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Games Entertainment

Father of Video Games turning 60 205

Posted by CowboyNeal from the looking-to-the-past dept.
Bill Kendrick writes "Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and the "father of video games" will be turning 60 next week, on February 5th. Along with Atari, which Bushnell began in 1972 (and left before the end of the decade), he also founded over 20 other companies, including Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theater restaurants. He holds many patents relating to both video games and other industries. For more on The Bringer of Pong, check out some interviews from the San Jose Mercury, Metroactive and over at Good Deal Games, as well as his Wikipedia entry. Happy birthday, Nolan!"
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Father of Video Games turning 60 More

Father of Video Games turning 60

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  • I'd claim FIRST POST... (Score:3, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:08PM (#5192974) Homepage Journal
    ... but Al Gore would claim he's the father of that.

    • Re:I'd claim FIRST POST... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:18PM (#5193044)
      "... but Al Gore would claim he's the father of that."

      I'm a little surprised he was modded as off-topic. I think he was making a humorous allusion to Steve Russell, the guy who created Space War in the 1960's. This site has the info. [216.239.37.100]

      He should have gotten modded up, not down. Oh well, I guess not everybody is versed in Video Game History.

  • Aha! (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:10PM (#5192994) Homepage
    So this is the person that is to blame for my wasted childhood - days on end sitting in front of the TV, emanciated and dehydrated, trying to wrap the Asteroids score around...

    Damn you Nolan!

    • Hunh... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Peterus7 ( 607982 )
      So this is what you have to do to get your birthday mentioned on slashdot....

      Ok, well, I'll get right on building a new generation of videogames, making an innovative pizza chain, and a theatre chain as well, and then will I have a shot at it? (When I'm 60?)

    • Didn't your mom even tell you to stop? Or at least break out an extension cord? [penny-arcade.com]
    • So this is the person that is to blame for my wasted childhood - days on end sitting in front of the TV, emanciated and dehydrated, trying to wrap the Asteroids score around...

      You are Nolan's bastard son.

  • Nolan Fathered Steve P Jobs! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by linuxislandsucks ( 461335 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:11PM (#5192999) Homepage Journal
    The visonary Steve P Jobs got his visonary mandate from Nolan as a game designer at Atari..

    Nolan a worth while Moron to know..okay for tha tinside joke see some of his antics..very non mormon :)

  • Because of him (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Analog Kid ( 565327 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:12PM (#5193011)
    He's the one to blame for obesity in young children and people with no lives. No this is not a flame, troll, offtopic, or redundant. Its my failed attempt at humor.
    • not to mention sudden video game death syndrome...
    • I'm sorry maybe I can help you with some wit.

      Perhaps, stating: "So thats whos behind me flunking out of college, along with all those nightmares about table tennis and jumping on aligators to cross swamps!"

      Perhaps you may try to think of a better way to humor the slashdot crowd without insulting us so much.

      Perhaps I am wrong and will be modded as such.

      Sig Starts Now!
      • It didnt sound like it was targeting Slashdot readers... more like the people who are suing McDonalds because they're fat... or peple who sue tobacco companies for giving them cancer (we've known that smoking is bad for 30 years already, so it's personal choice)...

        Then again... I might have gotten laid a lot more if I didn't play video games. Someone get me Johnny Cochrane and William Kuntsler! (Dig him up if you have to!)
    • You can't blame the inventor of video games or the games for the way the younger generation turned out. As an example, if Pac-Man influenced kids, they'd be moving around dark rooms to repetitive music, eating lots of little pills, and chasing or being chased by hyperactive neon creatures. Oh wait... Ravers. Never mind.
    • Nolan, I hereby blame you for the parent, and all other failed attempts at humour, like this one. No one blunts society's witt and gets away with it! Down with you, you bastard!

      I ought to blow you away with my DD4 Dostovel, or my flying hat, or my paddle, or, or, or..... damn.

