PONG

Pong is undoubtedly one of the most legendary games of all time, this post is dedicated to that fact, discovering imagery, facts and oddities. As I've decided to focus solely on arcade classics this has got to be up there in the top 5 or 3...







 


Atari released the first arcade version of PONG in late 1972. The photo to the left shows the very first prototype which was placed at Andy Capp's Cavern. Soon after, Atari launched the commercial version of PONG: the famous "yellow" cabinet. Earlier specimens had silver knobs whereas later ones had black knobs.




 

The machines were numbered at the manufacturing plant and a lot of people say erratic things about the serial numbers of their machines. Nolan Buschnell (who designed Atari PONG) explained that the serials were encoded to avoid guessing how many machines were manufactured. Serials start with two same letters followed by three or four digits. The first machines to roll off the assembly line were numbered ZZ-001 through ZZ-999, then AA-001 through AA-999, then YY-001 through YY-999 and then back to BB-001 through BB-999 and so on. Thus, the very first machine had serial ZZ-001

Atari released PONG in late 1972. This game was so popular that many arcade game manufacturers began to copy PONG and release their own version. Most consisted in a nearly same electronic board (but a different cabinet). Others proposed PONG with more players, boundaries for removing "dead spots", color picture, and even several games that could be played against the machine.

Another smart idea that didn't really copy Atari's game was special upgrade kits. As a matter of fact, they allowed customers to use their original Atari PONG games and do some modifications that game more player controls and game options.

In the old school Pong TV game you could put the paddles in such a position, that the ball kept bouncing forever. Quite hypnotic, and it became the inspiration for this time-killer/clock. While this game of Pong randomly plays, the so called “players” score the time. The Pong Clock displays the time, but you can also switch to game mode. This allows you to play a game of Pong against the clock with the use of two buttons on the back!
The release of the limited edition of 400 Pong Clocks created such a hype that it sold out in 1 day.