1 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,800 Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 2 00:00:12,039 --> 00:00:14,520 Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 3 00:00:14,640 --> 00:00:17,400 Speaker 1: Johnathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 4 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:19,920 Speaker 1: and I love all things tech and we are about 5 00:00:19,960 --> 00:00:25,120 Speaker 1: to launch into a series of three classic episodes. So 6 00:00:25,239 --> 00:00:27,640 Speaker 1: for the next couple of weeks, we're gonna have these 7 00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:32,120 Speaker 1: classics play out. These were episodes that I recorded and 8 00:00:32,240 --> 00:00:35,839 Speaker 1: published the week of March second, two thousand fifteen, so 9 00:00:35,920 --> 00:00:39,040 Speaker 1: quite some time ago. Ties into some stuff that I've 10 00:00:39,400 --> 00:00:42,760 Speaker 1: touched on in some other episodes recently, Like I talked 11 00:00:42,760 --> 00:00:45,879 Speaker 1: about the video game crash in Ree, We're gonna talk 12 00:00:45,920 --> 00:00:49,479 Speaker 1: about the Rise and Fall of Atari. Now, this was 13 00:00:49,520 --> 00:00:52,239 Speaker 1: a three part series that I did have a special 14 00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:55,360 Speaker 1: guest on these shows, so I hope you enjoy that. 15 00:00:55,920 --> 00:00:58,440 Speaker 1: But let's listen to the Rise and Fall of Atari, 16 00:00:58,760 --> 00:01:04,600 Speaker 1: Part one, which published March second, two thousand fifteen. Enjoy. Hi, Jonathan, 17 00:01:04,640 --> 00:01:06,560 Speaker 1: since you asked, I do have a suggestion for a 18 00:01:06,600 --> 00:01:08,800 Speaker 1: topic to cover that I don't think you have yet. 19 00:01:09,080 --> 00:01:11,480 Speaker 1: Could you do an episode or two if needed to 20 00:01:11,560 --> 00:01:14,760 Speaker 1: cover the rise and fall of Atari. Actually worked in 21 00:01:14,800 --> 00:01:18,199 Speaker 1: the store that sold only Atari home computers and game 22 00:01:18,240 --> 00:01:21,759 Speaker 1: systems in the early nineties. Uh Atari's products are at 23 00:01:21,760 --> 00:01:23,920 Speaker 1: the time were as good or better than what was 24 00:01:23,959 --> 00:01:26,640 Speaker 1: being put out by their competitors, and yet they failed 25 00:01:26,640 --> 00:01:29,119 Speaker 1: big time. Thank you for the entertaining and educational show. 26 00:01:29,400 --> 00:01:31,520 Speaker 1: I enjoyed part one of the two thousand fourteen review 27 00:01:31,560 --> 00:01:35,559 Speaker 1: this morning. So clearly this request came in some time ago, 28 00:01:36,160 --> 00:01:38,679 Speaker 1: I guess so. But yeah, this was one that when 29 00:01:38,680 --> 00:01:40,640 Speaker 1: I brought it up to you, you said, absolutely we 30 00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:43,280 Speaker 1: should do an episode about Atari. Well, you and I 31 00:01:43,319 --> 00:01:46,679 Speaker 1: are the same age roughly, and we are children of 32 00:01:47,160 --> 00:01:49,920 Speaker 1: Atari every way, you know, we grew up in the 33 00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:53,720 Speaker 1: seventies and eighties during the Atari's heyday. Yeah, and it 34 00:01:53,840 --> 00:01:57,120 Speaker 1: was huge, huge in my life. And uh my brother 35 00:01:57,200 --> 00:02:00,960 Speaker 1: actually uh has set his up recently and I was 36 00:02:01,040 --> 00:02:05,800 Speaker 1: just playing uh Combat last week. That Combat and we'll 37 00:02:05,840 --> 00:02:08,720 Speaker 1: get to this obviously was the game that shipped with 38 00:02:10,160 --> 00:02:11,800 Speaker 1: and it kind of holds up. You know what it 39 00:02:11,880 --> 00:02:15,239 Speaker 1: really does. I it's it's an incredibly simple game and 40 00:02:15,360 --> 00:02:20,240 Speaker 1: has incredibly simple graphics, but it's the playability comes in 41 00:02:20,280 --> 00:02:24,000 Speaker 1: the fact that it's a two player game and uh, 42 00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:29,200 Speaker 1: trash talking galore can happen. We had a blast. It 43 00:02:29,360 --> 00:02:31,799 Speaker 1: really was a lot of fun, and not just for nostalgia. 44 00:02:32,400 --> 00:02:34,359 Speaker 1: The gameplay, like you said, still holds up to a 45 00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:36,679 Speaker 1: certain degree. I think, yeah, yeah. I mean it's obviously 46 00:02:36,720 --> 00:02:38,840 Speaker 1: for someone who's like, no, I need to have you know, 47 00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:41,440 Speaker 1: the fourteen different controls mapped out on my keyboard and 48 00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:44,880 Speaker 1: my my gaming mouse and everything, it's not gonna appeal 49 00:02:44,880 --> 00:02:49,440 Speaker 1: to you. But but it's still a compelling experience. So 50 00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:52,560 Speaker 1: we wanted to go through the rise and fall of Atari, 51 00:02:52,680 --> 00:02:56,120 Speaker 1: and it is an epic story. I mean, it has 52 00:02:56,400 --> 00:02:58,639 Speaker 1: so many different elements to it, and it's at least 53 00:02:58,680 --> 00:03:00,680 Speaker 1: gonna be two episodes. We're gonna see how how far 54 00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:03,120 Speaker 1: we can go before we have to take a break 55 00:03:03,160 --> 00:03:07,120 Speaker 1: and replenish our our, our vital bodily fluids before we 56 00:03:07,160 --> 00:03:12,480 Speaker 1: break out. Exactly. Good good reference there, Mr Chuck. So, 57 00:03:13,080 --> 00:03:16,799 Speaker 1: starting off a little little information before we get into 58 00:03:16,800 --> 00:03:20,480 Speaker 1: the actual Attari days. Computer games have been around pretty 59 00:03:20,600 --> 00:03:25,000 Speaker 1: much since the days that computers were first built. You know, 60 00:03:25,080 --> 00:03:28,600 Speaker 1: you you have computer programmers who often had these analytical 61 00:03:28,639 --> 00:03:32,720 Speaker 1: minds that were also fond of things like puzzles and games, 62 00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:37,600 Speaker 1: and so naturally, when those early computer programs were being designed, 63 00:03:38,160 --> 00:03:40,520 Speaker 1: programmers were thinking, huh, I wonder if I could actually 64 00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:44,400 Speaker 1: make this machine do something fun, not just something functional. Yeah, 65 00:03:44,440 --> 00:03:46,160 Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things you probably heard 66 00:03:46,160 --> 00:03:48,120 Speaker 1: a lot in the early days. But well, maybe they'd 67 00:03:48,160 --> 00:03:51,320 Speaker 1: be fun if dot dot dot and before you know what, 68 00:03:51,360 --> 00:03:53,760 Speaker 1: they were playing some you know, to us an archaic 69 00:03:54,040 --> 00:03:57,040 Speaker 1: form of a video Yeah, maybe like a game version 70 00:03:57,040 --> 00:03:59,520 Speaker 1: of like Tic Tac toe, you know, but instead of 71 00:03:59,520 --> 00:04:02,840 Speaker 1: it having a video screen, because video screens were late 72 00:04:02,880 --> 00:04:05,600 Speaker 1: in the game in the computer days, they would print 73 00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:08,960 Speaker 1: this stuff out like you would have maybe a tape printer, 74 00:04:09,760 --> 00:04:12,600 Speaker 1: and it would print each move, so every time something changed, 75 00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:15,200 Speaker 1: it had to print a new piece of paper to 76 00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:17,479 Speaker 1: look at or a new strip of tape. Really, because 77 00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:22,080 Speaker 1: a friend of mine, his name's Richard Garriot, and he's 78 00:04:22,560 --> 00:04:26,839 Speaker 1: a big game developer. He created one of the big 79 00:04:27,279 --> 00:04:29,800 Speaker 1: computer game successes and then in the eighties and nineties 80 00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:32,400 Speaker 1: called Ultima, and he talks about in his days when 81 00:04:32,440 --> 00:04:35,560 Speaker 1: he was in computer programming classes in high school, it 82 00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:37,359 Speaker 1: was all printed to tape and it was like a 83 00:04:37,360 --> 00:04:39,839 Speaker 1: little adventure game and we'll talk about adventure in a 84 00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:43,279 Speaker 1: bit too, where it would print out the room and 85 00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:45,760 Speaker 1: your little position, like you'd be a little X in 86 00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:48,080 Speaker 1: the room and you'd say, go left. It would to 87 00:04:48,120 --> 00:04:50,200 Speaker 1: print a new version of it where the X was 88 00:04:50,279 --> 00:04:54,359 Speaker 1: just slightly to the left. In the pre eco friendly 89 00:04:54,440 --> 00:04:58,640 Speaker 1: days as well, these days such a game would probably 90 00:04:58,720 --> 00:05:02,760 Speaker 1: be frowned upon. So uh, but you know, it sets 91 00:05:02,800 --> 00:05:05,719 Speaker 1: the stage to show that that people realize there was 92 00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:10,280 Speaker 1: potential or electronics in the game world. And that gets 93 00:05:10,360 --> 00:05:13,760 Speaker 1: us up to ninety eight when a man named William 94 00:05:13,839 --> 00:05:20,520 Speaker 1: Higginbotham of Brookhaven National Laboratory developed an electronic game called 95 00:05:20,760 --> 00:05:25,359 Speaker 1: Tennis for two on a Donner Model thirty analog computer. 96 00:05:26,279 --> 00:05:30,839 Speaker 1: And uh, it would simulate table tennis, and it simulated 97 00:05:30,880 --> 00:05:34,760 Speaker 1: velocity and changes in direction, all this kind of stuff. Um, yeah, 98 00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:36,440 Speaker 1: I looked it up just to see what it looked like. 99 00:05:36,480 --> 00:05:40,160 Speaker 1: It looked like sort of like a like a ship's 100 00:05:40,200 --> 00:05:44,080 Speaker 1: sonar or something. Yeah, exactly. It was taking an oscill lator, 101 00:05:44,200 --> 00:05:45,760 Speaker 1: I mean, the same sort of thing that you might 102 00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:49,400 Speaker 1: see as like a heart monitor in hospital, kind of 103 00:05:49,600 --> 00:05:52,599 Speaker 1: kind of like that. And by you change by fiddling 104 00:05:52,600 --> 00:05:57,279 Speaker 1: with the voltage, essentially he could change the different images 105 00:05:57,320 --> 00:06:00,760 Speaker 1: so that you would have essentially to paddle like things 106 00:06:01,279 --> 00:06:04,400 Speaker 1: and the ball like thing and play a very basic game. 107 00:06:04,400 --> 00:06:06,599 Speaker 1: And he said that he had made it because people 108 00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:09,159 Speaker 1: would come to visit the lab and there wasn't a 109 00:06:09,200 --> 00:06:11,880 Speaker 1: whole lot of stuff that was actually interesting to look 110 00:06:11,920 --> 00:06:13,599 Speaker 1: at the bar, and so this was the way to 111 00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:16,640 Speaker 1: entertain them. That's pretty funny to like to impress people. 112 00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:19,560 Speaker 1: He had stuff that was far more advanced, but he's like, oh, 113 00:06:19,640 --> 00:06:22,159 Speaker 1: but look at this tennis for two and people probably, oh, yeah, 114 00:06:22,240 --> 00:06:26,960 Speaker 1: exactly like hisn't cutting edge. So have you ever seen 115 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:30,960 Speaker 1: the mel Brooks films Silent Movie? All right? In Silent Movie, 116 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:34,440 Speaker 1: there's actually a scene where Sid caesar Is is in 117 00:06:34,520 --> 00:06:37,800 Speaker 1: the hospital and his character is in the hospital and 118 00:06:37,880 --> 00:06:41,200 Speaker 1: to uh, Dom Deloise and Marty Feldman who walk up 119 00:06:41,240 --> 00:06:43,560 Speaker 1: to his heart monitor and turn it into this game 120 00:06:44,279 --> 00:06:46,400 Speaker 1: and they play a game of Pong on his heart monitor, 121 00:06:46,440 --> 00:06:48,920 Speaker 1: which totally forgot about causes him to totally freak out. Yeah, 122 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:51,840 Speaker 1: but it's this game which is interesting because the original 123 00:06:51,920 --> 00:06:55,839 Speaker 1: well we'll get into pong, but the original pongs were silent. Yes, yeah, 124 00:06:55,960 --> 00:06:59,479 Speaker 1: that's actually true. And in nineteen sixty two, that's when 125 00:06:59,480 --> 00:07:01,040 Speaker 1: we get up to the time when m i T. 126 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:05,599 Speaker 1: Professor Steve Russell developed a game called Space War, which 127 00:07:05,640 --> 00:07:08,000 Speaker 1: is one of the earliest video games. He did this 128 00:07:08,040 --> 00:07:10,800 Speaker 1: with two of his students, and they built it for 129 00:07:11,480 --> 00:07:13,960 Speaker 1: a big mainframe computer. Yeah. It was the only way 130 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:17,320 Speaker 1: they could really at the time exactly. So if you 131 00:07:17,360 --> 00:07:19,200 Speaker 1: wanted to play a computer game, you had to go 132 00:07:19,320 --> 00:07:24,880 Speaker 1: someplace where essentially a room is dedicated to that computer. Yeah. 133 00:07:25,440 --> 00:07:27,760 Speaker 1: They were largely still using vacuum tubes for a lot 134 00:07:27,800 --> 00:07:31,040 Speaker 1: of this technology. I mean, transistors had had started to 135 00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:34,720 Speaker 1: come out, but they hadn't been