  • Ah, the Atari... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:13PM (#5193018) Homepage Journal
    I've got many fond memories of that thing. Such as the game where you move a ship around the bottom of the screen while shooting pixels at moving bugs. Or the game where you move a firefighter around the bottom of the screen while shooting water at moving fires. Then there's the one where you're at a shooting gallery, moving your gun around the bottom of the screen while shooting at moving targets.

    Those were the days. I kind of miss the difficulty switch too.

    • Ah yes, the difficulty switch. Space Invaders was a classic. On two player games, reach over, flick the switch, and hey presto! Your mate's ship just doubled in size. Most effective when he's hiding below a bunker waiting for a gap in the bombs.
    • you move a firefighter around the bottom of the screen

      translation if you're 25 years or less:

      you move your 24 pixel monochrome character around the bottom of your tv screen

  • Kang and Kodos (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dexheimer ( 621938 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:13PM (#5193020)
    And over here is our crowning achievement in amusement technology, an electronic version of what you humans call table tennis. Your primitive paddles have been replaced with a....well we did build this Spaceship you know. Anyone from a species who has mastered intergalactic travel raise your hand.

  • Of course... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:14PM (#5193024)
    As the father of video games, he never married
    and has no kids.

  • CHUCK E CHEESE (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:16PM (#5193032)
    Chuck E Cheese OWNS!

    I loved that place.

    Never had pizza with that unique flavor, either.

  • Father of Video Games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rpillala ( 583965 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:17PM (#5193037)

    Not that Nolan Bushnell doesn't deserve a happy birthday, but isn't Ralph Baer [pong-story.com] the father of video games?

    Maybe the father of video games at home.

    Ravi

    • I just did a quick Google search and apparently Nolan Bushnell is still the father of video games... since Pong was not the first video game.

      Apparently we have Bushnell to thank for Computer Space [geocities.com], which according to this site was the "world's first arcade video game system." A variation on the PDP-11 game Space War (which as I recall just used numbers, symbols, and letters to represent characters and action... more of a prototype or an experiment than a full-fledged game that was released upon the world.)

      Although this site, too, credits Pong to Bushnell, so I'm not sure how accurate this all is.

      • Re:Father of Video Games (Score:5, Informative)

        by Forgotten ( 225254 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @09:29PM (#5193410)

        Space War had a high-resolution dot display (not raster pixels, not vectors - dots). You can play it if you download a copy of MESS [emuverse.com]. It wasn't a prototype or experiment - it was a very popular game, with a tournament league and ongoing development.

        Space War wasn't actually the first video game either, though - that's believed [osti.gov] to have been a Pong-like game played on an oscilloscope display. The first actual Pong game was Baer's, playable on a TV set with the Odyssey - Bushnell just commissioned an arcade version (from you know who). I'm not particularly sure if Bushnell is the "father" of anything (what's people's obsession with identifying one originator, anyway? Plain old hero worship?), but he obviously did a lot to popularise coinop video games. Mixed blessing though that is. ;)

      • I _did_ put "Father of Video Games" in quotes, in the article itself.
        Many, many, many people I guess consider him the 'defacto' father. While, technically, I guess Nolan's more like the husband, and someone like Ralf Baer or others named later in this thread were the 'milk man.'

        Ok... am I being funny now, or just downright lame? Sorry ;^)
        Happy birthday, anyway. If it weren't for my Atari 1200XL and 2600, I probably wouldn't have this great job doing... wait... web design at Worldcom? CRAP!

    • Re:Father of Video Games (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Ryokurin ( 74729 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:52PM (#5193214) Homepage
      Willy Higinbotham was the creator of the video game. he did it on a oscilloscope and a analog computer in the 50s.

      http://www.pong-story.com/inventor.htm

    • Re:Father of Video Games (Score:5, Informative)

      by Lemmy Caution ( 8378 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @10:37PM (#5193768) Homepage
      Nolan Bushnell is a big self-promoter. In public, he presents himself as the father of video games. However, at an informal meeting after one conference, he actually introduced Ralph Baer to a group of friends as "the father of video games." Baer responded "I wish you would have said that in public."
  • Didn't chuck-e-cheese used to be called Showbiz pizza?

