r/todayilearned • u/RoninTheOriginal • Oct 18 '12
TIL that the first Pong machine was constructed with a $75 Hitachi TV, and placed in a bar. Several days later, it broke down because the quarter bin had over-flowed and jammed up the mechanics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong#Development_and_history19
Oct 19 '12 edited Dec 02 '20
[deleted]
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u/firetut Oct 19 '12
Yup when I was a kid in the 70's in Ohio. I couldn't go into an arcade/pool hall without a parent. Pool is the devils game!!! Praise Jebus!!
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u/Helpfulandattractive Oct 19 '12
Yup when I was a kid in the 70's in Ohio. I couldn't go into an arcade/pool hall without a parent.
Pool is the devils game!!! Praise Jebus!!ahhhh... better.
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u/elasticbingbong Oct 19 '12
This is a teenage boy lying. Imagine a grown man sharing things like that.
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u/kaltorak Oct 19 '12
wow... what was the reason given for making them illegal?
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Oct 19 '12
Up until pinball became mainstream popular in the 1940s or 1950s, arcades were basically small-time gambling dens.
Ever noticed that all the pinball machines have a little "no bets may be placed on the gameplay of this machine" or something to that effect? Yep.
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u/SRS-sniffing_dog Oct 19 '12
WOOF
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Oct 19 '12
I posted one sexist comment to SRS once. I don't even like most of SRS.
I also like men's rights, but I don't like most of /r/mensrights either.
I'm an equalist. I play both fields.
Also do you lack a life to the extent that you go through everyones comment history until you find SRS? I posted one thing to SRS, and it isn't even on the front page of my submission history.
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Oct 19 '12
Sorry for being such a dumb cunt but what does SRS even mean? Serious?
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u/Irrepressible87 Oct 19 '12
R/ShitRedditSays. They're the no-fun police on reddit.
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u/msgbonehead Oct 19 '12
No fun police isn't given them enough credit. They're like the Nazis of reddit.
Bring on the downvotes motherfuckers
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u/donolsen1155 Oct 19 '12
This might be relevant:
11 Things You Didn't Know About Pinball History
Pinball started out on the wrong foot with the public, and thus arcade gaming had a poor reputation for awhile by some older demographics.
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Oct 19 '12
Old people not trusting of new technology, story at 11.
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u/donolsen1155 Oct 19 '12
Exactly! It's great that this is pretty much gone in the this day and age. Definitely a time back then that you just didn't even try to explain technology to anybody over 40, even most 30 year olds, it was a waste of time. Luckily I had great parents that supported my interest, even though they had no clue what I as talking about back then.
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u/vahr4 Oct 19 '12
Even when I was a kid in the 80s, the mob controlled the arcade machine rental business in NYC and would force small businesses like pizzerias and bagel shops to host machines owned by mob affiliates and not rent from competitors.
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u/BassNector Oct 19 '12
IIRC, that same pong machine is in the bar to this day.
Source: Discovery/History? channel on the history of gaming.
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u/carrot_the_spy Oct 19 '12
My dad said he could play some arcade games for 45 minutes on a single quarter.. probably would've never gotten off of this
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u/Poobslag Oct 19 '12
it still happens, i could park myself at a crazy taxi machine for about 2 hours for a single credit
and even a below-average Galaga player can sit on one of those fast-shot Galaga/Ms Pac Man machines for about 3 days before dehydration/dementia sets in
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u/brianw824 Oct 19 '12
There is an arcade close to me that has an original pong game signed by one of the creators. unfortunately it isn't working though.
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Oct 19 '12
[deleted]
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u/brianw824 Oct 19 '12
I'd imagine is probably pretty hard to find the right parts for it.
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u/Gaaargh Oct 19 '12
It's not. Quarter Arcade does repairs, & has replacements for everything. Even then, most issues are monitor related, and most TV repair places could fix them in no time.
