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I have an old Odyssey 300 system which is based on the AY-3-8500 'Pong in a chip' chip, described here.

I began to wonder about possible hardware modifications. The AY-3-8500 chip includes several games that are not available from the Odyssey 300 console, but seemingly could be unlocked with a bit of soldering. I'd love to figure out how to make a light gun that would work with the AY-3-8500's target shooting games.

Who would've thought my Odyssey 300 console had hardware hack potential?
It looks like the Pong chip has a lead for the light gun trigger, and another one for the light gun photocell. Has anybody tinkered with this type of system? Does anybody know where I could find more information to get me started?

and here's a link with pictures of the "first video game" at BNL.

but he didn't invent tv ping-pong, anymore than Msft invented 'Windows'. That honor goes to Ralph Baer, excerpt:

On 29th May 1972, Nolan Bushnell (later President of Atari) visits the "Magnavox Profit Caravan" at the Airport Marina Hotel in Burlingame, CA. He signs the guest book for Magnavox Odyssey Demo and plays the Odyssey Ping-Pong game hands-on. Later, he hires Alan Alcorn to design and build a coin-op version of the Ping-Pong game: PONG. This will mark the begining of the coin-op market.

Ta da! - Telstar Arcade by Coleco. Had one of these myself - and wish I still did...