    With a bear instead of a rat?

    I like those better.

    Oh yeah, and Pitfall was the grandfather of mario!

    --Sig starts Now!

    • "Didn't chuck-e-cheese used to be called Showbiz pizza?"

      I don't know the details of the business side of things, but I can tell you that in Kansas City our local "Show Biz Pizza" turned into Chuck E. Cheese, and yes it did have a bear in the band.

      "Oh yeah, and Pitfall was the grandfather of mario!"

      Heh. Nintendo's largely responsible for making gaming as successful as it is today. The game market really crashed in the early 80's. Nintendo rejuvinated it with their NES, aith plenty of credit to Super Mario Bros.

      Games before then were all about higher scores. Mario Bros. really changed that thought process because instead of trying to get score, instead the goal was the save the princess. The result? The game actually had an ending! Ever since, games have had a much broader approach, thus resulting in the necessary diversity to sustain a good growing market.

    • Bushnell's Birthday at Chuck-e-Cheese (Score:5, Funny)

      by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:40PM (#5193167) Journal

      If there truly is a God in this universe, I want him/her/it to make sure that Nolan Bushnell spends his 60th birthday fighting crowds of hyperactive kids screaming over the din of 100 videogames just so he can choke down terrible pizza while being serenaded by an animitronic rat or bear or whatever the fuck they've got at Chuck-e-Cheese nowadays.

      GMD

    • I believe chuck-e-cheese bought showbiz pizza. We had both of them in town a long time ago. Actually they were right next to each other, now that I think about it.

    • No, ShowBiz was a competitor. I remember there being a ShowBiz and a Chuck E. Cheese, each at a different mall, here in town while I grew up. Similar setups, just one had better pizza, the other had better games.

  • This is entirely false (Score:5, Informative)

    by mwarps ( 2650 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:19PM (#5193054) Journal
    The inventor of pong was Ralph Baer:

    http://www.pong-story.com/rhbaer.htm

    I know Mr Baer personally, he is a close family friend from Manchester, NH. This story turned my stomach and I am disgusted that slashdot would EVER post such trash without researching a submission like this..

    • Re:This is entirely false (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:25PM (#5193079)
      You obviously don't know the Slashdot motto - "we don't research stories - you do."

    • Re:This is entirely false (Score:5, Funny)

      by vistic ( 556838 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:32PM (#5193119)
      A four digit user number and you can honestly say that you're surprised by this? HA!

    • Oh no (Score:2)

      by LucVdB ( 64664 )
      Next thing you know some wise guy is going to bring up Higginbotham's oscilloscope hack, mark my words.

      Oops.
    • Which would make Baer, IMHO, the real "father of videogames".

    • Re:This is entirely false (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JoeWalsh ( 32530 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @10:09PM (#5193637)
      Actually, William Higinbotham [compuserve.com] invented the videogame while working for Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, New York in the 1950s. The game he invented was called "Tennis for Two" and was placed on an oscilliscope.

      Interestingly, he was brought into the court battle to testify back when Magnavox (Baer's employer) and the rest were fighting over who owned the patent on the videogame. The court found that Mr. Higinbotham invented the videogame, and that since he was an employee of the U.S. Government at the time and did it as part of his job (it was part of the annual "Visitor's Day" exhibit at the Laboratory), the idea of the videogame couldn't be patented and was owned by the public.

      -Joe
      • Willy Higinbotham's tennis game is actually very different from pong, it's from a side view and you can hit the ball at any point during the time it is on your side of the net. This pretty much makes it a game that is impossible to lose or win.
    • I meant no disrespect to Ralf Baer. It's just that it's tough to keep a posting terse, when it's meant for a fast-changing news website like Slashdot. I suppose, rather than simply putting the phrase "father of video games" in quotes, which apparently didn't get the point across so well, I should have said something more like "considered by most the father..."