integrated into computers deeply 136 00:07:34,760 --> 00:07:39,320 Speaker 1: at this point. Uh. And that's when around this times 137 00:07:39,320 --> 00:07:44,240 Speaker 1: when an electrical engineering student named Nolan Bushnell, the probably 138 00:07:44,240 --> 00:07:48,280 Speaker 1: the most important person in this story, that's when he 139 00:07:48,440 --> 00:07:53,520 Speaker 1: discovered space war because the computer lab at the university 140 00:07:53,560 --> 00:07:56,280 Speaker 1: was going to the University of Utah College of Engineering, 141 00:07:56,920 --> 00:07:59,880 Speaker 1: had Space War on one of its computers. Yeah, he was. 142 00:08:00,080 --> 00:08:02,280 Speaker 1: I saw an interview with him earlier today on YouTube 143 00:08:02,320 --> 00:08:05,280 Speaker 1: where he was talking about at the time. He said 144 00:08:05,280 --> 00:08:08,280 Speaker 1: there were only like four universities in the entire country 145 00:08:08,320 --> 00:08:12,600 Speaker 1: that had graphical displays period, and University of Utah just 146 00:08:12,640 --> 00:08:15,040 Speaker 1: happened to be one of them. And it seemed like 147 00:08:15,640 --> 00:08:17,960 Speaker 1: when you start hearing about the story and how it 148 00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:20,120 Speaker 1: all just fell into place, it's I don't know if 149 00:08:20,120 --> 00:08:22,760 Speaker 1: I'm a believer in fate, but all these little puzzle 150 00:08:22,760 --> 00:08:25,480 Speaker 1: pieces came together in just the right way to get 151 00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:29,640 Speaker 1: his motor running. Basically, if if they hadn't, if any 152 00:08:29,680 --> 00:08:33,480 Speaker 1: of the elements that took place, then the whole arcade 153 00:08:33,520 --> 00:08:36,959 Speaker 1: industry could have been delayed by several years if he 154 00:08:37,000 --> 00:08:38,880 Speaker 1: had just gone to a different university that didn't have 155 00:08:38,920 --> 00:08:42,120 Speaker 1: computer screens. Right, Yeah, because the University of Utah was 156 00:08:42,160 --> 00:08:45,040 Speaker 1: a pioneer in that space, and so he really got 157 00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:48,959 Speaker 1: his introduction to it. Uh. Another interesting thing about him 158 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:51,720 Speaker 1: is that he would work in his off time, like 159 00:08:51,760 --> 00:08:56,680 Speaker 1: when whenever school was out at the Lagoon Amusement Park. Yeah, 160 00:08:56,720 --> 00:09:00,080 Speaker 1: that was a huge deal because that inspired the thought of, 161 00:09:00,760 --> 00:09:02,880 Speaker 1: you know what, people are shoving quarters in the ski 162 00:09:02,960 --> 00:09:07,160 Speaker 1: ball games and pinball and you know all manner of 163 00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:10,680 Speaker 1: sort of boardwalk arcade games. And he obviously had some 164 00:09:10,679 --> 00:09:12,680 Speaker 1: sort of business sense to him because he thought, why 165 00:09:12,679 --> 00:09:15,080 Speaker 1: not try and do this really fun thing that I've 166 00:09:15,120 --> 00:09:17,320 Speaker 1: been sneaking into the lab and doing every night and 167 00:09:17,400 --> 00:09:19,719 Speaker 1: charge people money for it? Right? What if we were 168 00:09:19,760 --> 00:09:23,440 Speaker 1: to create an experience using an electronic game where on 169 00:09:23,480 --> 00:09:26,760 Speaker 1: a per coin basis you would get either an allotted 170 00:09:26,800 --> 00:09:30,200 Speaker 1: amount of time to play or some other metric like 171 00:09:30,280 --> 00:09:32,160 Speaker 1: in pong. It might be the number of lives. In 172 00:09:32,200 --> 00:09:33,960 Speaker 1: most video games as number of lives, but in a 173 00:09:33,960 --> 00:09:37,920 Speaker 1: few it's time. Um. And that that would determine how 174 00:09:38,040 --> 00:09:40,480 Speaker 1: much of that experience you could have before you had 175 00:09:40,480 --> 00:09:43,880 Speaker 1: to plunk in another quarter. And if I find it 176 00:09:44,360 --> 00:09:47,160 Speaker 1: so compelling that I'll sneak into the to the lab, 177 00:09:47,559 --> 00:09:49,680 Speaker 1: people be willing to pay a quarter for it. Yeah, 178 00:09:49,760 --> 00:09:52,719 Speaker 1: it was a stroke of genius. It was absolutely, I 179 00:09:52,760 --> 00:09:55,040 Speaker 1: mean you. There are a lot of criticisms that are 180 00:09:55,120 --> 00:09:58,840 Speaker 1: leveled against Bushnell and Cord, including people who used to 181 00:09:58,880 --> 00:10:02,319 Speaker 1: work with him. Um. And a lot of people claim, well, 182 00:10:02,360 --> 00:10:06,200 Speaker 1: he never invented anything. I have to object to that 183 00:10:06,280 --> 00:10:11,280 Speaker 1: because he took two separate ideas and turned them into 184 00:10:11,360 --> 00:10:15,280 Speaker 1: something that spawned an entire industry. And if that's not invention, 185 00:10:15,360 --> 00:10:17,400 Speaker 1: I don't know what is. Yeah. And whether or not 186 00:10:17,440 --> 00:10:19,680 Speaker 1: he was um, I guess it wasn't coding, but whether 187 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:23,160 Speaker 1: or not he was soldering the games and inventing the 188 00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:26,839 Speaker 1: games themselves. Those games are worthless unless someone comes along 189 00:10:26,880 --> 00:10:28,760 Speaker 1: and says, you know what, I know how to package 190 00:10:28,800 --> 00:10:30,959 Speaker 1: this right and take it to the public for them 191 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:33,840 Speaker 1: to enjoy, right, And so I mean so without this 192 00:10:33,840 --> 00:10:37,120 Speaker 1: this vision again, I'm sure we would have eventually come 193 00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:39,600 Speaker 1: around to the arcade industry. Anyway, someone would have come 194 00:10:39,640 --> 00:10:41,640 Speaker 1: up with that idea, but it would have been later 195 00:10:42,280 --> 00:10:46,400 Speaker 1: and the story might have been much different. So Bushnell 196 00:10:46,800 --> 00:10:49,280 Speaker 1: graduates from college and goes to work for a company 197 00:10:49,320 --> 00:10:52,679 Speaker 1: called Ampex. This is around nineteen sixty nine. Ampex is 198 00:10:52,679 --> 00:10:55,120 Speaker 1: an electronics company, and I got a little bit of 199 00:10:55,120 --> 00:10:58,600 Speaker 1: trivia something I thought you would appreciate, Chuck, you're a musician. 200 00:10:59,160 --> 00:11:03,920 Speaker 1: So Ampex developed a tape recorder that less Paul used 201 00:11:03,920 --> 00:11:08,480 Speaker 1: to pioneer the sound on sound technique. Yeah. Less Paul 202 00:11:08,559 --> 00:11:11,440 Speaker 1: used an Ampex tape recorder which was designed to have 203 00:11:11,480 --> 00:11:15,120 Speaker 1: a secondary writing head that would allow him to record 204 00:11:15,160 --> 00:11:18,160 Speaker 1: a track and then play along with that recorded track 205 00:11:18,240 --> 00:11:21,240 Speaker 1: to create a new mixed track of both of them together. 206 00:11:21,920 --> 00:11:25,040 Speaker 1: So this would allow one musician to essentially back him 207 00:11:25,120 --> 00:11:29,760 Speaker 1: or herself up. However, what it did do also is 208 00:11:30,120 --> 00:11:33,920 Speaker 1: destroy the original track, the original recording, because it records 209 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:36,800 Speaker 1: over it, so you no longer have that, so you 210 00:11:36,840 --> 00:11:40,880 Speaker 1: have plus yes, and that's the new base. Yeah, which 211 00:11:40,880 --> 00:11:42,840 Speaker 1: is kind of cool. I thought that you would appreciate that. 212 00:11:42,840 --> 00:11:45,440 Speaker 1: So I am tex. Ampex has had a real important 213 00:11:45,240 --> 00:11:49,000 Speaker 1: part in the electronics industry in general. But it also 214 00:11:49,080 --> 00:11:52,439 Speaker 1: plays host to the meeting of the two people who 215 00:11:52,520 --> 00:11:57,120 Speaker 1: would really push Atari in the early days. That's uh 216 00:11:57,559 --> 00:12:01,720 Speaker 1: Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Yeah, and Dabney they met 217 00:12:01,720 --> 00:12:04,480 Speaker 1: in nineteen nine and like you said, both employees of 218 00:12:04,520 --> 00:12:10,720 Speaker 1: Ampex and both um very much interested in uh pioneering 219 00:12:11,480 --> 00:12:14,200 Speaker 1: Space War as the very first video game. Yeah, they 220 00:12:14,240 --> 00:12:16,520 Speaker 1: were looking at Space War and they thought, how can 221 00:12:16,559 --> 00:12:20,240 Speaker 1: we make this as a coin operated game. Now, clearly 222 00:12:20,240 --> 00:12:22,599 Speaker 1: we can't do the same thing that Space War is 223 00:12:22,640 --> 00:12:27,120 Speaker 1: doing because having a mainframe computer not something you can 224 00:12:27,200 --> 00:12:30,079 Speaker 1: install in your local bar. Yea. So we have to 225 00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:33,080 Speaker 1: figure out how to take this same concept but do 226 00:12:33,160 --> 00:12:35,200 Speaker 1: it in a much smaller form factor that could be 227 00:12:35,240 --> 00:12:37,680 Speaker 1: a coin operated game. Yeah, And that turned out to 228 00:12:37,720 --> 00:12:41,640 Speaker 1: be sort of a recurring UM thing in Bushnell's career 229 00:12:41,840 --> 00:12:45,360 Speaker 1: was this guy did something really neat. Let me sort 230 00:12:45,400 --> 00:12:48,920 Speaker 1: of make a very similar version, but in a much 231 00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:53,400 Speaker 1: like sleeker package that's consumer oriented. Yeah. I read a 232 00:12:53,480 --> 00:12:57,199 Speaker 1: transcript of an interview that UM that Ted Dabney did. 233 00:12:57,440 --> 00:12:59,920 Speaker 1: I read a lot of that actually Yeah, it's fascinating. 234 00:12:59,640 --> 00:13:02,200 Speaker 1: I mean there's clearly some bad blood between the two 235 00:13:02,280 --> 00:13:06,040 Speaker 1: of them. But Dabney talked about how what would happen 236 00:13:06,080 --> 00:13:08,480 Speaker 1: is Bushnell would come up to him and say, I 237 00:13:08,520 --> 00:13:11,560 Speaker 1: want to do this. How is that possible? Dabney would 238 00:13:11,600 --> 00:13:13,800 Speaker 1: figure it out, tell him, and then Bushnell would go 239 00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:17,760 Speaker 1: off and do it. So Bushnell had skills, but Dabney 240 00:13:17,920 --> 00:13:20,640 Speaker 1: always dismissed it as saying he wasn't an engineer. He 241 00:13:20,679 --> 00:13:22,920 Speaker 1: could do something if you told him how to do it, 242 00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:26,600 Speaker 1: but he couldn't engineer it himself. Yeah, he he was. 243 00:13:27,760 --> 00:13:30,200 Speaker 1: He's sort of like a producer almost, Yeah, and really 244 00:13:30,200 --> 00:13:34,319 Speaker 1: get at getting super talented people together to create a vision. Yeah, 245 00:13:34,440 --> 00:13:36,800 Speaker 1: sort of like you could think of other pairings that 246 00:13:36,920 --> 00:13:40,480 Speaker 1: this this applies to, like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, 247 00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:43,760 Speaker 1: who will come up later, or Paul Allen and Bill Gates. 248 00:13:43,800 --> 00:13:46,640 Speaker 1: I mean, there are a lot of Ben and Jerry, 249 00:13:46,960 --> 00:13:50,000 Speaker 1: uh Itchy and Scratchy. We can just keep throwing out 250 00:13:50,040 --> 00:13:52,520 Speaker 1: pair of names out there. Uh So, yeah, it was 251 00:13:53,280 --> 00:13:57,160 Speaker 1: it wasn't. It was the beginning of a partnership that 252 00:13:57,200 --> 00:14:02,520 Speaker 1: would end up launching this arc caid industry idea. Yeah, 253 00:14:02,760 --> 00:14:05,600 Speaker 1: so they got together and they they said, well, let's 254 00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:08,880 Speaker 1: sort of copy that game in a in a cabinet version. 255 00:14:10,160 --> 00:14:11,720 Speaker 1: But we don't really have the money to fund this, 256 00:14:11,760 --> 00:14:13,960 Speaker 1: so they took it to a few different people. Finally 257 00:14:14,040 --> 00:14:17,480 Speaker 1: landed at a place called Nutting Associates, who agreed to 258 00:14:17,559 --> 00:14:22,480 Speaker 1: finance a game, which was really the very first arcade 259 00:14:22,520 --> 00:14:26,000 Speaker 1: game called Computer Space. Yep, yep. They got a programmer 260 00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:28,160 Speaker 1: by the name of Larry Brian to come on board. 