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
Ted Dabney the area. He was able to leave the Corps as he had been accepted for San Francisco State University, but as he did not have the funds to support his education, he instead took a job with Bank of America based on his electronics experience, where he kept the Electronic Recording Machine, Accounting operational. Dabney left Bank of America after a year, and on recommendation of John Herbert, a colleague he worked with, was hired by Hewlett-Packard. Within a few weeks, Herbert had moved on to Ampex and convinced Dabney to interview there. Dabney joined Ampex in 1961, working in