Nolan Bushnell "Spacewar!" game on DEC mainframe computers. Bushnell worked at Lagoon Amusement Park for many years while attending college. He was made manager of the games department two seasons after starting. He was particularly interested in the midway arcade games, where theme park customers would have to use skill and luck to ultimately achieve the goal and win the prize. He liked the concept of getting people curious about the game and from there getting them to pay the fee in order to play. He would use his love for games and theme parks to help launch both Atari and Chuck
Ted Dabney about ten years before deciding to leave the industry. Dabney had married, and later divorced, Joan Wahrmund, with whom he had two daughters. He later married Carolyn Dabney. After leaving the computer industry, Dabney and Carolyn managed a grocery store and later a deli in Crescent Mills, California. Around 2006, they moved from California to a property he owned near Okanogan National Forest in Washington. The Dabneys later returned to California, taking up residence in Clearlake, a city north of San Francisco. Their house was completely destroyed in the Clayton Fire in August 2016. A GoFundMe account was set up