Pong, the world’s first successful video game, turns 40 today

[Valin]

Silicon Republic

11/29/12

 

One of the world’s first successful video game titles – Pong – was released by Atari this day 40 years ago (on 29 November 1972), kickstarting a major multi-billion video games industry.

 

One of the earliest arcade games, Pong featured simple two-dimensional graphics and simulated a table tennis game.

 

Allan Alcorn created the game after Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell assigned him a training exercise. Bushnell is considered one of the founding fathers of the video games business and famously gave a start to Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak after commissioning them to design a chip that helped reduced the number of chips in Atari machines. Wozniak surpassed himself and reduced the number of chips in Atari machines by 50, but instead of splitting the proceeds 50/50 with Wozniak, Jobs famously cheated him by giving him just US$350 of the US$5,000 offered by Atari.

 

(Snip)

 

[clearvision]

[Pepper]

@clearvision @Valin

 

[Geee]

Memories!!! Cannot believe how absolutely juvenile they look compared to today and also how far(for better or worse?) 40 years have taken us.

[Valin]

Memories!!! Cannot believe how absolutely juvenile they look compared to today and also how far(for better or worse?) 40 years have taken us.

 

 

You mean like this?

 

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