Pong designer Allan Alcorn reveals how he unwittingly found himself at the nexus of the technology and entertainment industries.
Alcorn thought the first assignment he was given by the fledgling video game company Atari would simply be practice for engineering the next big thing. That assignment - a simple ball and paddle game - turned out to be the next big thing.
“This is insane. I’ll go along with the gag, but we’ll see how long it takes to blow up and I’ll go back and work at Ampex,” he said.
Alcorn would soon become chief engineer at Atari, where he recruited several notable employees, including an 18-year-old tech called Steve Jobs. But that’s another story.
This is the story of Pong and 50 years of the video game industry, created by Tom Compagnoni.
#retrogaming #atari #pong #videogames #gaming
23 ноя 2022
