November 29th

On this day – November 29^th 1972 – Atari announces the release of Pong 

Pong was not the first video game but it was the first truly successful. It is a simple game that imitates a game of tennis. The first version was just two paddles on each end of the screen, a line dividing the middle,scores on the side of each player, and a ball. 

The game is very simple compared to todays 3d games with several objectives and things to do but it was a success in it´s time. It was developed by Allan Alcorn at Atari. One of the first prototypes was placed in a bar in 1972. After a while the bar manager complained of technical issues so Atari sent Alcorn to fix it. The problem was to be a positive one, the coin mechanism was overflowing with quarters. Atari then wanted to produce more machines but it was hard to convince banks to get a loan since they considered Pong a sort of pinball machine. Pinball machines were associated with the Mafia. Atari eventually secured a loan from Welles Fargo and started production and by 1973 they were shipping to foreign countries. In 1974 Atari started working on a home version of Pong. While Pong was developed at Atari it was based of a ping-pong game in the Magnavox Odyssey system and in 1974 they filed a law suit. The law suit was settled out of court. They game is considered a classic and has been featured in television series such as That 70`s show, King of the Hill and Saturday Night Live and also in movies such as Toy Story.