40 Years Ago Today…Atari Was Born!

Combat, Breakout, Defender, Pitfall....the list could really go on. Think back to 1972, what do you think you were doing at the time? Well, right under your nose, the phenomenon of video entertainment was being born. Gaming life was about to change, because a little known company was about to become a billion dollar industry, and it all started with Atari.

Atari was created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney on June 27 1972, but it wasn't always named Atari! They wanted to call the company Syzgy, but luckily the name was not available, and they settled for Atari!

Atari was the pioneer of arcade video games and home gaming consoles! Nolan and Ted knew that they had created something great when they put a certain game in a bar to see if it would make money. The bar owner called Busnell and said, "It's broken." Bushnell went to the bar and checked the game to see what was wrong, opened up the coin slot and hundreds of quarters spilled out....that game was PONG! The gaming phenomenon had begun!

Games like Combat, Pitfall, Q-Bert, Asteroids, could all be found on Atari. Cool thing is though, you can still play these games today! Retailers carry "Flashback Consoles," which are basically Atari 2600's with 2 joystick controllers so you can play some of these great classics.

So grab yourself a soda, find an old arcade and grab yourself a pocket full of quarters, sit in front of your UHF television and play games about....squares? ATARI!!!