----------------~)
o
Ponk,Ponk-
the bouncing
blip blitzkrieg
A PLAY METER
inter view with
Nolan Bushnell,
board chairman
of Atari.
III 1965, a Iliv r ily of lah ngine ring student, who
had pUI ill om parllim work at a local arcade,
decided amu m nl gam n ded to be zapped and h
Ihought h had the prop r zapper when h taught th
IIIliver it computer to play a few wierd gam
Til conc pt wa born, but r:t wasn't until 1970 that
ill xpell iv t chnology caught up with olan Bushnell,
1I0W chairmall of th board of multi-milhon dollar Atan'
Inc , and allow d th comput r prodigy to build what i
gellerali r gard d a the fir t fi a ibl video gam ,
om/ml r pac .
Origin all , ou e, it had b 11 Bu hn ll 's idea to
program a mall comput r for various gam and allow
/)Ia er 10 use vid 0 t rminal located awa from th
computer. B'I/ Ih cos I in olv d in that concept in th
mid -sixtie - w re prohibilive .
Bu hllell waited and Ihe cheap t chnology availabl
ill 1970 tarl d him working on hi old id a again_ But
Ihell he di co er d he didn 'l n d Ih computer at all
alld Ihat th game conc pt could b work d out with
onl ' a pn'llt ed logic board.
Lik e all good pione r , he tried to
II his idea to
banI< r , but lik good banker , tlz
w Ten 't buying.
Which fOTC d him to build omputer pac on hi own
alld If th e right to anoth r company. He got a piece
of the pie, bUI 1/01 what he fell h d erved. But now
Ihal hi COliC pt had been PTO e n, h could proce d
more or Ie 011 his OWII .
PlAt' /tfI£TER
-- orne new merchandising methods are needed, possibly
u ing tokens or pay-one-price or something like that, so that
Johnny can pend three hours of action -packed fun in the game
center and spend only five bucks _ ..
H b gan building Pong, the I gendary video game
Ihat Teall launch d the solid -state revolution in
coin-op rat d gam
becaus of it relative inexpen -
iv TIes and it mor easily understood play conc pt .
H had igll d all agr m nt with Bally, how ver,
and fi II obliged 10 offer Pong 10 them _ Th ey refused it,
though , becau th y didn't like the fact that it had no
011 -pia r mod and because the thoughl it n eded
video mell inslead of paddle , Bushnell say .
He w III back 10 Lo cato , wh r he founded hi
factory, disappoint d. Bul Bally' rejection turned out
to b a windfall for Bu hTleU ' futur . As he xplains:
.. W were till v ry mall and very, ver
hOTt on
mon y, but at the am time we had produced a
/lumber of machines and old and plac d them
our I e. The earned fantastically and word pread
locall among the op rators, who spr ad Ih e word to
Ih eir distn-bulor . ..
Th word mushroom d and Bushnell was abl to
borrow again t order from Ihree di tributor to put hi
firm into busin
From th n on it has been
wplI-lwown histO'r . Alari produc d not games, but
amu emenl conc pt , continuall tr ing to live up to it
image a Ihe pion r of lectronic gam s with
t rnall oplimi lic fram of mind al the
Bu hn II '
for .
n x l pag )
13