261 00:14:28,280 --> 00:14:31,600 Speaker 1: Larry Brian had also worked at Ampex. Uh. They formed 262 00:14:31,680 --> 00:14:35,800 Speaker 1: a company that they originally called Scissor G. Yeah. They 263 00:14:35,840 --> 00:14:38,200 Speaker 1: just said the name kind of sounded and look cool. Yeah, which, 264 00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:40,120 Speaker 1: by the way, if you if you don't know how 265 00:14:40,120 --> 00:14:42,880 Speaker 1: to spell it, it's it's of course one of those 266 00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:45,360 Speaker 1: uh spelling B words. It's s y z y g 267 00:14:45,680 --> 00:14:50,000 Speaker 1: y and it refers to the planetary alignment and things 268 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:52,240 Speaker 1: come into alignment there in sissy G. I didn't even 269 00:14:52,280 --> 00:14:53,760 Speaker 1: know that. Oh yeah, that real meaning. It was one 270 00:14:53,760 --> 00:14:56,560 Speaker 1: of my my father's one of my father's favorite words, 271 00:14:56,600 --> 00:14:59,360 Speaker 1: no joke. Uh, so I was instilled in my brain 272 00:14:59,400 --> 00:15:01,960 Speaker 1: at an early age. Uh. They come up with this name, 273 00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:05,200 Speaker 1: which they wouldn't stick with for reasons. We'll get to Uh. 274 00:15:05,240 --> 00:15:07,760 Speaker 1: They thought about using a computer called the Data General 275 00:15:07,800 --> 00:15:11,080 Speaker 1: Nova eight hundred, but it's pretty expensive and it still 276 00:15:11,200 --> 00:15:14,880 Speaker 1: wasn't really going to fit their needs, so they weren't 277 00:15:14,880 --> 00:15:17,720 Speaker 1: really sure how they were going to do this. Originally, 278 00:15:18,120 --> 00:15:20,880 Speaker 1: the idea was that all three of the initial founding 279 00:15:20,920 --> 00:15:24,400 Speaker 1: members Dabney, Bushnell, and Brian were going to contribute a 280 00:15:24,480 --> 00:15:28,280 Speaker 1: hundred dollars into a group fund to be like the 281 00:15:28,320 --> 00:15:33,600 Speaker 1: owner operating capital. Only Dabney and Bushnell did. Brian never did. 282 00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:35,720 Speaker 1: So do you know why did he? Was it because 283 00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:38,600 Speaker 1: he didn't want to throw I don't know, I I 284 00:15:38,760 --> 00:15:40,680 Speaker 1: never came across. It was just a lot of matter 285 00:15:40,720 --> 00:15:44,680 Speaker 1: of fact of Brian never put his under. It's just 286 00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:50,600 Speaker 1: never an explanation. Yeah, And so eventually both Bushnell and 287 00:15:50,600 --> 00:15:52,680 Speaker 1: and uh Damney would put in an extra two hundred 288 00:15:52,680 --> 00:15:54,520 Speaker 1: and fiftyes, so that brought the owner's equity up to 289 00:15:54,560 --> 00:15:59,960 Speaker 1: a incredible seven hundred dollars princely some for this company. Uh, 290 00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:04,320 Speaker 1: like you were saying, Chuck. They went to Nutting to say, like, uh, 291 00:16:04,360 --> 00:16:07,680 Speaker 1: maybe you can help us by manufacturing this thing. We'll 292 00:16:07,720 --> 00:16:10,600 Speaker 1: retain the rights to the game, you'll be able to 293 00:16:10,640 --> 00:16:13,560 Speaker 1: manufacture it and sell it, but we get royalties for 294 00:16:13,640 --> 00:16:16,240 Speaker 1: it as well, and it's the next big thing. Yeah, 295 00:16:16,280 --> 00:16:19,200 Speaker 1: they convinced Nutting that it's the next big thing. So 296 00:16:19,280 --> 00:16:23,120 Speaker 1: Nutting Associates has no clue about this stuff. They essentially 297 00:16:23,160 --> 00:16:26,000 Speaker 1: give them the space to do whatever they want to do, 298 00:16:26,720 --> 00:16:29,520 Speaker 1: thinking like, all right, well we we can't do this ourselves. 299 00:16:29,560 --> 00:16:31,600 Speaker 1: We're gonna let this group do this. And if it 300 00:16:31,640 --> 00:16:34,280 Speaker 1: pays off, it's huge. We'll be making lots of money. 301 00:16:34,280 --> 00:16:37,040 Speaker 1: And if it doesn't, well it will just call it 302 00:16:37,080 --> 00:16:40,840 Speaker 1: a loss. So the agreement included a five percent royalty 303 00:16:40,840 --> 00:16:43,840 Speaker 1: on unit sales, so that's what the group would get 304 00:16:44,360 --> 00:16:48,880 Speaker 1: um and the units were relatively inexpensive. They were like 305 00:16:48,920 --> 00:16:52,240 Speaker 1: a thousand dollars, which in today's money is about six 306 00:16:52,320 --> 00:16:55,920 Speaker 1: grand a piece. But it was it was not for 307 00:16:55,960 --> 00:16:59,440 Speaker 1: the home consumer. It was this, yeah exactly. This would 308 00:16:59,440 --> 00:17:02,640 Speaker 1: be like a restaurant, you know that's or maybe a 309 00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:06,320 Speaker 1: bowling alley something like that. Uh. But remember there's no 310 00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:08,800 Speaker 1: market for these yet. Yeah, no one knows because they 311 00:17:08,800 --> 00:17:11,840 Speaker 1: didn't exist. It's just crazy to think about. No one 312 00:17:11,920 --> 00:17:13,720 Speaker 1: knew if it was going to work at all, and 313 00:17:13,760 --> 00:17:15,679 Speaker 1: it sort of didn't sort of didn't It wasn't a 314 00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:17,919 Speaker 1: big success for them at all, right, Right, And the 315 00:17:18,040 --> 00:17:21,280 Speaker 1: one of the problems was that this game that was 316 00:17:21,320 --> 00:17:24,520 Speaker 1: based off Space War, just like Space War, was kind 317 00:17:24,560 --> 00:17:29,520 Speaker 1: of complicated. It was a game built by engineers for engineers. 318 00:17:30,640 --> 00:17:32,600 Speaker 1: So you see like all these buttons and dials and stuff, 319 00:17:32,600 --> 00:17:35,280 Speaker 1: and you think, all right, uh, this does not appear 320 00:17:35,320 --> 00:17:38,000 Speaker 1: to be intuitive in any way. No one really understood 321 00:17:38,040 --> 00:17:41,280 Speaker 1: how to play it. It looked a little like Asteroids. Yeah, um, 322 00:17:41,320 --> 00:17:43,520 Speaker 1: as far as just the look of the game, yeah, 323 00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:45,600 Speaker 1: And it's one of those that when you look at 324 00:17:45,720 --> 00:17:48,240 Speaker 1: you think, uh, you know, I I don't even know 325 00:17:48,359 --> 00:17:51,439 Speaker 1: what it is, like how I control the things, nor 326 00:17:51,520 --> 00:17:53,960 Speaker 1: do I know what I'm supposed to do. So it 327 00:17:54,040 --> 00:17:57,960 Speaker 1: had some limited success, but it wasn't a runaway hit. 328 00:17:58,040 --> 00:18:02,879 Speaker 1: It just wasn't that simplistic experience that the average person 329 00:18:02,960 --> 00:18:06,440 Speaker 1: could immediately identify. Well yeah, plus it was I mean, 330 00:18:07,119 --> 00:18:09,480 Speaker 1: I mean people are used to seeing a pinball machine, maybe, 331 00:18:09,840 --> 00:18:12,560 Speaker 1: but if you look up this thing online, there's all 332 00:18:12,560 --> 00:18:15,440 Speaker 1: of a sudden it seems there. You know, arcade games 333 00:18:15,440 --> 00:18:19,760 Speaker 1: to us, now there were so ubiquitous, the game cabinet itself, 334 00:18:19,760 --> 00:18:21,400 Speaker 1: but when you look at this thing at the time, 335 00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:23,320 Speaker 1: no one knew what the heck it was. Right, there 336 00:18:23,359 --> 00:18:28,679 Speaker 1: was this weird looking yellow pod with a TV screen 337 00:18:28,680 --> 00:18:31,119 Speaker 1: in it in the corner, and I have no idea 338 00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:33,320 Speaker 1: with all the this little game pad on the front 339 00:18:33,320 --> 00:18:35,119 Speaker 1: of it, and what am I even supposed to do 340 00:18:35,119 --> 00:18:36,840 Speaker 1: with that on my way to the bathroom. I mean, 341 00:18:36,840 --> 00:18:40,280 Speaker 1: the whole thing wouldn't have even been possible except for 342 00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:42,840 Speaker 1: the fact that Dabney made a breakthrough while he was 343 00:18:42,920 --> 00:18:46,280 Speaker 1: he was tooling around in his home. According to the 344 00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:49,720 Speaker 1: interviews I've seen, in his daughter's bedroom, he used that 345 00:18:49,760 --> 00:18:52,760 Speaker 1: as his work space. He moved one of his daughters 346 00:18:52,760 --> 00:18:54,879 Speaker 1: in with the other. He had two daughters. He's like, 347 00:18:55,080 --> 00:18:57,960 Speaker 1: I need your room. This is going to be my lab. 348 00:18:58,800 --> 00:19:01,840 Speaker 1: And uh. He started playing with cathode ray to video 349 00:19:01,920 --> 00:19:06,120 Speaker 1: screens without the use of a computer as as an input, 350 00:19:06,640 --> 00:19:10,960 Speaker 1: and he used counters and gates basic electronic components to 351 00:19:11,080 --> 00:19:14,639 Speaker 1: manipulate that CRT display to create the images on a 352 00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:19,520 Speaker 1: screen that you can control by changing the values directly. So, uh, 353 00:19:19,720 --> 00:19:23,720 Speaker 1: think of you know, you remember the tracking on a 354 00:19:23,760 --> 00:19:25,720 Speaker 1: TV when the screen would be rolling and you have 355 00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:28,840 Speaker 1: to adjust the tracking snature. Because we're old, we remember 356 00:19:28,920 --> 00:19:32,000 Speaker 1: this stuff. That was the basis of him being able 357 00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:35,520 Speaker 1: to control vertical movement on the screen. He just essentially 358 00:19:35,840 --> 00:19:38,680 Speaker 1: he manufactured a way of doing that where by using 359 00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:42,520 Speaker 1: a control you could change the the input into the 360 00:19:42,560 --> 00:19:46,240 Speaker 1: television and make that vertical movement possible. For horizontal, we 361 00:19:46,240 --> 00:19:49,600 Speaker 1: had to change voltages in a really interesting way so 362 00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:51,719 Speaker 1: that you could get horizontal movement. Otherwise you would only 363 00:19:51,720 --> 00:19:53,399 Speaker 1: be able to move up and down. Now, was that 364 00:19:53,440 --> 00:19:56,439 Speaker 1: the spot in motion circuit? Yes, okay, and that changed 365 00:19:56,520 --> 00:20:00,600 Speaker 1: everything because this meant for the first time that well, 366 00:20:00,680 --> 00:20:04,080 Speaker 1: not I, he could create a game that didn't need 367 00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:07,320 Speaker 1: a computer attached to it, right, you could do a 368 00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:10,359 Speaker 1: home version of this game, yes, exactly, and then everything 369 00:20:10,400 --> 00:20:12,240 Speaker 1: that you would need for the game you could build 370 00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:15,399 Speaker 1: onto the circuit. And that meant that every circuit for 371 00:20:15,480 --> 00:20:19,080 Speaker 1: every game was unique, right, Like like one, if you 372 00:20:19,080 --> 00:20:23,480 Speaker 1: look at two different arcade games from this era, the 373 00:20:23,520 --> 00:20:26,840 Speaker 1: game is all hardwired on the circuit try and those 374 00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:30,080 Speaker 1: circuit boards are going to look different because it's those 375 00:20:30,119 --> 00:20:34,800 Speaker 1: physical components that create the assets of each game. Which 376 00:20:34,840 --> 00:20:36,680 Speaker 1: is kind of cool to think about because these days 377 00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:39,680 Speaker 1: we're used to the general purpose machine, right, the computer, 378 00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:43,000 Speaker 1: and then everything else is controlled on the software. Side. 379 00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:47,120 Speaker 1: But this was all hardware, which you know for such 380 00:20:47,160 --> 00:20:50,120 Speaker 1: in every game was a little different from the next two. Yeah. Yeah, 381 00:20:50,200 --> 00:20:52,200 Speaker 1: and you look at it you think like, well, you know, 382 00:20:52,280 --> 00:20:55,960 Speaker 1: there could even be production errors and that that could 383 00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:59,479 Speaker 1: create weird glitches that are only for that unit of 384 00:20:59,480 --> 00:21:02,400 Speaker 1: the game. It's not like a game shipped with glitches 385 00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:06,080 Speaker 1: would be that many. Maybe some solder wasn't complete and 386 00:21:06,119 --> 00:21:09,119 Speaker 1: so something in the game's not working properly. So it 387 00:21:09,200 --> 00:21:12,800 Speaker 1: made it more like those early Arcaden machines were really 388 00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:16,760 Speaker 1: more like pinball games than they were like the modern games. 389 00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:19,440 Speaker 1: We'll be back with more of the rise and fall 390 00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:30,240 Speaker 1: of Atari. After these messages, we get to August of 391 00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:32,879 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one. That's when the team had produced the 392 00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:35,480 Speaker 1: test unit of their game, which was, as you were saying, 393 00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:38,680 Speaker 1: called computer Space, and they set it up in a 394 00:21:38,400 --> 00:21:44,400 Speaker 1: in a restaurant and bar called Dutch Goose in Palo Alto, California. 