Pong

Pong
Developer	Atari
Publisher	Atari Sears (Tele-Games Pong console) AtGames (Flashback) Blaze Entertainment (Evercade)
Platforms	Arcade, Atari Flashback 2/2+, (Atari 2600), dedicated console, Evercade, Windows
Released	Arcade North America: November 29, 1972 Home console North America (Sears): 1975 North America (Atari): 1976 Flashback 2 North America: November 1, 2005 Flashback 2+ North America: 2010 Windows North America (Taco Bell): March 2, 2010 Worldwide (Atari Vault): March 24, 2016 Linux (Atari Vault) Worldwide: May 26, 2016 macOS (Atari Vault) Worldwide: March 16, 2017 Evercade (Atari Arcade 1) Europe: November 3, 2021
Added to Museum	Windows (Taco Bell): March 12, 2018 Flashback 2+: May 10, 2019 Linux, Mac, Win (Vault): December 4, 2019 Flashback 8 Activision: May 30, 2022

Pong, known as Arcade Pong on Atari Flashback 2 and 2+ is a ball-and-paddle video game released by Atari for the arcade market in 1972.

Gameplay

Pong is a video game version of two-player table tennis, with elements of air hockey.

Development

In May 1972. a video game version of Table Tennis created by Ralph Baer was demonstrated by Magnavox.

That demonstration of the ITL2000, a video game console better known as the Magnavox Odyssey, was attended by Nolan Bushnell, the co-founder of Atari. Bushnell took the general idea with him and tasked Allan Alcorn with developing a game based on what he witnessed.

Pong kept the basics of the demonstration such as the square representing the ball, the middle line representing the net, and the score counter. However, Pong changed from Baer's Table Tennis in two ways.

Whereas in Table Tennis, the ball would be out when it went past the vertical gamespace, as in real-life Table Tennis, Pong would bounce the ball back, more akin to air hockey. In addition, Baer's game had the option to give the ball some English, which is slang for giving hitting the ball to give it a bit of a curve. Alcorn's Pong simply had the game bounce directly off the paddle.

Legacy

Pong was a very influential game, spawning an entire genre of video games and countless clones, including many clones by Atari themselves.

Versions

Atari made many clones of Pong, but only released faithful adaptations of the original game a few times. A home console version was released by Sears called Tele-Games Pong for Christmas 1975, and Atari re-released the unit under their own brand in 1976.

A port for the Atari 2600 was released for the Atari Flashback 2 dedicated console in 2005 and the Atari Flashback 2+ in 2010.

Legacy Engineering developed a faithful port for Windows for Atari, S.A. that was distributed by Taco Bell in 2010.