      As for Pong, I specifically didn't call Nolan the "creator" of Pong for exactly this reason. He did bring it, and arcade games in general, to the masses. In that way, he is arguably the father of "video games" in a sense, since he pretty much started the video game "business" which we all know and... umm... love, I guess? (sigh)

      You'll also notice the articles about Nolan that I pointed to said things like: "arguably the father of computer entertainment," "'I didn't invent the video game. ... I just commercialized them,'" and "best known for bringing 'PONG'... to the masses." Ironically, it was the Wikipedia entry that was the most incorrect. (Of course, the nice thing about Wikipedia is that anyone with some spare time can fix that!)

      Anyway, once again, I apologize for my terseness turning to a misleading statement. It's a tough line between being completely comprehensive, and being able to get something interesting actually posted on this damned site. ;^)

      Say 'hi' and 'sorry' to Ralf for me!

      -bill!
      (wanders off in shame)
      • I meant no disrespect to Ralf Baer. It's just that it's tough to keep a posting terse, when it's meant for a fast-changing news website like Slashdot. I suppose, rather than simply putting the phrase "father of video games" in quotes, which apparently didn't get the point across so well, I should have said something more like "considered by most the father..."

        As for Pong, I specifically didn't call Nolan the "creator" of Pong for exactly this reason. He did bring it, and arcade games in general, to the masses. In that way, he is arguably the father of "video games" in a sense, since he pretty much started the video game "business" which we all know and... umm... love, I guess? (sigh)

        You'll also notice the articles about Nolan that I pointed to said things like: "arguably the father of computer entertainment," "'I didn't invent the video game. ... I just commercialized them,'" and "best known for bringing 'PONG'... to the masses." Ironically, it was the Wikipedia entry that was the most incorrect. (Of course, the nice thing about Wikipedia is that anyone with some spare time can fix that!)

        Anyway, once again, I apologize for my terseness turning to a misleading statement. It's a tough line between being completely comprehensive, and being able to get something interesting actually posted on this damned site. ;^)

        Say 'hi' and 'sorry' to Ralf for me!

        -bill!
        (wanders off in shame)

        Don't be ashamed. It's more CowboyNeal that I had my beef with. Someone above noted that with a low four-digit UID that I should be used to it. I'll never get used to bad journalism. It's not right. Though this is the first time I've ever sent a complaint email :-)

        But the articles are also indicative of a societal problem. We think the marketers of innovative products or ideas are the greatest thing since sliced bread, yet the true innovators, the scientists, get no credit.

    • "The inventor of pong was Ralph Baer:"

      Oh, come now! Next you'll be trying to say that RCA didn't invent the television and Marconi didn't invent the radio!

  • We're congratulating this guy? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:19PM (#5193057) Homepage Journal
    It's a little duplicitous to bash patent and copyright owners on the one hand and then kiss their ass on the other.

    Bushnell has done nothing but stifle innovation through his ownership of patents. He is widely recognized as a tight-fisted licensor, charging outrageous amounts to use "his" work. If you ever wonder why video games cost so much both at home and in the arcade, look at this asshole.

    Happy birthday, Bushnell.
    • I was just going to ask if he had done any missuse of his patents.
      after reading your reply, now I want to ask YOU to post a link that backs your claims, or stop FUDDING
    • I always wondered why games cost a ludicrously high 25 cents to play. Many would argue that a charge of 25 cents was practical, since the largest coin in major circulation is the quarter.

      I knew better.

      This outrageous charge of 25 cents was in fact due to the facist arcade ruler Chairman Bushnell! How dare he drive the price of Pong and Pacman up well over the accepted industry-standard 15 cents (for those younger folk here, many games only cost you a measily 15 centes before the rebel leader Bushnell took power in the now infamous but little known arcade block wars). Once he had monopoly status from the outrageous profits reaped by the masterpiece "Cocnuts" for the Atari 2600, he proceeded to embrace and extend into other markets. For example, did you know that Whack-A-Mole was open source and only cost you 10 cents to play once? (you didn't pay for the game, but rather services rendered by Whack-A-Mole repair men)

      We must prevent such atrocities from occuring again, by forcing the Bushnell empire to accept our arcade inspectors.