395 00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:48,560 Speaker 1: What they officially debut the game at the nineteen seventy 396 00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:52,639 Speaker 1: one Music and Amusement Machines Exposition in Chicago, and by 397 00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:55,040 Speaker 1: the end of nineteen seventy one they begin to ship 398 00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:56,800 Speaker 1: the game. So that first game was just sort of 399 00:21:56,840 --> 00:21:59,119 Speaker 1: a test run to see if they could get it 400 00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:01,560 Speaker 1: to to look it doesn't do great business because it 401 00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:06,639 Speaker 1: was units total sold um, but it was enough money 402 00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:11,400 Speaker 1: um for for Dabney and Bushnell to sort of continue 403 00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:14,440 Speaker 1: to fund their company. Right. They decided at that point 404 00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:18,800 Speaker 1: that they wanted to incorporate Sissy g And then they 405 00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:21,920 Speaker 1: had a speed bump because they realized I found out 406 00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:25,240 Speaker 1: there was already another company using the name sissy Gy. Yeah. 407 00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:28,719 Speaker 1: Apparently it was a little candle company in Mendocino, California, 408 00:22:28,760 --> 00:22:33,080 Speaker 1: like some hippies, So that that put their plans on 409 00:22:33,160 --> 00:22:36,280 Speaker 1: pause as they had to rethink the name. And also 410 00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:39,320 Speaker 1: at that time, in nineteen seventy two, Bushnell would attend 411 00:22:39,320 --> 00:22:43,080 Speaker 1: a meeting that would later come back to haunt him. Yeah, 412 00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:46,720 Speaker 1: he attended a meeting that had a presentation of the 413 00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:50,640 Speaker 1: Magna Vox Odyssey, which is a home video game console 414 00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:54,800 Speaker 1: that featured very several silent games, the most notable one 415 00:22:54,880 --> 00:22:59,240 Speaker 1: being a table tennis game. Yeah, and who was it was? 416 00:22:59,280 --> 00:23:02,040 Speaker 1: It was a man same bear was the head of 417 00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:04,480 Speaker 1: Magna Box at the time. He advented I think called 418 00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:07,960 Speaker 1: the Brown Box, which was later changed to the Magnavox Odyssey. 419 00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:10,840 Speaker 1: And like you said, I think a lesson to be 420 00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:13,600 Speaker 1: learned here has never signed the guest book, right, because 421 00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:17,359 Speaker 1: Bushnell um signed the guest book as an attendee. And 422 00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:20,920 Speaker 1: these before they took the Odyssey to market, they had 423 00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:27,920 Speaker 1: these very special small batch screenings for invitees only, and 424 00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:31,080 Speaker 1: which wasn't the smartest thing in the world to do either. Yeah, 425 00:23:31,119 --> 00:23:33,080 Speaker 1: because they did have a patent on it, it would 426 00:23:33,080 --> 00:23:35,399 Speaker 1: allow people that chance to maybe we could beat them 427 00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:38,399 Speaker 1: to market by creating exactly similar and that's exactly what 428 00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:41,080 Speaker 1: happened in the case of Bushnell. Yeah, so this was 429 00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:44,760 Speaker 1: like this would come back to haunt him later. And yeah, 430 00:23:44,880 --> 00:23:46,879 Speaker 1: if you are going to go to one of these meetings, 431 00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:50,920 Speaker 1: don't leave a paper trail. That's the lesson there. So 432 00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:55,680 Speaker 1: by June, Bushnell and Damney incorporate as a Tory Incorporated. Yes, 433 00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:59,280 Speaker 1: which the name got came from a Japanese game board 434 00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:02,720 Speaker 1: game called go Ye, which Pushnell was just crazy for. 435 00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:06,720 Speaker 1: And apparently the meaning of it is basically the equivalent 436 00:24:06,760 --> 00:24:08,920 Speaker 1: to I've got you in check. I'm about to take 437 00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:11,240 Speaker 1: all your stones, is what he said, right right, And 438 00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:15,400 Speaker 1: and I think the root word was a taru, which 439 00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:18,640 Speaker 1: means to hit a target and uh, just a cool 440 00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:21,359 Speaker 1: sounding name, like it jumped out at him at the time. 441 00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:25,600 Speaker 1: It's like, I like it, right, And they they create 442 00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:29,800 Speaker 1: some common stock, which collectively would value the company at 443 00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:33,520 Speaker 1: about seventy five thousand dollars, big jump from the seven 444 00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:37,119 Speaker 1: D dollars that they had to the bank at the time. Uh. 445 00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:39,359 Speaker 1: And the famous Attari logo. I didn't put this in 446 00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:41,120 Speaker 1: the notes, but it was designed by a gay named 447 00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:45,159 Speaker 1: George Opperman. Now, according to Auberman, the two side pieces, 448 00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:47,200 Speaker 1: like if you look at the Atari logo, it's it's 449 00:24:47,560 --> 00:24:50,520 Speaker 1: got three kind of columns, the two on either side 450 00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:53,040 Speaker 1: sort of slope away. I've always wonder what that was. 451 00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:57,280 Speaker 1: It's a stylized A. So that's one thing. Some people 452 00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:00,280 Speaker 1: call it the Mount Fuji logo because I think looks 453 00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:04,400 Speaker 1: like Mount Fuji. Opperman says. The two side pieces represented 454 00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:08,000 Speaker 1: opposing players in the middle straight section represented the center 455 00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:11,720 Speaker 1: line in pong, which is kind of cool. The whole 456 00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:14,480 Speaker 1: logo was that stylized day and Apperman was the in 457 00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:16,600 Speaker 1: house artist for Atari and created a lot of the 458 00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:20,960 Speaker 1: art that the arcade cabinets were you were sporting. Well, 459 00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:23,800 Speaker 1: it's certainly iconic now, you know, Yeah, you see that 460 00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:25,919 Speaker 1: logo and it just for guy's our age, that just 461 00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:27,920 Speaker 1: really conjures up a lot. Well. Yeah, and he and 462 00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:31,919 Speaker 1: he had a big influence on that early artwork of Atari, 463 00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:34,679 Speaker 1: especially in the arcade world. He would sadly pass away 464 00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:40,160 Speaker 1: in nineteen Yeah, only fifty years old, I think. Um. 465 00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:44,160 Speaker 1: But also in June of that year, Al Alcorn, who 466 00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:48,520 Speaker 1: had worked at Ampex, he joins Atari and he begins 467 00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:52,440 Speaker 1: working on one of Atari's biggest hits, Pong, which is 468 00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:55,639 Speaker 1: odd in a way. It's odd for a couple of reasons, 469 00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:59,000 Speaker 1: the biggest one being no one ever intended Pong to 470 00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:01,720 Speaker 1: be a hit. Yeah. Bushnell at the time was working 471 00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:05,720 Speaker 1: on a driving game. He said that was really hard. Uh, 472 00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:07,720 Speaker 1: driving games still are, I think one of the tougher 473 00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:10,439 Speaker 1: ones to get right to really nail. Yeah, And he 474 00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:13,200 Speaker 1: said he hired Alcorn and was like, well, I just 475 00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:15,320 Speaker 1: wanted to give him a little test to see how 476 00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:17,600 Speaker 1: good he was, because I wasn't gonna throw him on 477 00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:20,399 Speaker 1: this driving game right away up for failure. Can you 478 00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:24,760 Speaker 1: program using this circuit that damn produced, right, And because 479 00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:26,960 Speaker 1: this is this is a whole new thing, like the 480 00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:31,800 Speaker 1: designing games using this circuit that had been pioneered for 481 00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:37,520 Speaker 1: the computer space games. So uh, you know, Alcorn takes 482 00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:41,240 Speaker 1: this concept and he works on on pawing and unlike 483 00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:44,720 Speaker 1: the earlier table tennis electronic games, this one had sound. 484 00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:48,680 Speaker 1: It sounds so silly, but it was a huge difference 485 00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:53,560 Speaker 1: to actually hear that little boom and uh, it had 486 00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:57,560 Speaker 1: a few other noteworthy characteristics to differentiate it that also 487 00:26:57,680 --> 00:27:00,200 Speaker 1: sound a little bit like of course, but it really 488 00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:02,800 Speaker 1: made a big difference. The ball sped up as you 489 00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:06,920 Speaker 1: played the game, which was a huge, huge difference. Um. 490 00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:10,000 Speaker 1: And then you talked about some of these sort of 491 00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:13,359 Speaker 1: happy accidents. One of them occurred with Pong. There was 492 00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:15,520 Speaker 1: that little space at the very top and the bottom 493 00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:19,400 Speaker 1: of the screen where you couldn't block and in other words, 494 00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:21,280 Speaker 1: a game couldn't go on forever. At some point you 495 00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:23,000 Speaker 1: were going to lose it to that corner, right, so 496 00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:26,159 Speaker 1: some at some bounce, it's going to hit that trajectory 497 00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:29,080 Speaker 1: where no matter what, you can't block it. And it 498 00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:30,600 Speaker 1: just it made it more fun. And it was a 499 00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:33,600 Speaker 1: two player games, so again it'll it pitched people against 500 00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:35,800 Speaker 1: each other, just like we were talking about with combat. 501 00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:40,080 Speaker 1: That creates an experience that just invites that kind of 502 00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:43,960 Speaker 1: fun sort of you know, one upsmanship, trash talking sort 503 00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:48,359 Speaker 1: of stuff. Nothing. I don't think anyone was making, you know, 504 00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:52,119 Speaker 1: horrible uh statements like you hear on something like Xbox 505 00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:55,440 Speaker 1: Live because you're in person, next to the next to whomever. 506 00:27:56,160 --> 00:28:00,000 Speaker 1: But it also was a much simpler game. It was 507 00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:04,120 Speaker 1: easy to grasp, the controls were simple. Everyone who saw 508 00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:08,720 Speaker 1: it knew exactly what the gameplay went, so it had 509 00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:12,280 Speaker 1: far greater appeal than something that was much more dense 510 00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:15,359 Speaker 1: like computer space. Yeah. And the name obviously comes from 511 00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:17,960 Speaker 1: Ping pong, but they couldn't call it ping pong, and 512 00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:20,679 Speaker 1: they couldn't call it ping because of the golf clubs, 513 00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:24,200 Speaker 1: and so Pong was just sort of the no brainer. Yeah. 514 00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:29,960 Speaker 1: So the first Pong game was installed in a tavern, 515 00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:32,960 Speaker 1: Andy Taps tavern. Yeah. I look that up to see 516 00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:35,440 Speaker 1: if it's still existed, and I don't think it does. Sad. 517 00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:38,640 Speaker 1: Uh So the original Pong was black and white, had 518 00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:41,400 Speaker 1: a black and white television for a screen, and people 519 00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:43,840 Speaker 1: would come in and play even if they weren't planning 520 00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:47,480 Speaker 1: on buying anything to eat or drink. It became a 521 00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:52,800 Speaker 1: destination game. Yeah, to the point where I read that 522 00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:57,360 Speaker 1: early in the game's life, they got a call saying, hey, 523 00:28:57,480 --> 00:28:59,040 Speaker 1: the game's not working. You need to come out here 524 00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:01,120 Speaker 1: in service its like amount to find out what was wrong. 