Nolan Bushnell dispose of the game. Alcorn incorporated many of his own improvements into the game design, such as the ball speeding up the longer the game went on, and "Pong" was born. "Pong" proved to be very popular; Atari released a large number of "Pong"-based arcade games over the next few years as the mainstay of the company. In 1974, Atari entered the consumer electronics market after engineers Harold Lee and Bob Brown approached Alcorn with an idea to develop a home version of "Pong". With a marketing and distribution agreement with Sears, "Pong" sales soared when the unit was released
Nolan Bushnell During this time Bushnell was using large loans on his Pizza Time stock to fund Catalyst. By the end of 1983, Chuck E. Cheese was having serious financial problems. President and long-time friend Joe Keenan resigned that fall. Nolan tried to step back in, blaming the money problems on over-expansion, too much tweaking of the formula and saturation in local markets by the management team. He resigned in February 1984, when the Board of Directors rejected his proposed changes. Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theaters (now named after its famous mouse mascot) entered bankruptcy in the fall of 1984. ShowBiz