Chronicle of video games (2) Pong of Atari and Breakout of Jobs

I'm glad to continue to tell you stories. In this issue, I will continue to tell you stories about video games. I hope to interpret these stories from my own perspective. If you make mistakes, you are welcome to criticize yourself (laughs).

As the founder of Atari, bushnell is indeed gifted and obsessed with video games, which seems to be arranged by heaven. ...

In college, by chance, bushnell played "Space Wars" developed by Steve Russell in the school computer lab. ",and then fell into obsession. After that, he showed great enthusiasm and soon got along well with the teachers in the laboratory and became an absolute activist. Bushnell is different from other students. He not only plays games, but also often thinks about some related problems. In his previous job, he happened to come into contact with pinball machines and gambling machines. Why are those gamblers crazy about investing money in it? Shouldn't the charm of video games be greater? Bushnell more think more excited. He just decided to start developing his own games.

Happy days are always short. Bushnell graduated, and then he joined Ampex Company as an assistant engineer. Although Ampex's main project is video recording equipment, the company does not object to employees' own creative research. Bushnell is still interested in "Space War! I am obsessed, but I am also discouraged by the high cost of computers. However, with the development of science and technology, the price of computers has gradually decreased, showing a trend of popularization. Intel also developed a microprocessor, which gave bushnell hope. He quickly took advantage of the company's convenience, got the relevant equipment, and developed an arcade product called Cyberspace at 197 1. Obviously, the game content in cyberspace is space war! An upgraded version of.

The product also successfully impressed Nutting Associates, a slot machine manufacturer. They not only bought the copyright of cyberspace, but also invited bushnell to be an engineer. Obviously, bushnell and Nutting Associates both saw the future of the combination of video games and arcades, and the prospect even far exceeded the pinball machine, but they didn't expect the market to buy it.

What is the reason? Obviously, the learning cost of "cyberspace" is too high, just like letting the elderly learn to surf the Internet with their mobile phones. Many people leave impatiently before studying, and they simply can't imagine the happiness brought by the Internet! In college, everyone played Space War! It is very popular, or because students of these related majors have their own corresponding knowledge and foundation. But different, ordinary players are different, they should step into the door of video games in a simpler way. And the original gambling machine and pinball table can attract those gamblers. Isn't it important to get started quickly? It's a pity that bushnell ignored.

Meditation, Mirova Odyssey's exhibition inspired bushnell, perhaps a way similar to "table tennis" is just what the public needs. Subsequently, the performance of table tennis was really good, which also confirmed bushnell's new thinking.

After previous failures, bushnell decided to make a comeback. After all, there must be a partner first, so bushnell found Dabney who studied electronics in the US Marine Corps. He is also an employee of Ampex, and both of them have contributed. As for technology, bushnell also recruited Alcorn, who is also an engineer at Ampex. The name of the company was originally Syzygy, but later it had to be changed because of the same name. At this time, bushnell thought about eating in Go, that is, after one player finishes playing chess, the pieces of another player will be taken away, leaving only one breath. The pronunciation of this word is very close to Atari, so the name of the company is determined.

With the efforts of several people, they made an arcade. The content of the game is like table tennis. They named it Pong, just like the sound of the ball hitting. Of course, in fact, they also want to call it directly, but the name ping-pong has already been registered. The first "Pong" was put in the local Andy Cappe bar for experiment. When customers see something novel, they can't help but try it. At that time, no one could tell the specific effect. But now that it has been done, it is necessary to promote its operation, and bushnell has been searching for partners non-stop. Unexpectedly, half a month later, the bar called to say that Pong was broken, and Alcorn was in charge of the inspection. According to the bar staff, before the bar opened, many people lined up to play Pong. When Alcorn opened the shell, he found that the game machine was broken because there were too many coins! The new currency cannot be recognized normally, and the game cannot start normally. Take out the money. This is not a real repair, but the result is exciting. Even a slow person may see that Pong will succeed!

Bushnell talked about cooperation in other places, and he was overjoyed when he heard Alcorn's report. He simply stopped looking for cooperation and came back to build his own machine! With more and more players hooked on Pong, there are more and more places to order machines. The money earned by machine manufacturing and coin sharing enabled Atari to grow rapidly. It is said that by 1973, Atari had received 2,500 orders from Pong arcade, and more than 8,000 orders flew to bushnell's desk the next year.

Perhaps because he knew that his inspiration came from table tennis, bushnell didn't apply for a patent for Pong at first, but he didn't expect knockoffs to swarm in. It is said that dozens of plagiarized products appeared in the market at the hottest time ... which directly led to the decline of Pong's market share. Of course, as we mentioned in the last issue, Mirova finally sued Atari. In response, Atari had to continue to make new games to seek a breakthrough. At this time, there was an episode, that is, Dabney, one of the founders of the company, chose to quit. It is said that there are some contradictions in decision-making. In the end, bushnell bought his own shares and became the sole shareholder.