      Really though, I doubt this guy had much to do with the iflated prices of games.

      • Re:I knew it! (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It really isn't about the price you, the gamer, pay for each round of Pac Man or BeatMania. Rather, it's the price the arcades have to pay for each machine.

        There is a reason most arcades go out of business within 2 years and it isn't because they don't have enough customers. The machines cost so much that they'd have to raise their prices to a point that customers won't even come in anymore if they want to make a profit.

        There used to be a lot of game rooms. Now they are few and far between. OG is right, Bushnell is the prime suspect.
    • Bushnell has done nothing but stifle innovation through his ownership of patents.


      My first technical job was back in 1982 at General Computer Company [gcctech.com], creators of Super Missile Attack [ionpool.net] as well as Ms. PacMan and the Atari 7800. Atari sued the guys who founded GCC because their "Super Missile Attack" was essentially a ROM replacement for Missile Command which made the game more challenging (and more profitable for arcade owners). The suit was settled with GCC agreeing to develop a bunch of games for Atari.

      I don't know whether Bushnell was still at Atari when this all went down.

    • I know not of his endevours with patents/licenses, but I was quite impressed with his Manifesto [jeremie.com] on Atari's corporate identity.

      The points about fairness, customers, and particularly on innovation are something I wish every modern CEO or company official would take to heart, but anymore there doesn't seem to be enough genuine spirit and ideals in american corps.

  • Passion for Education? (Score:4, Funny)

    by use_compress ( 627082 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:26PM (#5193087) Journal
    from http://www.uwink.com/docs/nolan.shtml
    a passion for enhancing and improving the educational process

    I think Bushnell, as one of the founders of the video game industry, may be one of the people most responsible for degrading the quality students.
  • Pong was cool, but Bob [robotswanted.com] was definitely Bushnell's best...

  • NO CHUCK E CHEESE! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Derg ( 557233 ) <alex.nunley@gmail.com> on Thursday January 30, 2003 @08:37PM (#5193148) Journal
    Am I the only one who got the bejeebers scared out of them by that damn anamatronic rat as a toddler/youth? I remember vividly my 5th birthday, I would not be made to come out of the ball pit. that giant fucking rat scared the shit outta me ... and his back up singers, popping up out of the dark like they were fucking gonna stab a poor little dergie *curls up in fetal position*THE HORRORS! THE HORRORS!

    To this day I wont go near the damn place, I dont care what arcades they have...

    • Re:NO CHUCK E CHEESE! (Score:2, Informative)

      by Osty ( 16825 )

      THE HORRORS! THE HORRORS!

      If Marlon Brando were dead, he'd be turning in his grave. The proper quote is, "The horror. The horror." [imdb.com]

    • Slightly off topic...

      The worst thing in that place besides the bad pizza and screaming kids, as someone else mentioned is the parody of rock music culture that goes on there.

      They've got and animatronic rock band, headed by the mouse, singing cheezy remade versions of Beatles and Rolling Stones songs. There are album cover parodies on the walls. Abbey Road with 4 mice...Fleetwood Mac's Rumors with mice...The Rolling Stones Tounge coming out of a mouse's mouth.... You get the idea.

      It says a lot about how cheezy Chuck E Cheeze stores really are. But I think the interesting part of the story is how these bands/songwriters allow their work to be ripped apart like that. Does Michael Jackson(who owns the beatles catalog), Mick Jagger and Mick Fleetwood need money THAT bably?

      Well, at least Mick Jagger doesn't.

      • Lately the Rat and his animatronic gang have been singing this annoying song that goes:
        Go to Chuck E Cheese

        I want to go to Chuck E Cheese
        I really want to

        ... to the tune of the classic new wave hit "Turning Japanese" by the Vapors. "Turning Japanese" was, at the time, some sort of British slang for wanking.

