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!"

Comments

Nolan Fathered Steve P Jobs!

[linuxislandsucks]

The visonary Steve P Jobs got his visonary mandate from Nolan as a game designer at Atari..

Nolan a worth while Moron to know..okay for tha tinside joke see some of his antics..very non mormon :)

Because of him

[The Analog Kid]

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.

Ah, the Atari...

[Sheetrock]

I've got many fond memories of that thing. Such as the game where you move a ship around the bottom of the screen while shooting pixels at moving bugs. Or the game where you move a firefighter around the bottom of the screen while shooting water at moving fires. Then there's the one where you're at a shooting gallery, moving your gun around the bottom of the screen while shooting at moving targets.

Those were the days. I kind of miss the difficulty switch too.

Kang and Kodos

[Dexheimer]

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.

Of course...

[Anonymous Coward]

As the father of video games, he never married
and has no kids.

Father of Video Games

[rpillala]

Not that Nolan Bushnell doesn't deserve a happy birthday, but isn't Ralph Baer the father of video games?

Maybe the father of video games at home.

Ravi

This is entirely false

[mwarps]

The inventor of pong was Ralph Baer:

http://www.pong-story.com/rhbaer.htm

I know Mr Baer personally, he is a close family friend from Manchester, NH. This story turned my stomach and I am disgusted that slashdot would EVER post such trash without researching a submission like this..

Re:This is entirely false

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously don't know the Slashdot motto - "we don't research stories - you do."

Re:This is entirely false

[vistic]

A four digit user number and you can honestly say that you're surprised by this? HA!

We're congratulating this guy?

[ObviousGuy]

It's a little duplicitous to bash patent and copyright owners on the one hand and then kiss their ass on the other.

Bushnell has done nothing but stifle innovation through his ownership of patents. He is widely recognized as a tight-fisted licensor, charging outrageous amounts to use "his" work. If you ever wonder why video games cost so much both at home and in the arcade, look at this asshole.

Happy birthday, Bushnell.

NO CHUCK E CHEESE!

[Derg]

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...

Childhood memories of Pong

[FunWithHeadlines]

When I was a kid on vacation back in the early 70s, there was a beach bar that had various games installed. Pinball, mechanical bowling type games, and the like. But they also had this funny electronic game with paddles -- Pong.

Now I wasn't really supposed to be in the bar at my age, but my dad would go for an evening cocktail and I would tag along and ask the bartender nicely if I could just hang out by the Pong machine. He usually relented and that was it. I had my own video game before anyone knew what they were!

What great fun that little game was to me! I got really good at it (as kids always do) and would take great delight at setting the paddles just right so the ball would bounce back and forth endlessly. Then I would stand back and admire the way I found just the right touch to beat the alogrithm. It was also fun to see the reaction of adults when they noticed that the game with no one in front of it was in an endless loop on its own. Then I would go back, nudge a paddle, and off we went.

Thank you Nolan Bushnell. You made my summer memorable for more than just the beach and the sun. You opened my eyes to the power of electronics. A career as a programmer later followed.

---------

Ah ... Coin-Op Pong

[bryanp]

I remember I saw my first Pong machine back in 1977 (I was 8). We were living in a hotel in Germany at Uncle Sam's expense, awaiting some base housing to be freed up. No way was my dad going to ante up quarters for us to play that silly thing. Fortunately, we had other resources ...

This particular Pong machine had a quirk - if you gave it a mild electrical shock to the changer it would give you a credit to play. A static charge did the job nicely.

So there we were - me and my little brother and other kids zipping up and down the carpeted halls of the hotel in our socks, zapping the Pong machine and playing for hours, with one of us always on the lookout to make sure no one from the hotel saw what we were doing. Even back then I was a larcenous little fsck, trying to Scam The System and get stuff for free.