While people had been trying to put games on mobile phones for years, it wasn't until Nokia's humble little version of arcade classic Snake in 1997 that the idea was taken a little more seriously.
It's now 2012, and with thousands of games available on various phones, some looking as good (and almost playing as good) as more expensive titles elsewhere, the medium is well and truly coming of age.
So let's throw all that out the window for a day and play the 1997 Snake again. On a new phone.
The appropriately-named Snake '97, released last year on iPhone and last month on Windows Phone, is just that. It's the 1997 game, down to the sound effects and crummy two-colour display. It even includes, as a nice touch, a "skin" filling most of your modern phone's screen with a rendition of an old Nokia phone, whose buttons double as a control device.
There are two versions available, a $0.99 edition (the "full game, with multiple "skins") and a free version which has ads and only one phone skin.
Snake 97 [Apple App Store]
Snake 97 [Windows Phone Marketplace]