Every piece of electronics goes via numerous iterative prototypes earlier than discovering their approach into shoppers’ arms, however these prototypes are hardly ever seen by most people. That’s what makes this prototype of an Atari Pong console so fascinating; solely two have been ever created, and in a time earlier than fast prototyping was a factor, the hardware mockup was carved by hand.
For these solely weened on cell video games and micro-transactions, Pong is taken into account the primary online game that made video video games a factor. It arrived when arcades have been strictly filled with pinball machines, and regardless of its simplistic graphics (by right this moment’s requirements) its addictive gameplay made Pong arcade machines quarter magnets, and Atari some huge cash. But Pong can be notable as a result of it was the primary online game became a compact console that customers may take pleasure in at residence at any time when they needed. It was unhealthy information for arcade house owners, however the begin of what’s now a multi-billion greenback trade.
According to Allan Alcorn, the creator of Pong (and the person who famously gave Steve Jobs his first job at Atari), the largest problem of miniaturizing Pong to suit into a tool sufficiently small to stay on a espresso desk wasn’t designing a chip to switch the wired PCBs contained in the arcade model, however creating the console’s consumer-friendly plastic housing. In a letter of provenance written and signed by Alcorn included with the prototype, he detailed the true problem of bringing Pong into the house:
In 1975 Atari had managed to change into dominant within the coin operated leisure enterprise and moved on to construct video video games for the house market. We needed to get Pong operating on a single chip of silicon so a product might be constructed at a value a client may afford. I had by no means designed a customized chip earlier than however I had an engineer, Harold Lee, with me who did have the expertise and we managed to get the chip to work. I mistakenly thought that designing the chip can be the toughest a part of the mission however to my shock the plastic case wound up taking longer and costing more cash than the chip. We finally did get the plastic to completed however as a way to display the product to potential clients like Sears we needed to demo it with a hand-crafted picket mockup of what the end case would appear like. The picket mockup was connected to a field that had the electronics within the base and did look and performance just about just like the completed Pong sport.
Only two prototypes of the Pong residence console have been created to permit Atari execs to display the {hardware} to potential patrons. (Sears was truly the primary to launch a house model of Pong in 1975, adopted by Atari’s personal Model C-100 a yr later.) One model featured a prototype of the customized chip Atari designed hidden inside a picket field beneath the prototype and now resides within the assortment of the Computer History Museum, whereas the second, that includes a production-ready Pong chip hidden in the same field, was simply offered by Alcorn via Boston’s RR Auction house for $270,910.
There are not any particulars on who truly received the public sale, however hopefully, as with the opposite prototype, it finally ends up someplace the place retro gaming lovers can gaze upon its greatness and ponder its significance because the catalyst of the profitable console market we all know right this moment. (And then afterwards go line up for six hours in hopes of lastly snagging a PS5.)
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https://gizmodo.com/the-creator-of-the-pong-console-just-sold-a-prototype-a-1848698825
