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In many ways, Nolan Bushnell can be considered the father of electronic gaming. Inspired at MIT by a little game called Spacewar, he built one of the first video games, Computer Space, in 1971. But Computer Space was far too complicated to learn and too unwieldy to use, so it flopped. Undaunted, Bushnell learned from his mistakes and came up with Pong, a far more simple game based on table tennis. Taking his new effort to a bar in Sunnyvale, California, he convinced the bar owner to let him try it out on the patrons. The game broke down at its debut because of the overflow of quarters jamming the coin box. After the popularity of Pong, Bushnell founded Atari in 1972 with $500, and the electronic gaming revolution was born. Before long, thousands were hunched in front of television sets, joysticks in hand, as home electronic entertainment began to flourish. Though Bushnell sold Atari to Time Warner in 1977 for $28 million, the pressure of being a corporate player was too much for him. He struck off on his own to try his hand at a number of other not so successful ventures - including Chuck E. Cheese pizza and building robot pets and servants. Disappointed by the failure of electronic games to educate and enlighten, he disappeared from the scene for several years, but recently resurfaced with grand ideas for multiplayer gaming and mass-market arcade environments. Now Bushnell and Aristo International will produce pay-for-play devices for use in restaurants, bars, college campuses, and other public places.
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