525 00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:03,320 Speaker 1: And what was wrong was that they were using an 526 00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:07,240 Speaker 1: old milk jug to catch the coins inside the cabinet, 527 00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:10,120 Speaker 1: and the milk jug had filled to overflowing and no 528 00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:12,560 Speaker 1: more coins could come in, so the game was malfunctioned. 529 00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:15,959 Speaker 1: Great story. We had to empty the coins from the 530 00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:18,800 Speaker 1: things that they could play it. Uh and uh. It 531 00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:21,240 Speaker 1: was kind of interesting like this we'll talk more about 532 00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:24,520 Speaker 1: in the second. But the the plan was that in 533 00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:29,040 Speaker 1: order to give an incentive to businesses to buy into 534 00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:32,200 Speaker 1: the arcade games, they said, all right, well we will 535 00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:36,200 Speaker 1: split revenue down the middle, goes to you, comes to us, 536 00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:39,720 Speaker 1: which literally we will count out the quarters and we 537 00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:42,480 Speaker 1: will get half of them. And they literally went from 538 00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:45,960 Speaker 1: place to place employees of Atari picking up sack fulls 539 00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:48,880 Speaker 1: of quarters at the end of every year, possibly suffering 540 00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:52,920 Speaker 1: enormous back pain, one of whom apparently carried a roofing 541 00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:56,720 Speaker 1: hatchet for protection. Um but they were bringing in They 542 00:29:56,760 --> 00:29:59,440 Speaker 1: said a single unit typically would earn about forty dollars 543 00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:04,160 Speaker 1: a day, which is over two hundred and twenty dollars today, um, 544 00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:07,880 Speaker 1: which is that's fantastic for the first thing of its kind. 545 00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:13,400 Speaker 1: And um it said that they believe machines were ordered 546 00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:16,640 Speaker 1: by the end of nineteen seventy three. By nineteen seventy four, 547 00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:19,640 Speaker 1: over eight thousand of these were all over the country 548 00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:22,000 Speaker 1: now and abroad, I think at this point, yeah, and 549 00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:26,120 Speaker 1: keep in mind these are like, you know, a grand apiece, 550 00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:30,600 Speaker 1: and they're getting there, getting this this all of the 551 00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:33,719 Speaker 1: money at this point because originally they went to uh 552 00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:35,640 Speaker 1: Nutting and said do you want to do this? And 553 00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:37,200 Speaker 1: they thought, well, no, we don't really want to work 554 00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:38,920 Speaker 1: with Nutting anymore. We want to be able to do 555 00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,400 Speaker 1: this with someone else. They they started shopping around to 556 00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:44,400 Speaker 1: see if they could work with a different distributor of 557 00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:46,840 Speaker 1: of games, like like the kind of games you would 558 00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,400 Speaker 1: find at an amusement park. So they look at Bally 559 00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:52,640 Speaker 1: because Bally of course was famous for their pinball as 560 00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:54,320 Speaker 1: well as there are other there are other games that 561 00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:59,800 Speaker 1: they were pioneering in, but Bally wasn't wasn't sold on 562 00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:04,960 Speaker 1: the idea pong. They wanted Atari to make a game 563 00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:06,600 Speaker 1: for them. In fact, a couple of games one would 564 00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:08,400 Speaker 1: be a pinball game and one would be a video game, 565 00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:12,640 Speaker 1: but they weren't interested in Pong, and ultimately the guys 566 00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:15,880 Speaker 1: that Attari decided, you know what, we're gonna do this ourselves. 567 00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:19,760 Speaker 1: But it was a huge, huge jump for them, you know, 568 00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:22,480 Speaker 1: they didn't have the background of manufacturing. No, it turned 569 00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:24,320 Speaker 1: out to be a great move though. Yeah, no, it's 570 00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:28,320 Speaker 1: absolutely it. It really set them for success for at 571 00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:32,920 Speaker 1: least the next couple of years. So some interesting things 572 00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:35,200 Speaker 1: happened in nineteen seventy three. At the tail end of 573 00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:38,240 Speaker 1: seventy two, Atari would file a patent for Pong. Now 574 00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:40,640 Speaker 1: keep in mind that when you file a patent it 575 00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:43,960 Speaker 1: can take years before you get you know that approved 576 00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:46,120 Speaker 1: or declined. And it was already released at this point 577 00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:49,280 Speaker 1: when they filed. Yes, they didn't pre file, right, so 578 00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:52,800 Speaker 1: they file after the games already released. Uh. In nineteen 579 00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:55,160 Speaker 1: seventy three, they do something that at first I was 580 00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:57,920 Speaker 1: confused about until I read more details, which is that 581 00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:03,840 Speaker 1: they established a second company called Key Games k E. Yeah, 582 00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:07,160 Speaker 1: I didn't quite understand this all right, So they set 583 00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:10,600 Speaker 1: up a second company that's essentially appears to be a 584 00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:13,280 Speaker 1: competitor to Atari, not just a competitor, but they are 585 00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:19,960 Speaker 1: producing knockoffs of Atari games. And here's the reason why. 586 00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:24,920 Speaker 1: There are rules for certain types of companies where they 587 00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:28,720 Speaker 1: can only work with a single distributor. So if they 588 00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:32,360 Speaker 1: create a title and and enter an agreement with that distributor, 589 00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:35,200 Speaker 1: all of their titles have to go through that distributor. 590 00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:40,160 Speaker 1: So it limits the options of the company producing the games. 591 00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:43,920 Speaker 1: By creating this second company, they could produce the exact 592 00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:48,479 Speaker 1: same games with a different name under the name of 593 00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:52,080 Speaker 1: this other dummy corporation. Practically it's a little more than 594 00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:55,320 Speaker 1: a dummy corporation, but not much more, and then offer 595 00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,640 Speaker 1: that to different distributors. Makes sense, So it opens up 596 00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:01,040 Speaker 1: a lot of options. So a little bit of yeah, 597 00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:03,840 Speaker 1: a little little little uh spoken mirrors a little bit 598 00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:07,240 Speaker 1: of guests, which cut the ball is under some stuff, 599 00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:11,280 Speaker 1: and so you know, it was the way of getting 600 00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:14,720 Speaker 1: around that. Bushnell, by the way, clearly very savvy when 601 00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:21,760 Speaker 1: it comes to working. Meanwhile, Long is going crazy. Yeah, 602 00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:24,640 Speaker 1: it's going crazy for for many reasons that we already 603 00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:27,600 Speaker 1: talked about. But um, another big reason I saw the 604 00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:30,840 Speaker 1: interview with Bushnell said is that women were very good 605 00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:34,760 Speaker 1: at it for some reason, and it appealed to women, 606 00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:38,320 Speaker 1: and it was the first UM I guess sort of 607 00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:40,920 Speaker 1: the first time he said that women felt comfortable going 608 00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:42,880 Speaker 1: up to a man in a bar and say, hey, 609 00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:44,560 Speaker 1: you know, do you want to play this game with me? 610 00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:47,320 Speaker 1: And he said that made a big difference. It appealed 611 00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:50,800 Speaker 1: to both sexes and um and it also brought it 612 00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:53,320 Speaker 1: down as the this great I g N article says 613 00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:56,680 Speaker 1: to you know, where real people congregated. It brought it 614 00:33:56,720 --> 00:34:00,200 Speaker 1: into the bars, into the bowling alleys. And it wasn't 615 00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:03,240 Speaker 1: like you know, engineering students exactly. It wasn't. It wasn't 616 00:34:03,360 --> 00:34:06,560 Speaker 1: some computer lab where you had to have uh, you know, 617 00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:09,919 Speaker 1: student access to get there. We've got more to say 618 00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:12,000 Speaker 1: about Atari in just a moment, but we're going to 619 00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:23,279 Speaker 1: take a quick break. Another interesting thing that happened in 620 00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:28,360 Speaker 1: nine was that they got a new space for putting 621 00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:30,880 Speaker 1: together their pong machines. Did you hear about this? The 622 00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:34,840 Speaker 1: ten thousand square foot space they got. So there was 623 00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:39,240 Speaker 1: one story that Dabney told about how originally the little 624 00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:42,080 Speaker 1: space they were in they found out that their neighbor 625 00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:46,399 Speaker 1: had stopped paying rent and essentially scaddled. So they cut 626 00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:49,920 Speaker 1: a hole in the wall and used the next door space, 627 00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:52,640 