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Trigger Happy
43
without having to learn it first. He left Nutting,
determined to go it alone.
And so Pong was born. “Avoid missing ball for
high score” ran the only line of instructions on Pong’s
cabinet. It was a very simple version of tennis. A square
dot of light represented the ball, and two vertical lines
at each side of the screen were the bats. Players only
had to use one hand to rotate the paddle control, thus
facilitating simultaneous beer consumption. The first
Pong machine, hand-built in Bushnell’s apartment, was
set up in Andy Capp’s Tavern, a California pool bar. It
was soon collecting $300 a week in quarters—six times
as much as the neighboring pinball machine.
Amazed at the game’s success, Bushnell founded
his own company, the now-legendary Atari (named
after a term used in the Japanese chesslike game “Go”),
which was staffed by young, Led Zeppelin– loving,
herb-smoking hippies. Atari released the first
commercial Pong in November 1972. It was a huge
success, and altogether ten thousand of the machines
were manufactured. Four years later, Nolan Bushnell
sold Atari to Warner for $28 million, staying on as
chairman himself. Silicon entrepreneurialism, it
seemed, was the new rock’n’roll.