Release of Pong

Pong is a table-tennis video game created by Atari, designed by the engineer Allan Alcorn at the request of the company's founder Nolan Bushnell. Players control paddles on either side of the screen and hit a square ball between them, in a game of great simplicity. A prototype placed in a bar in California became so popular that it broke down because the coin box was full. When Atari released it as an arcade machine, it was a huge success and is considered the game that launched the video game industry. It had been inspired by a tennis game on the Magnavox Odyssey home console, which led to a legal settlement, and countless home versions and clones followed.

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