Nolan Bushnell the film "Atari", an adaptation of Bushnell's life story. Despite the announcement, however, no progress has been made on the project. In 1969, Bushnell and colleague Ted Dabney formed Syzygy with the intention of producing a "Spacewar" clone known as "Computer Space". Dabney built the prototype and Bushnell shopped it around, looking for a manufacturer. They made an agreement with Nutting Associates, a maker of coin-op trivia and shooting games, who produced a fiberglass cabinet for the unit that included a coin-slot mechanism. "Computer Space" was a commercial failure, though sales exceeded $3 million. Bushnell felt that Nutting Associates had
Ted Dabney their military products section. This work led to him becoming involved in early video imagery products within Ampex, including vidicon systems. By around 1969 Ampex had also hired Nolan Bushnell, who worked alongside Dabney and where they became friends. Bushnell, prior to joining Ampex, had come up with the idea of making a carnival-like pizza place with animatronics and games, and discussed this idea with Dabney. After seeing a computer system at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the two came up with the concept of using a smaller computer or video systems, adding coin slots, and allowing people to pay