Speaker 1: but even that wasn't big enough because then they were like, well, 628 00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:54,360 Speaker 1: what happens when we get caught as well, we'll just 629 00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:56,759 Speaker 1: ask how much we owe them, like when they when 630 00:34:56,760 --> 00:34:58,800 Speaker 1: we get caught, we'll we'll pay for it, but until 631 00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:01,719 Speaker 1: then we won't. Um. But then they decided that they 632 00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:07,400 Speaker 1: would lease a space and they found an a business 633 00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:09,400 Speaker 1: that was no longer doing this. It was ten thousand 634 00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:13,000 Speaker 1: square foot roller rink and they turned it into their 635 00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:19,360 Speaker 1: manufacturing center for pong. Yeah, and then there's the story 636 00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:24,640 Speaker 1: about how that that that signed guest thing comes back 637 00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:28,560 Speaker 1: to Hank and see Magnavox a patent, yes, for electronic 638 00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:31,640 Speaker 1: table tennis, so Atari did not have a patent for pong. 639 00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:36,040 Speaker 1: Magnavox had a patent for electronic table tennis. And this 640 00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:40,160 Speaker 1: starts to raise some important conversations between the two where 641 00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:44,000 Speaker 1: Magnavox is looking at pong and saying, that's our game, 642 00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:48,520 Speaker 1: so we're going to go after these guys. Meanwhile, Bushnell 643 00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:51,879 Speaker 1: buys out Ted Dabney from the company. Depending upon whom 644 00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:54,000 Speaker 1: you asked, Abney sometimes just says no, I was just 645 00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:57,240 Speaker 1: kind of canned. Yeah. He says that he was forced 646 00:35:57,239 --> 00:35:59,880 Speaker 1: out basically that his old friend came up to him 647 00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:04,120 Speaker 1: basically said, um, if you don't accept this buy out, 648 00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:07,960 Speaker 1: then I'm going to take all the assets over to 649 00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:11,359 Speaker 1: a different company and you're you'll be left with nothing. Right, 650 00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:13,680 Speaker 1: So he took the opportunity to get bought out. I 651 00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:16,319 Speaker 1: didn't see numbers. Yeah, I didn't either. I don't think 652 00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:19,319 Speaker 1: anyone has ever about it. It It sounds like, yeah, the 653 00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:24,080 Speaker 1: the interview, definitely he portrays Bushnell as misrepresenting the truth. 654 00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:26,880 Speaker 1: Let's say, that's a very kind way of putting it. 655 00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:28,799 Speaker 1: And I haven't heard Bushnell talk much about it. He 656 00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:32,520 Speaker 1: seems to, I don't know, gloss over that or least 657 00:36:32,560 --> 00:36:36,080 Speaker 1: not even address it's from what I've seen. Well. Uh. 658 00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:38,759 Speaker 1: Nineteen seventy three was also when Atari got a new 659 00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:41,520 Speaker 1: hire in the electrical engineering department. You may have heard 660 00:36:41,560 --> 00:36:44,640 Speaker 1: of him. His name is Steve Jobs. So Steve Jobs 661 00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:47,279 Speaker 1: joins Atari in nineteen seventy three, and by the end 662 00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:51,200 Speaker 1: of the year, Key Games in Atari, which remember are 663 00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:55,160 Speaker 1: really being operated simultaneously by the same heads of people, 664 00:36:55,680 --> 00:36:58,959 Speaker 1: into a licensing agreement for ATRII to produce a version 665 00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:04,920 Speaker 1: of the game Emanation, which was key games first first title. Yeah, 666 00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:07,640 Speaker 1: and by the way, can you guess do you want 667 00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:10,640 Speaker 1: to guess what the game elimination was? The title makes 668 00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:15,759 Speaker 1: it sound like it's something terrible. It was not. It 669 00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:18,479 Speaker 1: was not. It was a four player version of Pong, 670 00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:23,120 Speaker 1: and so uh, the Atari version would become known as Quadrupong. 671 00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:26,840 Speaker 1: So it's funny that Atari is licensing a game that 672 00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:31,440 Speaker 1: essentially the same folks had developed, right Like, it's all again, 673 00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:34,200 Speaker 1: it's all this sort of shell game going on. So 674 00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:36,200 Speaker 1: moving up to nineteen seventy four, this is where we 675 00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:39,560 Speaker 1: start seeing the Magnavox thing come to a head. The 676 00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:43,880 Speaker 1: inventor Ralph Bayer convinces Magnavox to sue Atari, claiming that 677 00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:47,600 Speaker 1: the company copied the electronic table tennis game from the Odyssey, 678 00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:52,160 Speaker 1: which they did, Yeah, pretty much, and Bushnell basically comes up. 679 00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:54,520 Speaker 1: The guy makes all the right moves, it seems like 680 00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:58,200 Speaker 1: for a while. Yeah. Um. He basically says, you know what, 681 00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:02,760 Speaker 1: we'll settle for some money and will become a licensee 682 00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:05,440 Speaker 1: so you don't have to worry about us. You go 683 00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:08,640 Speaker 1: and sue everybody else because Paul was getting knocked off 684 00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:11,200 Speaker 1: all over the place and you spend all your time 685 00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:12,920 Speaker 1: doing that. We'll settle for some money. We'll be a 686 00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:17,160 Speaker 1: licensee and we'll make that and some other Magnavox some 687 00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:20,799 Speaker 1: titles and just don't worry about us anymore. And Magnavox 688 00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:23,560 Speaker 1: is like, all right, yeah, it was good to me, brilliant. 689 00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:26,680 Speaker 1: I mean, they no longer a Torii, no longer has 690 00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:29,279 Speaker 1: to go after these copycats because Magnavox is going to 691 00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:32,239 Speaker 1: do it on their behalf and they're not being uh 692 00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:36,000 Speaker 1: come after for Magna. Yeah. So the settlement shield basically 693 00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:39,399 Speaker 1: exactly a settlement amount. We don't it's not publicized, but 694 00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:41,879 Speaker 1: according to different accounts, it could be anywhere between four 695 00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:45,600 Speaker 1: thousand dollars and a million bucks. So not change. Yeah, 696 00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:49,080 Speaker 1: but still when you when you know now you've got 697 00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:51,759 Speaker 1: like your big brother looking out for you, you don't know, 698 00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:54,640 Speaker 1: they can just make money now exactly. It freed them 699 00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:57,799 Speaker 1: up to be super creative. Uh, And that's what they 700 00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:01,160 Speaker 1: started doing right away pretty much. And this is also 701 00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:03,719 Speaker 1: the year Dabney, who had who had left buys the 702 00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:07,680 Speaker 1: name the rights to the name scissor Gy Game Company 703 00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:11,120 Speaker 1: from Atari. Uh. And then he also would leave the 704 00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:14,080 Speaker 1: board of directors in nineteen seventy four, which was his 705 00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:17,440 Speaker 1: last connection to the company that by that time, Dabney's 706 00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:22,120 Speaker 1: connections are now severed. Uh. And then meanwhile, Key Games 707 00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:26,480 Speaker 1: releases its first original game called Tank, which ends up 708 00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:31,120 Speaker 1: being a massive hit. Uh. And then so such a 709 00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:35,759 Speaker 1: big hit, keep in my nineteen Tank comes out. The 710 00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:38,520 Speaker 1: demand is so high they go ahead and develop and 711 00:39:38,560 --> 00:39:41,520 Speaker 1: produced Tank two in that same year. Like you think 712 00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:44,160 Speaker 1: about how video games are produced, and now, granted it's 713 00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:46,239 Speaker 1: a totally different ball game these days, but the way 714 00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:48,400 Speaker 1: video games are produced these days, they go in for 715 00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:51,080 Speaker 1: years of development. If you get a game, and you 716 00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:54,680 Speaker 1: won't expect a sequel for several years to come, unless 717 00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:57,520 Speaker 1: with a few exceptions like the Assassin's Creed series appears 718 00:39:57,560 --> 00:39:59,840 Speaker 1: to have a sequel come out every few months. U 719 00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:02,560 Speaker 1: certain sports franchise games obviously those are gonna come out 720 00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:07,520 Speaker 1: each year to reflect the change. Yeah, but most most games, 721 00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:10,160 Speaker 1: you know, you end up waiting years between sequels. But 722 00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:13,560 Speaker 1: this is where things are just moving at a furious pace. 723 00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:15,960 Speaker 1: Now that we have the home version of Pong yet 724 00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:19,880 Speaker 1: not well, there were some early home versions. There was 725 00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:23,360 Speaker 1: one that was being developed at this time and actually 726 00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:25,880 Speaker 1: did come out. Yeah, so there were actually two different 727 00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:29,680 Speaker 1: versions of that, right, Sears licensed it. I had that one, 728 00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:32,719 Speaker 1: So you had the Sears version of Pons Yeah, and 729 00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:35,040 Speaker 1: then there was a second one that was marketed under 730 00:40:35,080 --> 00:40:37,319 Speaker 1: the Atari name. So again it was weird because it 731 00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:40,160 Speaker 1: almost felt like Atari was competing against itself and had 732 00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:42,759 Speaker 1: two different versions of the same thing on the market. Yeah. Well, 733 00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:44,600 Speaker 1: because they didn't have that patent yet, I think, so 734 00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:48,160 Speaker 1: Sears was the distributor and they had their own version. Yeah, 735 00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:50,880 Speaker 1: and I think that I think the other versions outsold 736 00:40:50,960 --> 00:40:53,080 Speaker 1: the official Pong version. Oh yeah, the Atari. I think 737 00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:56,560 Speaker 1: Atari had like fifty thousand of them on the market 738 00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:58,920 Speaker 1: and Sears had a hundred and fifty thousand of them. 739 00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:02,920 Speaker 1: Those you know, easily eclipsing it. But yeah, that ended 740 00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:06,000 Speaker 1: up being a big hit that would come out in nineteen. 