Pong

From WE Computers Museum
Revision as of 16:42, 31 March 2023 by Jenni (talk | contribs) (add gameplay and development)
Pong flyer.jpg
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
NA: November 29, 1972
Home console
NA (Sears): 1975
NA (Atari): 1976
Flashback 2
NA: November 1, 2005
Flashback 2+
NA: 2010
Windows
NA (Taco Bell): March 2, 2010
WW (Atari Vault): March 24, 2016
Linux (Atari Vault)
NA: May 26, 2016
macOS (Atari Vault)
NA: March 16, 2017
Evercade (Atari Arcade 1)
EU: November 3, 2021
Added to
Museum
Windows (Taco Bell): March 12, 2018
Flashback 2+: May 10, 2019
Linux, Mac, Win (Vault): December 4, 2019
Pong marquee.jpg

Pong 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.