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
Nolan Bushnell restaurant executive and focused on Catalyst Technologies. Through 1981 and 1982, Bushnell concentrated on PTT subsidiaries Sente Technologies and Kadabrascope. Sente was a reentry into the coin-operated game business. Arcade cabinets would have a proprietary system and a cartridge slot developed by Data East Corporation, so operators could refresh their games without having to buy whole new cabinets. Kadabrascope was an early attempt at computer assisted animation. In 1983 as the restaurants started to lose money, Sente, though profitable, was sold to Bally for $3.9 million and Kadabrascope was sold to Lucas which became the beginnings of what became Pixar.