Slashdot Mirror
Father of Video Games turning 60
Bill Kendrick writes "Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and the "father of video games" will be turning 60 next week, on February 5th.
Along with Atari, which Bushnell began in 1972 (and left before the end of the decade), he
also founded over 20 other companies, including Chuck E. Cheese
Pizza Time Theater restaurants. He holds many patents relating to both
video games and other industries.
For more on The Bringer of Pong, check out some interviews from the San Jose Mercury, Metroactive and over at Good Deal Games, as well as his Wikipedia entry. Happy birthday, Nolan!"
... but Al Gore would claim he's the father of that.
"Derp de derp."
Damn you Nolan!
He's the one to blame for obesity in young children and people with no lives. No this is not a flame, troll, offtopic, or redundant. Its my failed attempt at humor.
Those were the days. I kind of miss the difficulty switch too.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
And over here is our crowning achievement in amusement technology, an electronic version of what you humans call table tennis. Your primitive paddles have been replaced with a....well we did build this Spaceship you know. Anyone from a species who has mastered intergalactic travel raise your hand.
/There are 10 types of people in this world; those who steal sigs and those don't
As the father of video games, he never married
and has no kids.
Chuck E Cheese OWNS!
I loved that place.
Never had pizza with that unique flavor, either.
You obviously don't know the Slashdot motto - "we don't research stories - you do."
from http://www.uwink.com/docs/nolan.shtml
a passion for enhancing and improving the educational process
I think Bushnell, as one of the founders of the video game industry, may be one of the people most responsible for degrading the quality students.
A four digit user number and you can honestly say that you're surprised by this? HA!
I knew better.
This outrageous charge of 25 cents was in fact due to the facist arcade ruler Chairman Bushnell! How dare he drive the price of Pong and Pacman up well over the accepted industry-standard 15 cents (for those younger folk here, many games only cost you a measily 15 centes before the rebel leader Bushnell took power in the now infamous but little known arcade block wars). Once he had monopoly status from the outrageous profits reaped by the masterpiece "Cocnuts" for the Atari 2600, he proceeded to embrace and extend into other markets. For example, did you know that Whack-A-Mole was open source and only cost you 10 cents to play once? (you didn't pay for the game, but rather services rendered by Whack-A-Mole repair men)
We must prevent such atrocities from occuring again, by forcing the Bushnell empire to accept our arcade inspectors.
Really though, I doubt this guy had much to do with the iflated prices of games.
Am I the only one who got the bejeebers scared out of them by that damn anamatronic rat as a toddler/youth? I remember vividly my 5th birthday, I would not be made to come out of the ball pit. that giant fucking rat scared the shit outta me ... and his back up singers, popping up out of the dark like they were fucking gonna stab a poor little dergie *curls up in fetal position*THE HORRORS! THE HORRORS!
To this day I wont go near the damn place, I dont care what arcades they have...
I'm a little tea pot.
If there truly is a God in this universe, I want him/her/it to make sure that Nolan Bushnell spends his 60th birthday fighting crowds of hyperactive kids screaming over the din of 100 videogames just so he can choke down terrible pizza while being serenaded by an animitronic rat or bear or whatever the fuck they've got at Chuck-e-Cheese nowadays.
GMD
watch this
Ok, well, I'll get right on building a new generation of videogames, making an innovative pizza chain, and a theatre chain as well, and then will I have a shot at it? (When I'm 60?)
... to the tune of the classic new wave hit "Turning Japanese" by the Vapors. "Turning Japanese" was, at the time, some sort of British slang for wanking.
On the rare occasion (twice in 5 years) we've allowed our little ones to drag us to the Kingdom of the Rat, we've left fantasizing about hacking the animatronics to have Chuck E act out the original intent of the song while he sings...
...Nothing interesting here. Just move along...
I _did_ put "Father of Video Games" in quotes, in the article itself.
;^)
Many, many, many people I guess consider him the 'defacto' father. While, technically, I guess Nolan's more like the husband, and someone like Ralf Baer or others named later in this thread were the 'milk man.'
Ok... am I being funny now, or just downright lame? Sorry
Happy birthday, anyway. If it weren't for my Atari 1200XL and 2600, I probably wouldn't have this great job doing... wait... web design at Worldcom? CRAP!
Well, I *easily* trump your 1158, which of course makes me completely superior to you in every way, and very, very l33t.
But anyway, I don't see why the Group of Super Midgets that generated this page for me couldn't be trained to eliminate dupes. If they can't even do that, then quite frankly I don't think they're so super. They're just ordinary midgets. Just like all the other high-tech sweat shop child laborers in India.