With the popularity of Mirova Odyssey and Pong of Atari, the trend of video games has been blown up, and more manufacturers have begun to join, including Nintendo. 1977, they cooperated with Mitsubishi to launch a game machine called Color TV Game 6, which has six games built in, and naturally there are games similar to Pong. This game machine plugged into the color TV set costs 9800 yen. It is said that if sold at this price, each unit will lose 200 yen, and the final sales volume will be about 1 10,000 units. This is actually the sales strategy that Nintendo's then president Yamauchi Pu hoped to stand out among similar products. After all, there were dozens of competing products at that time, and the prices were probably above 20 thousand yen. After successfully attracting players' attention, Nintendo decisively released the color TV-Game 15. As the name implies, this game console contains 15 built-in games, and the price has also increased to 15000 yen, and the sales volume has reached about one million units, which makes Nintendo profitable. In fact, these two machines are essentially the same, both of which are color TV -Game 15, except that the selection keys of 9 of them are removed from the color TV Game 6.

1978, Nintendo wanted to strike while the iron was hot, and launched a color TV-game racing car 1 12, with a price of12,800 yen, a controller and a steering wheel. Unfortunately, because the game types are racing cars and there are not many favorite players, the sales volume is still relatively low, only about160,000 units.

Subsequently, Nintendo continued to launch a color TV at 1979-the game Block Breaker. To talk about this game on this machine, we have another story to tell.

Because this game was developed by Atari, arcade game Breakout!

Then let's push the time forward. At that time, the Atari 2600 game console had not yet been listed, and Atari's focus was more on arcades.

At this moment, an interesting thing happened. The famous Jobs came to Atari for an interview. Jobs was very tired of attending classes at that time, and Steve Wozniak, a good friend, tried to persuade him, but that didn't stop the maverick Jobs, and he decided to quit school! After returning to his hometown, Jobs began to look for a job, and the phrase "making money in pleasure" in Atari's recruitment revelation conquered him. Jobs immediately found Atari and prepared for an interview, even though he knew nothing about related technology. Unexpectedly, Alcorn decided to give Jobs a chance. He thinks Jobs is full of passion and enthusiasm, and most importantly, he is very smart.

I didn't expect Jobs to enter Atari like this. He really believed in his evil!

At first, Jobs, as an assistant, knew nothing about electronic knowledge, but he also pointed at those engineers and even was careless, which made his colleagues hate him. The longer the days go by, the more people hate Jobs, and those who want to fire him will naturally line up. ...

Although everyone was dissatisfied with Jobs' attitude, fortunately, bushnell admired the young man and even thought of a clever way to solve the contradiction between him and his colleagues, that is, to let him work at night. In the evening, Jobs began to learn to design circuit boards. As for the technical tutor, Wozniak was ready-made, knowing that Wozniak had already entered HP.

After working in this state for a period of time, Jobs asked to resign on the grounds of going to India to play. Alcorn almost scolded, it's easy for your boy to master technology. How could you just leave? But at this time, it happened that Atari had a small problem in a department in Germany, probably the change from N system to P system. Simply put, in exchange, let Jobs solve this problem first, and then let him go to India.

Fortunately, Jobs is quite reliable. After traveling for half a year, 1975 returned to Atari and continued to work the night shift. At this time, Jobs began to show his great talent. Of course, Wozniak is by no means an idle generation. His technical level is far above that of Jobs, and the two became golden partners. Alcorn has a natural taste for pearls. When bushnell wanted to develop a brick game, he decided to give the task to Jobs. By the way, Wozniak is also a true love game. He has been coming to Atari to help Jobs just to play the latest games early.

The deadline stipulated by Alcorn is one month, and the number of chips should be reduced as much as possible to reduce the cost. So Jobs, who wanted to go to the farm, was even more cruel. He simply told Wozniak that we would finish the work in four days, and then the bonus would be halved. Surprisingly, not only did they complete the original version of the game in four days, but Wozniak also reduced the number of transistor chips to 42. Jobs was satisfied with the bonus, which included $700 for completing on time and $5,000 for less than 50 chips. Of course, Jobs only told Wozniak about $700, and then gave him $350 ... Unfortunately, Atari did not adopt Wozniak's design in the end, but adopted a scheme with as many as 100 transistor chips, on the grounds that Wozniak's design was too delicate and complicated, which was not conducive to mass production.

The next story is that Jobs decided to set up a computer company in April, 1976. Of course, Wozniak is still a partner ... that's another story. Atari continued to grow, although they lost their jobs and Wozniak.

At this time, the video game market can be described as a mixed bag, and manufacturers are like big waves. Henry Bell and bushnell also competed again at that time, and of course Japanese manufacturers such as Nintendo, which we are familiar with, joined in. ...

Bell found Coleco, an American toy manufacturer, to continue to be his home, while bushnell found Warner. After he sold Atari for $26 million, he got an additional investment of $654.38 +0. 1 100 million, which led to the later Atari 2600.

Ok, let's talk next time. After all, Atari's story is not finished yet.

Thank you for reading. I hope everyone will pay more attention to the author.

Sugar cube library