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Pong |
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Manufacturer:
Atari Year: 1972 Class: Wide Release Genre: Ball and Paddle Type: Videogame Conversion Class: unique Number of Simultaneous Players: 2 Maximum number of Players: 2 Gameplay: Competitive Control Panel Layout: Multiple Player Controls:
Sound: Amplified Mono (one channel) |
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DescriptionA Table Tennis type game. Most people are familiar with it. Keep the ball in play and hope your opponent misses. Pong was released commercially released in approximately November 1972. While the 1971 Computer Space machine was the first coin-operated videogame, Pong was the first commercially successful one. The Red and Blank countertop unit was the first prototype style placed on location. The Yellow and Brown floor model is the main production style model and can still be found on a regular basis in collections and for sale.Know anything more about this game? Cabinet InformationThe original cabinet has wood sides, a flat top, and yellow wood in front of monitor. The word PONG is displayed in large black stylized letters above monitor TV glass. The instructions are as follows Insert Coin. Avoid Missing Ball for High Score.PThe first prototype cabinet was black and red and it had a cardboard bezel which hid a small, black white Hitachi TV. It was placed in Andy Capps Tavern where it sat on a barrel it was small enough to fit on a table. Pong Cocktail. This machine was not as pretty as a standard Pong cabinet and as such isnt as desired by collectors.MiscellaneousThe boards name Syzygy as the manufacturer of the game. While both IPongI and IComputer SpaceI say Syzygy Engineered on their control panels, Bushnell was not able to get the rights to this name, so Atari was chosen as the next best choice.Scarcity in collections (VAPS.org)Common - There are 22 known instances of this game owned by one of our 900 members. Of these, 21 of them are original dedicated machines, 0 of them are conversions in which game circuit boards have been placed in another game cabinet, and 1 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.Of the 42,694 video games (3,154 unique) tracked by the Video Game Preservation Society, this game ranks a 12 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most commonly seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on ownership records. Wanted - There are 6 VAPS members currently looking for this game. Rarity is NOT necessarily an indication of value. Some common games show up as very rare here because collectors don't want them (they are common because arcade operatos might be sitting on tons of them in warehouses), while some fairly scarce games are grabbed by collectors every time they show up. Additionally, some games made in the last 5 years are still making money for operators and are thus not yet affordable to the typical collector. For a clue to value, compare how many people have this game vs. how many people want this game and then click on the eBay links to help determine an accurate price range. TriviaThe legend of Nolan Bushnell and IPongI being rejected by Bally, and putting the prototype into Andy Capps Tavern, a ustic location in Sunnyvale, CA, is true at least, most of it is. According to the legend, the bartender called Al Alcorn who built the machine two days after it was installed and told him, The fing thing is broken, get it out of here When Alcorn went to check on it, he discovered that the juryrigged coin box was overflowing, preventing the mechanism from registering coins.PThe real story is that it was a polite call two weeks after it was installed, where the tavern manager, Bill Gattis, said to Alcorn, This is the weirdest thing. When I opened the bar this morning, there were two or three people at the door waiting to get in. They walked in and played that machine. They did not buy anything. I have never seen anything like this before. He suggested Alcorn should fix the machine since it had developed a following. Alcorn opened the coin box to treat himself to a free game when quarters came gushing out. He scooped up some of the quarters, put them in his pockets, gave Gattis his business card and said, Next time this happens, you call me at home right away. I can always fix this one. After that, Bushnell decided Atari would manufacture IPongI itself. Partial source Kent, Steven L., IThe First Quarter A 25Year History of Video GamesI Bothell, WA BWD Press, 2000, pp. 3536.eBay ListingsClick here to automatically search eBay's Arcade, Jukebox, and Pinball categories for the Pong Videogame machine and items related to it.Click here to automatically search eBay's Arcade, Jukebox, and Pinball categories for machines and parts made by Atari. Alternatively, check out the IAM/KLOV custom report of the hottest coin-op machines on eBay, powered by Ace.com (updated throughoutthe day).
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