Two paddles, one square ball, and the first video game most people ever touched. Atari's 1972 arcade cabinet started a coin-op industry, and the 1975 home version sold through Sears put a games console next to the television for the first time. The record files it as the trend that made the medium.
Faded by 1978 under a flood of clones and the arrival of Space Invaders. The record notes the paddles survive in every bar with a retro cabinet and in the muscle memory of anyone over fifty.
The story of the first cabinet breaking down within days because its coin box was jammed with quarters is repeated in every history of the medium. The record files it as told by Atari, which had reasons to tell it.
Correction: Pong was not the first video game or even the first table-tennis game. Ralph Baer's Magnavox Odyssey shipped a similar tennis game in 1972 and Magnavox sued; Atari settled. Pong was the first one that trended.
The record notes that the whole game fits in one sentence of instructions, which was printed on the cabinet: avoid missing ball for high score. Nothing since has managed the same economy.
You were there. What happened?