        On the rare occasion (twice in 5 years) we've allowed our little ones to drag us to the Kingdom of the Rat, we've left fantasizing about hacking the animatronics to have Chuck E act out the original intent of the song while he sings...

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Pong for peace -- happy birthday Nolan and thanks for your creativity!

    here [novagate.com] or here [madblast.com] or here [silfreed.net]

  • My brush with greatness (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wrote Go for The Sierra Network, back in the early nineties, and Nolan was a regular player ("atari" is a term from Go).

    He liked my version, and came by my desk on a tour of our company to talk to me. But it was 8am and of course I was nowhere near work!

    Therefore, I am famous! Or not, yes, upon consideration possibly "not".
  • ...I bet he's not as good as he used to be at the ol' vids.

    Kinda reminds me of that commercial for batteries on TV where the grandfather is playing some fighting video game against his grandson and keeps losing until the grandson's battery dies, giving the old man a chance to win.

    Oh Nolan, what hast thou wrought? Happy birthday, buddy. :-)
  • ... Any linux drivers for this baby [jandr.com]?

    I'd like it for pong, arkanoid, little brickout ;)

  • 1st interactive game on a digital computer (Score:4, Informative)

    by jhoug ( 514751 ) <John.Houghton @ G M a i l .com> on Thursday January 30, 2003 @09:16PM (#5193328)
    Was SPACEWAR [mit.edu] (this version is via PDP-1 assembler running on a java PDP-1 emulator) written in 1962 by a group calling themselves something like "The Hingham Institute for Space Warfare" the lead programmer was Stephen "Slug" Russell. The program was developed on a PDP-1 computer (the first "minicomputer" which cost 1/10th of other computers of the day (only $100,000)) donated by Digital Equipment Corp. to the students of MIT. More of the history. [sympatico.ca] Steve got to testify on his prior art when Magnavox sued Atari on some related patents.
    • Does anyone know what happened to Steve?

      I worked with him many years ago on the DEC-10 and haven't heard from him in 25 years. He taught me the fundamentals of data communications, among other things.

      Steve was one of the original MIT hackers, who started with train hacking, moved on to phone hacking and on into computers.

      Spacewar was a lot of fun, by the way. Lunar lander was played on the same box.
      • Damn - what does that make - I am (2 or 3?) degrees of separation away from an original TMRC hacker (not sure that it matters after you not hearing from him in 25 years)?

        Damn, the more I learn about you, meso, the more I realize that I have a *lot* to learn *from* you (it's only too bad you don't come into the office more often and stop by to talk)...

  • Bushnell: father of the video games *industry* (Score:5, Informative)

    by jg ( 16880 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @09:29PM (#5193407) Homepage
    The inventor of the video game is Steve Russell,
    et. al., who wrote the first video game, "Spacewar" on the PDP-1 at MIT in 1962.

    See: http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa090198 .htm
    http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/PDP-1-SpaceWa r-Arti cle.html

    - Jim

    • Let's see...

      • Willy Higinbotham -- created first video game.
      • Steve Russell -- created first digital computer video game.
      • Nolan Bushnell -- created first video game business.
      • Ralph Baer -- created pong.

      Am I keeping score correctly here?

      I'm sure there are a lot of firsts that could be added to this list. But I think the point is that you had better be sure what child you're talking about before asserting paternity.

      -Ed
      • Not quite.

        The first interactive game was made on an oscilliscope by Higinbotham. The idea for an interactive game to be played by people at home on a TV was pong, written by Ralph Baer. Please see pong-story.com, and browse around.
        • Top level parent:
          • Willy Higinbotham -- created first video game.
          • Steve Russell -- created first digital computer video game.
          • Nolan Bushnell -- created first video game business.
          • Ralph Baer -- created pong.



          Parent:

          Not quite.

          The first interactive game was made on an oscilliscope by Higinbotham. The idea for an interactive game to be played by people at home on a TV was pong, written by Ralph Baer. Please see pong-story.com, and browse around.

          Sorry, what did he miss? He got all the "first-timers"...

