CC BY-SA 3.0 ↗
Pong Arcade Cabinet
- Year
- 1972
- Creator
- Nolan Bushnell, Allan Alcorn, Ted Dabney
- Company
- Atari
- Location
- Andy Capp's Tavern, Sunnyvale, California (first test site)
- Room
- Augmentation ↗
Description
Pong is a coin-operated video game of table tennis, which Allan Alcorn built for the new company Atari in 1972. Two players turn knobs that move paddles on a television screen.
Importance
Pong was the first video game that drew wide public attention, and its success made Atari a leader of the video game industry. Sequoia Capital later invested in Atari from its first fund. Steve Jobs worked at Atari before he and Steve Wozniak showed the Apple-1 at the Homebrew Computer Club.
Interesting fact
At its first test site, Andy Capp's Tavern in Sunnyvale, players put so many coins in the prototype that the coin box overflowed.
Sources
- Pong ↗The Strong National Museum of Play
- Timeline of Computer History: 1972 ↗Computer History Museum
- Atari (with Nolan Bushnell), Season 5 Episode 5 ↗Acquired · 2019-10-15
- Remembering Don Valentine ↗Sequoia Capital · 2019-10-25