Straight Up and Down Trivia Quiz

Answer: Atari

"Computer Space" was created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in partnership as Syzygy Engineering. It was a modest computer game that required a dedicated hardware system. It eventually sold its production run of 1500 units. Bushnell and Dabney hired Alcorn, a computer scientist and electrical engineer to come up with a better game. Alcorn had never seen a video game before. Bushnell gave him a training assignment of designing a tennis game with specific requirements. Alcorn signed on for a pay cut over his previous position but was given stock options.

As "Syzygy" was the name of another company, this company changed its name to "Atari"

Answer: A black and white television

Alcorn was impressed that there was no computer in "Computer Space" and that the video screen was a television. Alcorn went to the local Wintergreen store and purchase a 75 dollar Hitachi black and white television and enclosed the screen in a a bright orange console to hide the Hitachi logo and the electronics needed to convert a television screen into a video game.

Answer: It didn't have one

What Dabney and Bushnell had done with "Computer Space" was tweak the dedicated logic circuits within the wiring of the television so that they could produce the same effects as the time-sharing computer. "A very, very clever trick," Alcorn called it. "Without a computer, without software, without a frame buffer, a microprocessor, or even memory chips beyond a few flip-flops". Bushnell and Dabney had created a dot to appear and move on the screen. Alcorn was able to meet Bushnell's game requirements using the television circuitry with some transistor-transistor logic circuits chips.

But no CPU was required.

Answer: Straight up and down

The paddles moved up and down to stop the ball from passing. What Alcorn did was to invisibly segment the panels, so depending on which portion of the paddle you hit the ball, determined what angle the ball moved towards your opponent. A fault was the paddles did not cover the whole height of the screen was deliberately left unfixed to keep the length of rallies minimal. Alcorn was able to make the ball speed up if it was in play for an extended rally.

Answer: Two knobs, one for each player

These were very early days in video game development. Players were enthralled with the novelty of interacting with a television screen. Hi-tech consoles were a long way from availability. Even joysticks had not been used, commercially at least. Players had a simple knob to move the paddles up and down the screen.

Behind the TV screen was a series of 76 transistor-transistor logic circuits that controlled the on-screen components consisting of the two paddles, the ball, and the score counter above the play area and the sound (which was restricted to two tones).

Answer: Yes

Alcorn's prototype was installed at a local tavern which also had a bevy of pinball machines. Soon people were coming to the tavern just to play the game. The advantage of "Pong" over pinball machines was the simultaneous interactivity between two players. Bushnell had contractual obligations to both Bally and Midway (pinball companies) to produce electronic games.

He cleverly manipulated the situation so neither was interested in "Pong" thereby eliminating the need to licence "Pong" giving Atari the opportunity to manufacture its own products (which is where Bushnell thought the profitability was maximal).

Answer: The coin box was overflowing internally, stopping the starting mechanism

Alcorn went over to the tavern and found the coin box was overflowing with quarters. There were so many coins they spilled out into the mechanics of the operation stopping the start switch from activating. There had to be $100 in quarters from 2-3 days play. (A pinball machine took roughly 30-40 dollars per week in the same venue). "Pong" had not been starting because the coin box was too full to trip the start mechanism. The coins were removed and the machine started again. Future models had bigger coin holders.

Bushnell had trouble attracting financial backers to provide funding to manufacture the game. Most banks saw the game as a pinball derivative. The public had a poor perception of the pinball industry associating it with both delinquency and organised crime.

Manufacturing was slow at first: Ten units a day but within a year Atari was exporting the game overseas.

Answer: Magnavox Odyssey

When Bushnell had given specific instructions to Alcorn on how he wanted "Pong" to look, was because Bushnell had already seen a similar game on the Magnavox Odyssey, an in home console that connected to your TV set and played a number of limited games, table tennis being one of them. Alcorn had produced a much superior game with additional functionality but there was no doubting that the parentage of "Pong" came from the Magnavox game.

In April 1974 Magnavox filed suit against Atari. Atari settled out of court (for a disputed figure somewhere between $300 000 and $1.5 million) and were free to keep manufacturing. Magnavox continued to successfully sue other companies that had copied "Pong" but it was argues, they had copied Magnavox.

Answer: True

Bushnell had trouble selling a television - home version of "Pong" which utilised the same technology as the arcade game. Bushnell got many knock-backs from sports and electronics stores. It wasn't until a Sears and Roebuck buyer wanted 150 000 units by Christmas (in 1974) that Atari had moved from small town start-up to an Electronics giant. Atari had a capacity to produce 75 000.

They had to move manufacturing plants and ramp up production.

Answer: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak

To capitalise on the commercial success of "Pong", new games were required. Alcorn asked a 20-year-old San Francisco college dropout to design a new game called "Breakout". This game went on to become one of Atari's biggest, enduring hits. The new developer was Steve Jobs, who asked asked another college dropout from Hewlett-Packard, to join him and help him out. The second guy was Steve Wozniak.
In 1976, Warner Communications, which had merged with Time Inc. in 1990, bought Atari for $28 million. This gave Busnell $15 million and Alcorn, a fair bit less. (Dabney had been paid out earlier).

Video games had hit the big time. In the second decade of the 21st century, the video game industry had overtaken the motion picture industry in turnover. And it all started here, with "Pong" as a start up in the Silicon Valley in 1972.