  • Childhood memories of Pong (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @09:36PM (#5193452) Homepage
    When I was a kid on vacation back in the early 70s, there was a beach bar that had various games installed. Pinball, mechanical bowling type games, and the like. But they also had this funny electronic game with paddles -- Pong.

    Now I wasn't really supposed to be in the bar at my age, but my dad would go for an evening cocktail and I would tag along and ask the bartender nicely if I could just hang out by the Pong machine. He usually relented and that was it. I had my own video game before anyone knew what they were!

    What great fun that little game was to me! I got really good at it (as kids always do) and would take great delight at setting the paddles just right so the ball would bounce back and forth endlessly. Then I would stand back and admire the way I found just the right touch to beat the alogrithm. It was also fun to see the reaction of adults when they noticed that the game with no one in front of it was in an endless loop on its own. Then I would go back, nudge a paddle, and off we went.

    Thank you Nolan Bushnell. You made my summer memorable for more than just the beach and the sun. You opened my eyes to the power of electronics. A career as a programmer later followed.

    ---------

  • Ah ... Coin-Op Pong (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bryanp ( 160522 ) on Thursday January 30, 2003 @09:47PM (#5193509)
    I remember I saw my first Pong machine back in 1977 (I was 8). We were living in a hotel in Germany at Uncle Sam's expense, awaiting some base housing to be freed up. No way was my dad going to ante up quarters for us to play that silly thing. Fortunately, we had other resources ...

    This particular Pong machine had a quirk - if you gave it a mild electrical shock to the changer it would give you a credit to play. A static charge did the job nicely.

    So there we were - me and my little brother and other kids zipping up and down the carpeted halls of the hotel in our socks, zapping the Pong machine and playing for hours, with one of us always on the lookout to make sure no one from the hotel saw what we were doing. Even back then I was a larcenous little fsck, trying to Scam The System and get stuff for free.
    • So! It was you! Do you know how much time we spent programming against you! Why I oughta... :^)

      Eh, try this [coinop.org] for a laugh with MAME. 1983 with 1981 hardware. It was fun. (We got to try out all the latest games for free as research.) Multitasking object oriented assember, hmm.

    • Wow, you guys were subtle. Last time I heard about something like this was in Wizards Castle in west edmonton mall. Somebody grabbed both the joysticks and pulled up really hard and the whole top of the unit came off - he then reached down and flicked the little white switch inside and racked up 100 credits or so. I heard it from a friend (not a friend of a friend) so this maybe never happened, but anyway, was not very subtle at all.

      (For context, this was one of those NBA Jam machines where there was the big screen, three foot gap, then the "unit" which was wide and narrow with coin slots in the front and 4 joysticks on the top, IIRC)
  • Okay, damnit. I just don't get it. Please, tell me what is so great about Nolan Bushnell? Let's see. He drove Atari into the ground. He drove the Commodore CDTV into the ground. He drove Chuck E. Cheese into the ground. He founded a robotics company called Androbot and a technology Incubator called Catalyst. Heard of them? No?? Oh yeah, they're history.

    Read the metroactive [metroactive.com]article -- it's the most fair. By his own admission, he didn't invent videogames, he commercialized them.

    At best, Nolan Bushnell is a one hit wonder who stumbled upon an industry that would have flourished with or without him. Trip Hawkins founded EA, let's celebrate his birthday instead.

  • At my old, no-longer updated website, I posted an interview I did with the engineer of coin-op Pong, Al Alcorn, back in 1999. You can read it at this link [vg-network.com]. There are also interviews with Ed Logg (Asteroids), Tim Skelly (Rip Off, Armor Attack), Owen Rubin (Major Havoc, Space Duel; I also maintain his official website) and Chris Oberth (Stern Games).

