Happy Birthday Pong!
Posted 2012-11-29 - Archived under: Allan Alcorn, arcade machine, Atari, PONG - Reply
Avoid missing ball for high score.
That’s the full text version of the original instructions for PONG, and today is it’s 40th birthday!*
In 1972 Allan Alcorn developed pong for Atari. After many technical problems, problems in manufacturing, strange business decisions and lies, and so on, the game was finally announced to the public on the 29th of November. The game is, contrary to popular belief, not the first tennis simulator, there are a couple of other versions before and it’s a bit of a debate which one is actually first (my guess is tennis for two, but that is a guess). Many also think it is the firsts arcade machine, but this is also not really true. That honor goes to Computer Space.
However, even though it’s not really the first, few -if any- games has had so much impact on computer games as PONG. It is one of the games we all think of when we talk of the origins. It is an icon!
And so, I say: Happy Birthday Pong!
Now, go read the wikipedia article for all the details!
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