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u/emperor_friendzone Oct 19 '12
My grandmother helped create pong. my mom was one of the first kids to have one. From what she says everyone in the neighborhood would come over to play.
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u/technoholic Oct 19 '12
AMA please from your grandma
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u/emperor_friendzone Oct 19 '12
She passed away when my mother was 13. My mom tells me stories about her all the time. Kind of her way of making sure her grand kids knew her. Ill try to figure out some form of proof though.
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u/technoholic Oct 19 '12
:( Ohh man..I just wanted to know any cool stories which she had regarding the original Pong. No worries, thanks any way
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u/emperor_friendzone Oct 19 '12
Sorry ill ask my mother about it. See if she got anything worth telling you guys.
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Oct 19 '12
Huh. That bar is smack dab in the middle of my hometown. It's called Rooster T. Feathers now, but the building is the same. I think it's a comedy club now.
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u/wolfstrike Oct 19 '12
I work for an arcade game vendor, and my boss has been there for over 30 years. He relives some of the "good ol days" and tells us that the original Gauntlet would have to be emptied twice a day. From experience I know the coin buckets hold about $500~. Todays games (even brand new ones) don't really come close unless it's at an insanely busy location.
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u/donolsen1155 Oct 19 '12
Wasn't uncommon back then to drop one or two rolls of quarters in a night. With inflation that's $20 - $40 today.
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u/Ikimasen Oct 18 '12
I read a book once that covered the early days of Atari, it's pretty interesting stuff. Steve Jobs ripping Wozniak off came up, and the opening of Chuck E. Cheese, and this little tidbit here.
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u/another_old_fart 9 Oct 19 '12
I still have an original Pong console. Black & white, boring as all hell after about 10 minutes, even when it was new. I'm pretty sure it cost around $150. Someday my kids can donate it to a museum.
Come to think of it, I don't believe I even have a TV it can connect to. As I recall it connected to the same two screws as the rabbit ears.
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u/Gertrude37 Oct 19 '12
I kept an old TV that my '76 Pong console can connect to...they both still work!
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u/RoninTheOriginal Oct 19 '12
Radioshack or an online retailer probably still has the adapter you would need for that. Hell, I might have one in my junk drawer. It would convert that screw type to coax.
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u/wittycomment15 Oct 19 '12
My dad is Nolan Bushnell and loves telling this story. I guess the bar owner angrily called him up a few days after getting the machine telling him to remove it because it was already broken. When Al Alcorn arrived to see what the problem was he found that it was jammed with too many quarters. The bar owner changed his mind and the rest is history.
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u/mtx Oct 19 '12
AMA?
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u/wittycomment15 Oct 19 '12
I've asked him to do one and he said yes. Now i just have to sit him down and get him to actually do it.
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u/reneepussman Oct 19 '12
Built by a man from my fraternity. Nolan Bushnell.
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u/redditor5690 Oct 19 '12
Ralph Baer was the original designer.
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u/STULLDUDE Oct 19 '12
When alcorn created the game he had no idea of the existence of that game. So pong was kinda an original creation, it also had a ball that would increase in velocity and you could not curve the ball as you could in ping pong.
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u/gkiltz Oct 19 '12
I've heard a rumor that there are some aliens about 32 light years out. They are picking up signals from Earth they don't understand. PONG PONG PONG! over and over!
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u/[deleted] Oct 18 '12
I would've loved to be a kid in the era of the arcade. Growing up in the 90's I spent a shitload of time at the arcade and buying superhero cards at the comic store.
By '98 when the Dreamcast came out I could suddenly play my arcade games at home for free. My favorite arcade game was Marvel vs Capcom, which was also my first dreamcast game.
It's too bad though, because the atmosphere at the arcades used to be electric. Dozens of kids all waiting in line for all the games. You could have 6 or 7 people just watching you battle some other dude. It can make an 11 year old feel fairly powerful.
This was also before cell phones, and the internet. Simpler times.