  • Early Chuck E. Cheese Animatronics (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FunkyRat ( 36011 ) <funkyrat@gmailGI ... minus herbivore> on Thursday January 30, 2003 @11:13PM (#5194027) Journal

    I don't think any of the Chuck E. Cheese's out there have them any more, but in the early days of the restaurant, when they were still the Pizza Time Theater, every Chuck E. Cheese had animatronic animals (including Chuck E. Cheese himself) scattered throughout the arcade area. Additionally, every half hour or so, a bunch of animatronics would put on a stage show (thus the Pizza Time Theater part of the name). IIRC, the animatronics were powered by DEC PDP-11s.

    On a related note, but offtopic note, the Chuck E. Cheese closest to me when I was a kid was in Utica, NY in the newly opened Sangertown Square mall. It made for some interesting headlines when one night, the entire restaurant, big hulking animatronics, tables, pizza ovens and all, just disappeared out of the mall. Literally, one night after the mall closed, without any prior mention of it and without anyone seeing it happen, a truck must have backed up to the entrance nearest the restaurant and moved out everything right down to the fixtures, leaving nothing but a bare mall shell store for management to discover the next day. I never heard anything else about it either.

    This is perhaps one of my wierdest memories from childhood, and an especially disappointing one. You see, as a nascent geek who was busily working themselves through the Radio Shack 300 in 1 Electronics kit (the really cool one in the wooden base!) and was just getting into programming my Timex-Sinclair 1000, I found the animatronics utterly fascinating. My fast-food loving '80s kid side found the pizza irrestible (and even as I remember it I'm pretty sure it actually did taste really good). I would have killed to have lived close enough to the mall to go every few days, but alas I lived 50 miles away in the sticks.

    So between Chuck E. Cheese, and Atari, I can honestly say that Nolan Bushnell has had a tremendous impact on my life. I'd love to have a party for him at one of the original Pizza Time Theaters, but seeing as how they don't exist anymore, I'll just say "Happy Birthday Nolan! Thanks for the cool toys!"

  • May your joystick never wear out.

  • Not really worthy of celebrating. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LarryWest42 ( 220323 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @01:51AM (#5194621)
    What nobodyman said sums up his business acumen. Others have commented on how little he had to do with the creative part of video games.

    I worked with him for a couple of years. Charming guy when he wants to be, but I didn't see any indications of genius or even an instinct for a good idea. I'd have to say he was just in the right place (backed by family money, IIRC) at the right time -- once.

    His behavior with attractive women was also reprehensible, at least when he thought there were no witnesses.

    I suppose he deserves some credit, but really, even at the time, video games were considered inevitable, he maybe got them to people at most a year or two earlier than they might have arrived otherwise.
  • I really don't mean this to be sarcastic at all, but if he's turning 60 next week, why am I reading this story today?

    I mean it seems logical to me that we talk about him turning 60 when he turns 60. I just don't know why this story made it in today when it wasn't a slow news day at all.

    -> Fritz
  • As part of a class on entrepreneurship in "high technology" I heard Bushnell speak and even had the opportunity to have lunch with him (along with 8 or other students who picked him over the other options which included the likes of Scott McNealy).

    I don't remember anything he said during lunch, but I do remember that he was 30 minutes late and stayed and hour past the scheduled end time.

    From the lecture, I remember two things. One was he wanted to build a high-speed underground traind from New York to Los Angeles... okay three, things, I just rememberd that he also wanted to build Minority-Report-sytle freeways that take control of your car because "we don't mind our own dirt, but we don't like other people's dirt" and the other (third) thing was the simple quote "ideas are shit" in reference to secret business plans and stealth mode when creating a startup. His point was that everything is in the execution.
  • There's a restaurant off 101 in Sunnyvale called the "Lion & Compass", started by Nolan Bushnell in the early 80s because he was frustrated by the lack of good reastaurants in the area. There's a magazine article in the back hallway talking about how the place was the mid-80s computer boom hangout for engineers talking about ideas and venture capitalists talking about how to fund them, which was entertainingly reminiscent of so many places here in Silicon Valley in the late 90s boom. the food was pretty good, though it was more for carnivores than for vegetarians.

    And it was an amazing contrast to Chuck E. Cheese, which is pure evil, in the Disneyland-plus-bad-pizza variety.

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