PONG - The Game that Started it All
Do you think PONG was the first video game? You'd be wrong, Computer Space was the first game released in November, 1971. The original PONG wasn't released by Atari until November 29, 1972. However, it was the first video to gain widespread recognition and is credited with launching the home video arcade market.
You don't understand what a technical milestone this was for the time. In 1970, it would require a mainframe computer the size of a small apartment to rival the computing power of today's cell phone.
The earliest form of electronic ping-pong dates back to 1958, when William A. Higinbotham developed "Tennis for Two" which was played on an oscilloscope at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.
It wasn't until 1966 that Ralph Baer (working for Sanders Associates) made a design for playing computer games over a television set. His designs were patented and he created a game resembling PONG. It took Baer four more years to demonstrate his invention to Magnavox who was so impressed with the game they formed a partnership with Sanders Associates to manufacture the game (the Odyssey 1TL200).
In the spring of 1972, the Magnavox Odyssey was demonstrated in Burlingame, California. The reason this date is important is because Nolan Bushnell played the Odyssey for the first time. Bushnell is one of the founders of Atari.
Soon after playing the Odyssey, Nolan and a partner formed Atari. The first game created was a ping-pong game. The name "Ping Pong" was already trademarked, thus "PONG" was born.
Originally, Bushnell envisioned Atari as a video game design company. In fact, Bushnell had appointments with arcade manufactures Williams and Bally/Midway to license the PONG game. It wasn't until the runaway success of PONG field tests that Bushnell cancelled his appointments and decided to manufacture the game.
The news of the PONG test spread quickly and two weeks after the tests, Magnavox notified Atari they had a patent on the game concept. Atari fought the suit, but Magnavox was able to produce witnesses that saw Bushnell play the Odyssey in Burlingame and provided a guest bookuestbook with Bushnell's signature from the event. Atari ultimately settled and paid Magnavox $700,000 to license the patents.
The summer 1975 Consumer Electronic Show was'nt much better for Atari. There was little interest in the PONG game during the show (Magnavox's Odyssey had failed and was discontinued in 1974), but things changed quickly. Just after the show, Tom Quinn, a buyer for Sears called and the rest is history... The "Sears Tele-Games Pong IV" was the most popular Christmas gift in 1975, and Sears was the exclusive seller of the popular Atari game (sales were close to 150,000 units!).
By 1977, the home version of PONG was so popular that it was copied by other manufactures. The market was soon flooded with copycats and PONG crashed, but not before Atari created the video arcade/home video game market - a $10 Billion dollar industry.
Atari means "to be engulfed" in Japanese.
Click here to view the original PONG unit and here to find a schematic if you want to build your one. You can also take a trip down memory lane and visit the Atari Museum here.
You don't understand what a technical milestone this was for the time. In 1970, it would require a mainframe computer the size of a small apartment to rival the computing power of today's cell phone.
The earliest form of electronic ping-pong dates back to 1958, when William A. Higinbotham developed "Tennis for Two" which was played on an oscilloscope at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.
It wasn't until 1966 that Ralph Baer (working for Sanders Associates) made a design for playing computer games over a television set. His designs were patented and he created a game resembling PONG. It took Baer four more years to demonstrate his invention to Magnavox who was so impressed with the game they formed a partnership with Sanders Associates to manufacture the game (the Odyssey 1TL200).
In the spring of 1972, the Magnavox Odyssey was demonstrated in Burlingame, California. The reason this date is important is because Nolan Bushnell played the Odyssey for the first time. Bushnell is one of the founders of Atari.
Soon after playing the Odyssey, Nolan and a partner formed Atari. The first game created was a ping-pong game. The name "Ping Pong" was already trademarked, thus "PONG" was born.
Originally, Bushnell envisioned Atari as a video game design company. In fact, Bushnell had appointments with arcade manufactures Williams and Bally/Midway to license the PONG game. It wasn't until the runaway success of PONG field tests that Bushnell cancelled his appointments and decided to manufacture the game.
The news of the PONG test spread quickly and two weeks after the tests, Magnavox notified Atari they had a patent on the game concept. Atari fought the suit, but Magnavox was able to produce witnesses that saw Bushnell play the Odyssey in Burlingame and provided a guest bookuestbook with Bushnell's signature from the event. Atari ultimately settled and paid Magnavox $700,000 to license the patents.
The summer 1975 Consumer Electronic Show was'nt much better for Atari. There was little interest in the PONG game during the show (Magnavox's Odyssey had failed and was discontinued in 1974), but things changed quickly. Just after the show, Tom Quinn, a buyer for Sears called and the rest is history... The "Sears Tele-Games Pong IV" was the most popular Christmas gift in 1975, and Sears was the exclusive seller of the popular Atari game (sales were close to 150,000 units!).
By 1977, the home version of PONG was so popular that it was copied by other manufactures. The market was soon flooded with copycats and PONG crashed, but not before Atari created the video arcade/home video game market - a $10 Billion dollar industry.
Atari means "to be engulfed" in Japanese.
Click here to view the original PONG unit and here to find a schematic if you want to build your one. You can also take a trip down memory lane and visit the Atari Museum here.
posted by I'm not Bob Vila... at
1:42 PM
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