Tired of staring at exhibits of the evolution of man in your local museum? Try this: the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's Economic Adventure Gallery is hosting a new exhibit on the history of video games at the Guildhall of Southern Methodist University (SMU), a leading education center for digital-game development. Entitled "Video Games Evolve: A Brief History from Spacewar! to MMORPGS", the exhibit traces the evolution of video games from 1962 to the present day.

While the SMU exhibit does examine the roots of the video game industry with the birth of Spacewar! in 1962 (a playable demo of which is available at the exhibit), it also features the classic arcade games of the 1980s (Pac-Man, Space Invaders, etc.), educational games like the Federation of American Scientists' Immune Attack, and even modern MMORPGs such as Sony Online Entertainment's Star Wars Galaxies and Blizzard's World of Warcraft.

The aptly-named Dr. Peter Raad, Executive Director of the Guildhall at SMU, commented that:

This is a wonderful exhibit not only for video game lovers, but for anyone who wants to know how science, technology, and art come together to form an industry.

The exhibit will run until January 2008. And by the way, the playable demos are all free.