Read Online The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokémon and Beyond—The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World by Steven Kent - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Steven Kent
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was an established organization rather than a start-up company with more owners than employees.
Nolan didn’t want to answer the phone, he wanted to have somebody else answer it. So he hired a secretary, Cynthia. And when someone would call [she would make them wait and yell], “It’s for you Nolan.” We’d wait a certain amount of time to make it sound like it was a bigger company, you know it would take longer to go get him.
—Al Alcorn
Villanueva’s responsibilities did not stop with answering telephones. Because of the company’s limited budget, she was called upon to do everything from running errands to building electronic components and placing parts in cabinets. She stayed with Atari for more than a decade, remaining long after Bushnell and Dabney left.
Atari’s second employee was a young engineer named Al Alcorn, whom Ted Dabney first met while working at Ampex. Alcorn had just completed a work-study program that allowed him to work summers at Ampex while finishing his engineering degree at Cal-Berkeley.
Short and sturdy, Alcorn was once a member of the same all-city high-school football team as O. J. Simpson. He was naturally gifted when it came toelectronics and had learned how to repair televisions by taking an RCA correspondence course in high school. When he got to college, Alcorn paid for his education by working in a television repair shop.
When Alcorn finished his degree, he found the job market weakening and was hired by Ampex. The company was going through rough times and had a round of layoffs when Nolan Bushnell offered him a job working for Atari. Alcorn agreed to move.
Nolan hired me when Ampex was going through some setbacks. He offered me a job as the VP of engineering or sort of, VP of R & D or whatever title it was of this company called Syzygy.
He offered me $1,000 a month and a chance to own stock in the company. The stock was worthless; most start-up companies fail anyway. I had actually been making a little bit more than that, but I figured what the heck.
Nolan had a company car. This was a concept I’d never thought of before or conceived of. It was an Oldsmobile station wagon, but like, wow, you can drive a car that isn’t even yours and don’t have to pay for it. What a concept!
—Al Alcorn
Simply an Exercise
Shortly after hiring Alcorn, Bushnell gave him his first project. Bushnell revealed that he had just signed a contract with General Electric to design a home electronic game based on ping-pong. The game should be very simple to play—“one ball, two paddles, and a score…. Nothing else on the screen.”
Bushnell had made up the entire story. He had not signed a contract or even entered into any discussions with General Electric. In truth, Bushnell wanted to get Alcorn familiar with the process of making games while he designed a more substantial project. Bushnell had recently sold Bally executives on a concept for an outer-space game that combined the true-life physics of
Computer Space
with a race track.
I found out later this was simply an exercise that Nolan gave me because it was the simplest game that he could think of. He didn’t think it had any playvalue. He believed that the next winning game was going to be something more complex than
Computer Space
, not something simpler.
Nolan didn’t want to tell me that because it wouldn’t motivate me to try hard. He was just going to dispose of it anyway.
—Al Alcorn
From his tenure at Ampex, Alcorn was already familiar with the transistor-to-transistor logic (TTL) involved in creating electronic games. He tried to work from the schematic diagrams that Bushnell had drawn while designing
Computer Space
but found them illegible. In the end, Alcorn had to create his own design, based on what he knew about Bushnell’s inventions and his own understanding of TTL.
As he worked, Alcorn added enhancements that Bushnell had never envisioned. He replaced the expensive components with much less
Nolan didn’t want to answer the phone, he wanted to have somebody else answer it. So he hired a secretary, Cynthia. And when someone would call [she would make them wait and yell], “It’s for you Nolan.” We’d wait a certain amount of time to make it sound like it was a bigger company, you know it would take longer to go get him.
—Al Alcorn
Villanueva’s responsibilities did not stop with answering telephones. Because of the company’s limited budget, she was called upon to do everything from running errands to building electronic components and placing parts in cabinets. She stayed with Atari for more than a decade, remaining long after Bushnell and Dabney left.
Atari’s second employee was a young engineer named Al Alcorn, whom Ted Dabney first met while working at Ampex. Alcorn had just completed a work-study program that allowed him to work summers at Ampex while finishing his engineering degree at Cal-Berkeley.
Short and sturdy, Alcorn was once a member of the same all-city high-school football team as O. J. Simpson. He was naturally gifted when it came toelectronics and had learned how to repair televisions by taking an RCA correspondence course in high school. When he got to college, Alcorn paid for his education by working in a television repair shop.
When Alcorn finished his degree, he found the job market weakening and was hired by Ampex. The company was going through rough times and had a round of layoffs when Nolan Bushnell offered him a job working for Atari. Alcorn agreed to move.
Nolan hired me when Ampex was going through some setbacks. He offered me a job as the VP of engineering or sort of, VP of R & D or whatever title it was of this company called Syzygy.
He offered me $1,000 a month and a chance to own stock in the company. The stock was worthless; most start-up companies fail anyway. I had actually been making a little bit more than that, but I figured what the heck.
Nolan had a company car. This was a concept I’d never thought of before or conceived of. It was an Oldsmobile station wagon, but like, wow, you can drive a car that isn’t even yours and don’t have to pay for it. What a concept!
—Al Alcorn
Simply an Exercise
Shortly after hiring Alcorn, Bushnell gave him his first project. Bushnell revealed that he had just signed a contract with General Electric to design a home electronic game based on ping-pong. The game should be very simple to play—“one ball, two paddles, and a score…. Nothing else on the screen.”
Bushnell had made up the entire story. He had not signed a contract or even entered into any discussions with General Electric. In truth, Bushnell wanted to get Alcorn familiar with the process of making games while he designed a more substantial project. Bushnell had recently sold Bally executives on a concept for an outer-space game that combined the true-life physics of
Computer Space
with a race track.
I found out later this was simply an exercise that Nolan gave me because it was the simplest game that he could think of. He didn’t think it had any playvalue. He believed that the next winning game was going to be something more complex than
Computer Space
, not something simpler.
Nolan didn’t want to tell me that because it wouldn’t motivate me to try hard. He was just going to dispose of it anyway.
—Al Alcorn
From his tenure at Ampex, Alcorn was already familiar with the transistor-to-transistor logic (TTL) involved in creating electronic games. He tried to work from the schematic diagrams that Bushnell had drawn while designing
Computer Space
but found them illegible. In the end, Alcorn had to create his own design, based on what he knew about Bushnell’s inventions and his own understanding of TTL.
As he worked, Alcorn added enhancements that Bushnell had never envisioned. He replaced the expensive components with much less
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