Atari Atari Atari SA () is a French corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972, currently by Atari Interactive, a subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, California in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company's products, such as "Pong" and the Atari 2600, helped define the electronic entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s. In 1984, as a result of the video game crash of 1983, the original Atari Inc. was
Nolan Bushnell E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters. While in college, he worked for several employers, including Litton Guidance and Control Systems, Hadley Ltd, and the industrial engineering department at the University of Utah. For several summers, he built his own advertising company, Campus Company, which produced blotters for four universities and sold advertising space around a calendar of events. He also sold copies of Encyclopedia Americana. Bushnell's first marriage was to Paula Rochelle Nielson, with whom he has 2 children. Bushnell's oldest child, Alissa, worked with him at uWink. His second marriage was to Nancy, with whom he has 6 children. Bushnell was