Half Century of Pong
looorg writes:
Half a century of Pong. 50 years old. What started out as a tech demo (that sure has changed) became a gaming juggernaut. Time to share Pong memories? Personally it would be many years later on some home console or one of the many many clones or developments such as Breakout or Arkanoid. I think they did more for me then the two little paddles and the dot being directed from side to side.
https://www.engadget.com/pong-turns-50-214422370.html
Exactly 50 years ago today, Atari released Pong. It wasn't the first video game ever created, nor the original take on virtual table tennis - a fact that would eventually lead to two decades of lawsuits. But in Pong, the early video game industry was born. Released in 1972, Atari sold more than 8,000 Pong arcade cabinets. A few years later, the home version of Pong would become an instant success, with Sears selling about 150,000 units of the console you needed to play the game.
Alcorn thought the first assignment he was given by the fledgling video game company Atari would simply be practice for engineering the next big thing. That assignment - a simple ball and paddle game - turned out to be the next big thing.
"This is insane. I'll go along with the gag, but we'll see how long it takes to blow up and I'll go back and work at Ampex," he said.Alcorn would soon become chief engineer at Atari, where he recruited several notable employees, including an 18-year-old tech called Steve Jobs. But that's another story.
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