741 00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:10,400 Speaker 1: It was limited to only playing the Pong games there was. 742 00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:14,440 Speaker 1: This was not a cartridge. Yeah, so it's all again 743 00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:20,600 Speaker 1: it's hard coded into the console, right. Yeah. I I 744 00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:24,080 Speaker 1: had UM. I don't I had I had one that 745 00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:26,520 Speaker 1: was I don't think it was Pong UM and I 746 00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:28,959 Speaker 1: don't think it was. It wasn't the Magnavox Odyssey because 747 00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:31,880 Speaker 1: I seemed to remember there were sound effects. But I 748 00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:36,840 Speaker 1: did have one that was the collection of essentially variations 749 00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:39,640 Speaker 1: on pong. Pong was one, but you also had racquetball, 750 00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:43,600 Speaker 1: which was pong but way faster. Um. Then there was 751 00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:46,120 Speaker 1: one that was basketball that was essentially pong, but it 752 00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:49,840 Speaker 1: was turned so that both paddles were maybe two inches 753 00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:52,880 Speaker 1: above the bottom line, and then you had like little 754 00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:57,719 Speaker 1: lines that represented goals. Yeah, like there was there's a 755 00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:00,880 Speaker 1: whole selection of these style games. They're all variations on 756 00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,640 Speaker 1: around exactly. So I had one of those. I don't 757 00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:07,160 Speaker 1: know if hey, listeners, if you know what I'm talking 758 00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:09,959 Speaker 1: about and you think, oh, that sounds like the blah 759 00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:13,600 Speaker 1: blah blah, yeah, you just let me know. Um. But 760 00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:17,960 Speaker 1: this is also around the time when Atari would announce 761 00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:22,759 Speaker 1: the acquisition of Key Games. How did that work out? 762 00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:27,759 Speaker 1: Tory buys its own company for Joe Keenan became Joe Keenan, 763 00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:30,160 Speaker 1: who remember was the head of Key Games. He's also 764 00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:34,560 Speaker 1: Bushnell's neighbor. Yeah. According to the story, Dabney Tody says, yeah. 765 00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:38,319 Speaker 1: Bushnell says he walked up to Joe one day when 766 00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:40,080 Speaker 1: Joe was mowing his lawn, said, Hey, would you like 767 00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:42,960 Speaker 1: to run a company that looks like it's competing against me, 768 00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:47,319 Speaker 1: I basically need a shell company owner because I have 769 00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:49,719 Speaker 1: a company. But Joe Keenan would actually become the new 770 00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:53,000 Speaker 1: president of Attari and Nolan Bushnell was becomes the chairman 771 00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:55,560 Speaker 1: of of Atari Crazy. And this is also when a 772 00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:59,360 Speaker 1: Tory starts working on a project code named Stella. Yeah, 773 00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:02,839 Speaker 1: this is change everything again a home market approach. So 774 00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:06,799 Speaker 1: two developments make this possible. One is the production of 775 00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:10,200 Speaker 1: a microchip called the Moss technology six oh five to 776 00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:14,960 Speaker 1: micro processor uh. And then the other one was creating 777 00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:19,680 Speaker 1: the methodology of storing games on ROM cartridges. ROM stands 778 00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:23,920 Speaker 1: for read only memory. So this is why if you 779 00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:28,000 Speaker 1: had one of those old cartridge based systems, UH, they 780 00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:30,680 Speaker 1: wouldn't let you do things like keep track of your 781 00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:33,680 Speaker 1: high score. For example, like you plug your cartridge gen 782 00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:36,239 Speaker 1: and you could get a high score. But as soon 783 00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:38,840 Speaker 1: as you turned the machine off, that's a race because 784 00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:43,440 Speaker 1: it was read only memory couldn't write anything. So the 785 00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:47,239 Speaker 1: console would have all the stuff that would allow it 786 00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:51,120 Speaker 1: to accept these cartridges. But the beauty of it was 787 00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:54,800 Speaker 1: you were not limited to a select number of titles. 788 00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:56,759 Speaker 1: As long as more cartridges would come out, you could 789 00:43:56,760 --> 00:43:59,520 Speaker 1: play different games. Yeah, and UH, you know we should 790 00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:04,680 Speaker 1: set this in here. In the early to mid nineteen seventies, Um, 791 00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:08,560 Speaker 1: there was not a lot of options as a child. Um, 792 00:44:08,600 --> 00:44:12,560 Speaker 1: you had crappy handheld games, yer electronics type stuff. Yep. 793 00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:15,560 Speaker 1: You had, um a few TV channels that you could 794 00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:17,920 Speaker 1: watch three maybe four if you could get a UHF 795 00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:23,040 Speaker 1: station its pre Fox even Yeah, just the big three, ABC, NBC, 796 00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:25,880 Speaker 1: and CBS. UM, and there were you know, all the 797 00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:28,680 Speaker 1: all the games were like uh, you know, there were 798 00:44:28,680 --> 00:44:32,120 Speaker 1: card games and and you know, or actually playing outside 799 00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:35,680 Speaker 1: with your friends, which was great, but but there was 800 00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:39,280 Speaker 1: not a lot. There weren't many options. So home computing 801 00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:43,560 Speaker 1: in the home video console was to call it revolutionary. 802 00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:45,719 Speaker 1: There isn't a word big enough to call it what 803 00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:48,040 Speaker 1: it was, right, And so keep in mind this is 804 00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:51,840 Speaker 1: this is the dawn of two eras that are coming 805 00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:55,200 Speaker 1: about at the same time. They're both about to change 806 00:44:55,840 --> 00:45:00,560 Speaker 1: children's worlds forever. One is that the r acade is 807 00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:04,000 Speaker 1: on the horizon, like not not not just the you know, 808 00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:07,359 Speaker 1: occasional game in a bar or restaurant or bowling out. Yeah, 809 00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:09,400 Speaker 1: and they had arcades previously, but like we said, it 810 00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:12,439 Speaker 1: was pinball and yeah, skee ball and stuff like that. Right, 811 00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:15,440 Speaker 1: So the video the video arcade is just about to 812 00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:18,360 Speaker 1: come to pass, and the home video game market is 813 00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:21,879 Speaker 1: about to come to pass. Suddenly we have way more 814 00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:25,359 Speaker 1: options than uh, you know, finding out who's really good 815 00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:28,000 Speaker 1: at getting hit with a stick? That was That was 816 00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:30,560 Speaker 1: my favorite game as a kid. I was really good 817 00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:32,400 Speaker 1: at that game. I could get hit by a stick 818 00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:38,200 Speaker 1: like crazy. Uh So, nineteen seventies six, we get a 819 00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:44,560 Speaker 1: game coming out from Atari called Breakout. Yeah designed, um, well, 820 00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:47,800 Speaker 1: we thought it was designed and perfected by Steve Jobs 821 00:45:47,840 --> 00:45:51,120 Speaker 1: because he was the employee assigned to that job. Yeah, 822 00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:55,480 Speaker 1: Bushnell and Bristow. Steve Bristow, who was another employee of Atari, 823 00:45:55,600 --> 00:45:57,560 Speaker 1: came up with the concept and gave it to Steve 824 00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:00,040 Speaker 1: Jobs and said, make this thing that we thought on 825 00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:04,920 Speaker 1: of essentially kind of a racquetball style game. And so 826 00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:08,480 Speaker 1: Jobs goes back, does some work, comes back with a 827 00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:11,080 Speaker 1: circuit board and says I did it, and they hook 828 00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:13,680 Speaker 1: it up. They're like, wow, this is great. Yeah, in fact, 829 00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:15,839 Speaker 1: it's so great. You have done such a good job 830 00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:19,319 Speaker 1: designing this where you've created a really efficient system like 831 00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:20,879 Speaker 1: we would have thought that you would have to use, 832 00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:24,399 Speaker 1: you know, a dozen or more other processors. To get 833 00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:27,719 Speaker 1: this done, but you've managed to make a really elegant 834 00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:30,160 Speaker 1: solution to it. We're going to give you a bonus. 835 00:46:30,200 --> 00:46:32,680 Speaker 1: Here's an extra five grand. Yeah. And he was like 836 00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:36,920 Speaker 1: a uh yeah. And that friend was it was maybe 837 00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:39,279 Speaker 1: a little bit more responsible than I let on. Yeah, 838 00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:41,919 Speaker 1: there's this guy I know. I went to college with him. 839 00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:44,440 Speaker 1: He works for HP. His name is Steve. Wasn't he 840 00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:48,239 Speaker 1: was really good at this stuff. He made this thing, so, yeah, 841 00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:52,759 Speaker 1: wasn't he act actually built the integrated circuit that was 842 00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:55,640 Speaker 1: used in Breakout, and Breakout was and it is still 843 00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:58,160 Speaker 1: a great game. It's another one of those that holds up. 844 00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:02,480 Speaker 1: It really does very challenging eight gameplay. It's still a challenge. 