Pong
| Pong | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Studio |
 Atari
|
| Publisher |
Atari |
| Senior Developer | Allan Alcorn |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
November 29, 1972 |
| genre | Retro game / sport |
| Game mode | 2 players at the same time |
| control | 2 rotation controllers |
| casing | default |
| Arcade system | Circuitry, no CPU C. PU Sound: - Sound Chips: Discrete |
| monitor | 13-inch black and white raster monitor |
| information | Revolutionary classic among video games |
Pong , published by Atari in 1972 , became the world's first popular video game and first became known on arcade devices in the 1970s . It is considered to be the forefather of video games, although video games had been developed before.
The program
The game principle of Pong is simple and is similar to that of table tennis : A point ("ball") moves back and forth on the screen. Each of the two players controls a vertical line ("bat"), which he can move up and down with a rotary knob ( paddle ). If you let the “ball” past the “bat”, the opponent receives one point. In terms of programming, the most complex thing about Pong was the display of the current score. Since the original game was never checked by the USK , the original version is formally released in Germany from the age of 18. However, this does not apply to the 1999 version, which was released "without age restriction".
history
Ralph Baer is considered the father of video games and a cornerstone of the video game industry. In 1966 he developed the prototype of the very first console, the so-called "Brown Box", which could be connected to any standard television set. The device contained, among other things, a chase game and a tennis game.
In the spring of 1972 presented in Burlingame , California , the company Magnavox their developed by Ralph Baer Magnavox Odyssey , the first commercial game console . At this presentation Nolan Bushnell played this ping-pong game for the first time. When Bushnell founded Atari a little later, he asked his new employee Allan Alcorn to create a ping-pong game for practice purposes. It turned out that the ping pong game was so much fun that Bushnell decided to make it public. Since the term ping pong was already protected, it was agreed to simply call the game pong .
When Magnavox found out about Pong , they informed Atari that patents already existed for the game principle. In court, Magnavox was able to prove that Bushnell had seen and played their ping-pong game in the spring of 1972. An entry by Bushnell in Magnavox's guest book underpinned their argument. Atari was fined $ 700,000 to use Magnavox's patents. For Atari, however, it was a good investment as they had sold well over 8,000 pong coin machines by 1983.
The Pong machine was not based on a microprocessor with a program , but on a hard-wired , partly digital , partly analog circuit - so it was not a computer. General Instrument later manufactured the IC AY-3-8500 (Pong-on-a-Chip) for consoles .
Around 1974, the first pong machine in the shape of a column table, each with a rotary knob for 2 players , appeared in Wels , Upper Austria. The b / w tube screen lay under a horizontal glass plate.
In the summer of 1975 Atari presented a home version of Pong at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) . The game console met with little interest, since the Magnavox Odyssey had only sold moderately and production had been discontinued in 1974.
Shortly after CES, Tom Quinn, a buyer at Sears , expressed an interest in Pong . Negotiations with Atari ended with Sears receiving sole marketing rights and Atari's delivery of 150,000 units of the Pong console by Christmas sales.
The Christmas business was a complete success and the Pong console and various replicas such as the Ameprod TVG-10 remained successful until the end of the 1970s and in Europe until the beginning of the 1980s.
In 1977 the Atari 2600 video game console came on the market. With her the game module Video Olympics appeared , which was also published under the name Pong Sports by Sears Roebuck . It contained numerous Pong variants, some of which were also available as a stand-alone console (see above).
The variant Breakout has developed from Pong . In computer games like Commander Keen (there under the name “Paddle War”) Pong has found its niche existence.
In the basic arcade version, only two players can play against each other. Later there were also versions with a computer opponent. In September 1973 Pong Doubles appeared , the first game for four players at the same time.
From 1977 Pong also played an important role on German television in the program Telespiele .
There were / are different variations and adaptations of the game; In addition to the implementations for almost all computer and operating systems, three variants are particularly noteworthy:
- The GDR version of the game console was the BSS 01 (1980 / '81 –1984).
- The Painstation is a variant of Pong that inflicts various types of pain on the players.
- In the Blinkenlights project (2001), pong could be played on a house facade, controlled by mobile phone.
At the end of February 2012, Atari announced that a new version of Pong would be released for use on iOS on the occasion of his 40th birthday . Independent developers had until March 31, 2012 to submit proposals. A prize of US $ 100,000 was awarded to the winner.
Pong was one of the second tier of computer games that the Museum of Modern Art added to its permanent exhibition on June 28, 2013.
Game consoles
Atari Home Pong
During the 1970s, Atari gradually released game consoles with Sears that had different versions of Pong preinstalled on them. These were all marketed with the prefix Home Pong , with the exception of the first model in the series, the full name of which is Home Pong without a subsequent name.
More game consoles
There are numerous other game consoles that contain a wide variety of preinstalled variants of Pong, often under different names. Most of these were built with the General Instrument AY-3-8500. These consoles were particularly popular in the first generation of consoles . A list of first-generation stationary game consoles can be found in the list of hardwired home video game consoles .
Pong on a chip
General Instruments developed and produced the AY-3-8500 circuit mentioned above, which made it possible to accommodate the entire game and its variants on one chip. For example, it was installed in the Polish Ameprod TVG-10 console . The GDR also imported the circuit and built it into the BSS 01.
This development was also closely monitored in the Eastern Bloc . In contrast to the GDR, the USSR developed its own circuit with the K145IK17. The ČSSR followed this path in 1980 with the chips MAS 601, MAS 602 and MAS 603.
Trivia
In November 1975, the trade magazine elektor published simple instructions for hobby electronics under the name TV tennis .
See also
Web links
- Pong Story (English). Retrieved December 10, 2017
- Pong instruction manual for model No. C-100, 1976 (English: PDF). Retrieved December 10, 2017
- The history of video games - PONG . Retrieved December 10, 2017
- The real Mr. Pong. In: Der Spiegel Online from June 22, 2006. Accessed December 10, 2017
Individual evidence
- ↑ Green Blood - The Censorship of Video Games ( Memento of the original from September 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Fluter.de, March 22, 2004.
- ↑ Pongmuseum . Retrieved December 10, 2017
- ↑ Telepolis interview with Nolan Bushnell, November 10, 1998. Retrieved December 10, 2017
- ^ Pong Revival: Atari is planning a new edition of the arcade classic Netzwelt, February 29, 2012.
- ↑ Paul Galloway: Video Games: Seven More Building Blocks in MoMA's Collection ( English ) In: Inside / Out. A MoMA / MoMA PS1 Blog . Museum of Modern Art . June 28, 2013. Retrieved June 29, 2013.
- ↑ Peter Salomon: The history of microelectronics - semiconductor industry of the GDR. [Ed.]: Funk Verlag Bernhard Hein eK, Dessau 2003, ISBN 3-936124-31-0 , p. 42.
- ↑ TV tennis
Pong console (1975) | Stunt Cycle (1976) | Video Pinball (1977) | Atari 2600 + 2800 (1977) | Atari 5200 (1982) | Atari 7800 (1984) | Atari XEGS (1987) | Atari Lynx (1989) | Atari Panther (1991) | Atari Jaguar (1993) | Atari Flashback (2005) | Atari Flashback 2 (2005) | Atari Flashback 3 (2011) | Atari Flashback 4 (2012) | Atari Flashback 5 (2014) | Atari Flashback 6 (2015) | Atari Flashback 7 (2016) | Atari Flashback Portable (2016) | Atari Flashback 8 (2017) | Atari Flashback 9 (2018) | Atari Retro Handheld (2018) | Atari Flashback X (2019) | Atari VCS (2020)