Pong Pong Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games. It is a table tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. The game was originally manufactured by Atari, which released it in 1972. Allan Alcorn created "Pong" as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell. Bushnell based the idea on an electronic ping-pong game included in the Magnavox Odyssey, which resulted in a lawsuit against Atari. Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney were surprised by the quality of Alcorn's work and decided to manufacture the game. "Pong" was the first commercially successful video game, which helped
Nolan Bushnell In 2012 he founded an educational software company called Brainrush, that is using video game technology in educational software. Nolan is credited with Bushnell's Law, an aphorism about games "easy to learn and difficult to master" being rewarding. Bushnell enrolled at Utah State University in 1961 to study engineering and then later business. In 1964, he transferred to the University of Utah College of Engineering, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. He was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. He was one of many computer science students of the 1960s who played the historic