845 00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:05,080 Speaker 1: And then uh, and then as soon as the success 846 00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:07,520 Speaker 1: hit Jobs, he said, all right, guys, see you that 847 00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:10,600 Speaker 1: he and Wozniak and a person who was one of 848 00:47:10,640 --> 00:47:14,879 Speaker 1: the um developers over at Atari all go to form 849 00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:17,680 Speaker 1: a little company called Apple. That's right. It took them 850 00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:20,520 Speaker 1: a couple of years to get things going, but they, 851 00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:23,680 Speaker 1: of course would end up kind of repeating the success 852 00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:26,279 Speaker 1: that Attari was seeing in the video game market with 853 00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:31,399 Speaker 1: the personal computer market. So in a way, you could 854 00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:34,640 Speaker 1: think of Atari as being at least partially responsible not 855 00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:38,240 Speaker 1: just for the video game industry, but also the personal 856 00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:45,120 Speaker 1: computer industry, because otherwise jobs might not have had the 857 00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:47,960 Speaker 1: the inspiration in the capital to really go out and say, 858 00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:51,560 Speaker 1: let's do this thing. So it's kind of cool. Um Bushnell, 859 00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:55,799 Speaker 1: by the way, decides he is time, it's ready, he's 860 00:47:55,840 --> 00:47:58,360 Speaker 1: ready to cash out. Well, yeah, I mean one of 861 00:47:58,400 --> 00:48:01,319 Speaker 1: the problems was they they had this great idea for 862 00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:05,600 Speaker 1: the vcs or what would become the AT and they 863 00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:08,400 Speaker 1: couldn't really fund it to the extent that they needed 864 00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:11,759 Speaker 1: to scale this thing, and so he wanted to cash out, 865 00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:16,759 Speaker 1: cash in and just have a little more uh backing basically, 866 00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:21,320 Speaker 1: and so he made the well it's pretty interesting decision 867 00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:23,520 Speaker 1: in the long run to sell to warners. Yeah, he 868 00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:27,560 Speaker 1: sells to Warrant Communications for twenty eight million dollars. He 869 00:48:27,680 --> 00:48:30,279 Speaker 1: walks away with fifteen million of that. Yeah, and they 870 00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:32,200 Speaker 1: all of a sudden. Um. I saw an interview with 871 00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:35,000 Speaker 1: al Alcorn that was he was like, we had real 872 00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:36,960 Speaker 1: money in the bank for the first time. He said, 873 00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:41,759 Speaker 1: we had backing, and we had we felt safe. But um, 874 00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:45,920 Speaker 1: here's the problem. Atari was a a very fun company 875 00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:50,480 Speaker 1: to work for, likely like, have you seen Wolf of 876 00:48:50,520 --> 00:48:53,520 Speaker 1: Wall Street? Because I have a feeling that was really 877 00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:57,160 Speaker 1: was They said, Um, there were a lot of marijuana smoking. 878 00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:01,440 Speaker 1: They called an MRB session Marijuana Review you Board. Um, 879 00:49:01,520 --> 00:49:04,000 Speaker 1: he said. One of the developers in the interview that 880 00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:05,799 Speaker 1: I saw today said, we basically sit around and get 881 00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:10,200 Speaker 1: high and brainstorm games. Um. They said it was the 882 00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:12,120 Speaker 1: day's for sexual harassment. There were a lot of people 883 00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:13,600 Speaker 1: going home with each other in the end of the night, 884 00:49:14,440 --> 00:49:16,759 Speaker 1: and then cocaine came onto the scene. Another thing to 885 00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:19,640 Speaker 1: think about is a lot of these game consoles, if 886 00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:22,439 Speaker 1: you or the different projects they have, if you look, 887 00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:25,840 Speaker 1: a lot of the the code names are women's names, 888 00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:28,360 Speaker 1: and according to most of the interviews i've I've seen, 889 00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:33,680 Speaker 1: the names were picked from attractive ladies who were receptionists 890 00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:38,440 Speaker 1: or secretaries at Atari. Yeah. Really, you know, forward thinking, 891 00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:43,759 Speaker 1: classy type stuff. At any rate, you know, Warner Is well, 892 00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:46,480 Speaker 1: they changed everything. They're a big corporation. Yeah, that you 893 00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:48,799 Speaker 1: couldn't come and go as you pleased anymore. They would 894 00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:52,200 Speaker 1: talk about the way they dressed. Um, you were you know, 895 00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:54,520 Speaker 1: like I said, you were responsible for being there at 896 00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:56,440 Speaker 1: a certain time every day and leaving at a certain time, 897 00:49:56,480 --> 00:50:01,360 Speaker 1: and that did not fly with these creative startup right. Yeah, 898 00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:05,200 Speaker 1: so it caused a lot of tension. Meanwhile, Bushnell would 899 00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:08,440 Speaker 1: go off to finally really work on a project he 900 00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:11,239 Speaker 1: had been thinking about since the early seventies, something that 901 00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:13,600 Speaker 1: he really wanted to do. He had this idea of 902 00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:17,359 Speaker 1: creating a destination for families to be like just a 903 00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:22,120 Speaker 1: money making machine, a pizza parlor where you would have 904 00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:26,720 Speaker 1: entertainment and electronic games and other like Midway style games, 905 00:50:26,960 --> 00:50:29,200 Speaker 1: and it would just be a license to print money. 906 00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:32,880 Speaker 1: And that, my friends, is how Chucky Cheese was born. Yeah, 907 00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:35,120 Speaker 1: and he um. I saw the interview with Dabney where 908 00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:36,600 Speaker 1: he was talking to him about it at first, and 909 00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:41,359 Speaker 1: Dabney was like, the pizzas crappy and in here it's like, well, 910 00:50:41,480 --> 00:50:44,359 Speaker 1: I needed to be loud and the pizza just has 911 00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:46,920 Speaker 1: to be mediocre at best. And you know what, he 912 00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:50,840 Speaker 1: was right, because the pizza was never good and every 913 00:50:50,840 --> 00:50:52,839 Speaker 1: one of us loved that place. I want I want 914 00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:55,520 Speaker 1: to do an episode at some point. Looking I don't 915 00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:57,120 Speaker 1: know if I can do it because I don't know 916 00:50:57,160 --> 00:50:58,919 Speaker 1: if it really falls into tech stuff, but I would 917 00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:01,759 Speaker 1: love to do the story of Chuck e Cheese and 918 00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:05,839 Speaker 1: Showbiz Pizza. I grew up knowing Showbiz Pizza, not Chuck 919 00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:10,560 Speaker 1: E Cheese. I remember, I remember Showbiz Pizza specifically. Yeah. Um, 920 00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:13,680 Speaker 1: And if you think the two are kind of similar, 921 00:51:13,719 --> 00:51:15,800 Speaker 1: and you were wondering, I mean, granted they both belonged 922 00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:18,120 Speaker 1: to the same entity now, yeah, but if you thought 923 00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:20,560 Speaker 1: the two were kind of similar, it's because the creators 924 00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:23,840 Speaker 1: of Showbiz Pizza originally worked on the Chuck E Cheese 925 00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:26,160 Speaker 1: and then there was a falling out in a split, 926 00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:29,400 Speaker 1: so there was another one in Atlanta called Sergeant Singers. 927 00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:34,440 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Oh my gosh, I totally forgot. Yeah. And 928 00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:37,560 Speaker 1: I had a little quick side story here. When I 929 00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:41,880 Speaker 1: was like twelve, the new it might have been Showbiz 930 00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:45,120 Speaker 1: actually opened up and for their grand opening they had 931 00:51:45,160 --> 00:51:48,040 Speaker 1: an invitation only thing that somehow my dad was an 932 00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:51,560 Speaker 1: elementary school principle that got an invitation to this and 933 00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:54,479 Speaker 1: uh to come with his kids, and you basically walk 934 00:51:54,520 --> 00:51:57,800 Speaker 1: in and everything was free that night. Wow, so free food. 935 00:51:58,120 --> 00:52:01,280 Speaker 1: They gave you to sackfuls of tokens anytime you wanted them, 936 00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:03,600 Speaker 1: and it was literally stands out as one of the 937 00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:06,719 Speaker 1: best nights of my childhood. I still remember it to 938 00:52:06,719 --> 00:52:08,439 Speaker 1: this day as being like one of the most fun 939 00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:10,160 Speaker 1: things I've ever done. I could see that. I mean, 940 00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:13,680 Speaker 1: that would that would be a dream come true. Man, 941 00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:17,080 Speaker 1: it's it blew my mind. Well, we have talked for 942 00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:19,359 Speaker 1: a long time. We've got a lot more to cover, 943 00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:21,919 Speaker 1: but in order to do that, we're going to end here. 944 00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:23,920 Speaker 1: I'm calling it now. I'm looking at the time. It's 945 00:52:23,960 --> 00:52:26,960 Speaker 1: over fifty minutes already, So tease it right before the 946 00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:29,800 Speaker 1: release of the I know, we gotta have a reason 947 00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:33,120 Speaker 1: for people to come back next week. Yeah, we've got 948 00:52:33,160 --> 00:52:35,160 Speaker 1: tons more to talk about. I mean, we haven't even 949 00:52:35,320 --> 00:52:39,960 Speaker 1: left the seventies yet, and trust me, like we've got 950 00:52:40,040 --> 00:52:43,160 Speaker 1: some drama coming up with the rise and fall of 951 00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:45,360 Speaker 1: the video game industry as a whole, not to mention 952 00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:50,560 Speaker 1: the crazy corporate shuffling of the Atari brand, which is 953 00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:54,360 Speaker 1: kind of heartbreaking. I hope you enjoyed that classic episode 954 00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:56,560 Speaker 1: about the rise and fall of Atari. Like I said, 955 00:52:56,560 --> 00:53:00,359 Speaker 1: we've got two more parts coming up covering that your ease, 956 00:53:00,719 --> 00:53:04,840 Speaker 1: So we will continue this story next week. If you 957 00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:08,080 Speaker 1: have suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes 958 00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:11,440 Speaker 1: of Tech Stuff, please reach out to me the Twitter 959 00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:14,239 Speaker 1: handle for the show is Text Stuff H s W 960 00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:23,960 Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff 961 00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:27,160 Speaker 1: is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from 962 00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:31,000 Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 963 00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:33,080 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.