere in my office on the rise and fall and rise of video games.

If you'd like to see reproductions of old games for sale, see MacGregor Historic Games which caters to re-enactors. I remember when I was in Lancaster, PA a few years ago watching a re-enactment of a Revolutionary War skirmish, soldiers were killing time playing some of these games.

Some other game links I've found:

• Ancient Egyptian Games
  
• Discovery Channel online version of Senet
  
• P. S. Neeley's Ancient Games for Windows
  
• Awale, the ancient African game the kids used to play in front of my house in Sierra Leone.
  

You don't really need to go back to the Flintstones era to lay the background for the games industry overview, though, do you?