Pong
The 1972 published by Atari Pong was first known to the world's first popular video game and in the 1970s on devices in gambling halls. It is considered the forefather of video games, although previously video games had been developed.
The program
The gameplay of Pong is simple and similar to that of table tennis: A point ( " ball " ) moves on the screen back and forth. Each of the two player controls a vertical bar ( "thugs " ), he can move with a knob (paddle) up and down. If you let the " ball " at the "thugs " over, the opponent gets a point. The program- consuming to Pong was the display of the current point standings. Since the original game was never tested by the ESRB, the original version is formally released from 18 years in Germany. However, this does not apply to the version of 1999, which was released " with no age restriction ."
History
In the spring of 1972 presented in Burlingame, California, the company Magnavox her by Ralph Baer developed Magnavox Odyssey. Nolan Bushnell played here for the first time the ping -pong game of the Magnavox Odyssey. As Bushnell founded Atari little later, he still instructed his new employees Allan Alcorn to create for practice purposes a ping - pong game. As it turned out, made the ping pong game so much fun that Bushnell decided to publish it. Since the term Ping Pong was already protected, it was agreed to call the game easy Pong.
As of Pong Magnavox learned they informed Atari about that already existed patents for the gameplay. Magnavox was able to prove in court that Bushnell had seen and played their ping pong game in the spring of 1972. An entry in the guest book of Bushnell's Magnavox substantiated their argument. Atari was ordered to pay $ 700,000 for the use of patents by Magnavox. For Atari that was a good investment because you sold well over 8,000 Pong coin-operated until 1983.
The Pong machine was not based on a microprocessor with a program, but to a hard-wired, partly digital and partly analog circuit - he was therefore no computer in the proper sense. General Instrument presented later for consoles the AY- 3-8500 ago ( Pong -on-a - chip).
In the summer of 1975, Atari presented at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES ) is a home version of Pong. The game console met with little interest, since the Magnavox Odyssey had sold only moderately and whose production had already been set in 1974.
Shortly after CES expressed Tom Quinn, buyers at Sears, interest in Pong. The negotiations with Atari ended up that Sears was awarded the exclusive marketing rights and Atari should deliver 150,000 units of Pong console until the holiday shopping season.
This holiday season was a great success and the Pong console and various clones such as the Ameprod TVG- 10 remained until the late 1970s successfully in Europe until the early 1980s. Then came the Atari 2600 is the successor to. For the Atari VCS (or 2600) also appeared a cartridge under the label of Sears Roebuck, with games that (see above) were partially available as a stand- alone console. This Multi- Game Cartridge named PONG SPORTS contained:
- Pong
- Super Pong
- Soccer
- Table Soccer
- Hockey
- Quadrapong
- Handball
- Volleyball
- Basketball
From Pong to the breakout variant has developed. In computer games like Commander Keen (under the name " Paddle War" ) Pong has his niche found.
In the arcade basic version, only two players can play against each other. Later there were also versions with a computer opponent. In September 1973, appeared Pong Doubles, the first game for four players simultaneously.
From 1977 Pong played on German television in the program video games an important role.
There were / are several variations and adaptations of the game; In addition to the conversions for almost all computers and operating systems are three variants of particular importance:
- The East German version of the game console was the BSS 01 ( 1980-1984 ).
- The Pain Station is a Pong variant, which causes the players different types of pain.
End of February 2012 was Atari announced that a new version of Pong to be re-released on the occasion of his 40th birthday for use on iOS. For this purpose could submit proposals by 31 March 2012 independent developers. For the winner a prize of $ 100,000 was awarded.
Pong was part of the second team of computer games, which started the Museum of Modern Art on June 28, 2013 its permanent exhibition.