The SYM-1 is a single board "trainer" computer produced by Synertek Systems in 1975. It was designed by Ray Holt . Originally called the VIM-1 (Versatile Input Monitor), that name was later changed to SYM-1.
87-685: The SYM-1 is a close copy of the popular MOS Technology KIM-1 system, with which it is compatible to a large extent. Compared to the KIM-1 , enhancements include the ability to run on a single +5 volt power supply, an enhanced monitor ROM , three configurable ROM/ EPROM sockets, RAM expandable on board to 4 KB , an RS-232 serial port, and a "high speed" ( 185 bytes/second , the KIM-1 supports about 8 bytes/second) audio cassette storage interface. It also features on-board buffer circuits to ease interfacing to "high voltage or high current" devices. One capability of
174-403: A driving video game , influenced by Chicago Coin 's Speedway (1969) which at the time was the biggest-selling electro-mechanical game at his amusement arcade . However, Bushnell had concerns that it might be too complicated for Alcorn's first game. To acclimate Alcorn to creating games, Bushnell gave him a project secretly meant to be a warm-up exercise. Bushnell told Alcorn that he had
261-494: A pure-play semiconductor foundry , so they had to join a chip-building company to produce their new CPU. MOS was a small firm with good credentials in the right area, the east coast of the US. The team of four design engineers was headed by Chuck Peddle and included Bill Mensch . At MOS they set about building a new CPU that would outperform the 6800 while being similar to it in purpose and much less expensive. The resulting 6501 design
348-810: A slot machine version of the game. The game was also included as a loading screen minigame on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions of TD Overdrive: The Brotherhood of Speed , however the Windows version doesn't include it. Bushnell felt the best way to compete against imitators was to create better products, leading Atari to produce sequels in the years following the original's release: Pong Doubles , Super Pong , Quadrapong and Pinpong . The sequels feature similar graphics, but include new gameplay elements; for example, Pong Doubles allows four players to compete in pairs, while Quadrapong —also released by Kee Games as Elimination —has them compete against each other in
435-488: A company called Eastern House Software to port their Macro Assembler /Editor (MAE) into an 8 KB ROM. The author of MAE, RAE, and another version sold by Skyles Electric Works was Carl Moser. MAE was sold in various forms not only for the SYM-1 but also for other 6502-based computers including Commodore, Atari, KIM, and Apple. Other forms of MAE included a cross assembler for 6800 and 8085—and an offering of these cross assemblers
522-469: A company to produce more games by licensing ideas to other companies. The first contract was with Bally Manufacturing Corporation for a driving game . Soon after the founding, Bushnell hired Allan Alcorn because of his experience with electrical engineering and computer science; Bushnell and Dabney also had previously worked with him at Ampex . Prior to working at Atari, Alcorn had no experience with video games. Bushnell had originally planned to develop
609-433: A contract with General Electric for a product, and asked Alcorn to create a simple game with one moving spot, two paddles, and digits for score keeping. In 2011, Bushnell stated that the game was inspired by previous versions of electronic tennis he had played before; Bushnell played a version on a PDP-1 computer in 1964 while attending college. However, Alcorn has claimed it was in direct response to Bushnell's viewing of
696-482: A few minor differences: an added on-chip clock oscillator, a different functional pinout arrangement, generation of the SYNC signal (supporting single-instruction stepping), and removal of data bus enablement control signals (DBE and BA, with the former directly connected to the phase 2 clock instead). It outperformed the more-complex 6800 and Intel 8080 , but cost much less and was easier to work with. Although it did not have
783-457: A four-way field. Bushnell also conceptualized a free-to-play version of Pong to entertain children in a Doctor's office. He initially titled it Snoopy Pong and fashioned the cabinet after Snoopy 's doghouse with the character on top, but retitled it to Puppy Pong and altered Snoopy to a generic dog to avoid legal action. Bushnell later used the game in his chain of Chuck E. Cheese's restaurants. In 1976, Atari released Breakout ,
870-422: A home version of Pong that would connect to a television: Home Pong . The system began development under the codename Darlene , named after an employee at Atari. Alcorn worked with Lee to develop the designs and prototype and based them on the same digital technology used in their arcade games. The two worked in shifts to save time and money; Lee worked on the design's logic during the day, while Alcorn debugged
957-607: A limited number under license. In 1999, French artist Pierre Huyghe created an installation titled "Atari Light", in which two people use handheld gaming devices to play Pong on an illuminated ceiling. The work was shown at the Venice Biennale in 2001, and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León in 2007. The game was included in the London Barbican Art Gallery 's 2002 Game On exhibition meant to showcase
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#17330934052051044-441: A million units—helped the company survive a difficult financial time, and spurred them to pursue video games further. After seeing the success of Pong , Konami decided to break into the arcade game market and released its first title, Maze . Its moderate success drove the company to develop more titles. In 2015, The Strong National Museum of Play inducted Pong to its World Video Game Hall of Fame . Bushnell felt that Pong
1131-538: A single-player variation of Pong where the object of the game is to remove bricks from a wall by hitting them with a ball. Like Pong , Breakout was followed by numerous clones that copied the gameplay, such as Arkanoid , Alleyway , and Break 'Em All . A 3D platform game with puzzle and shooter elements was reportedly in development by Atari Corporation for the Atari Jaguar in September 1995 under
1218-557: A special retro "Classic Arcade Medley". Frank Black 's song "Whatever Happened to Pong?" on the album Teenager of the Year references the game's elements. Dutch design studio Buro Vormkrijgers created a Pong -themed clock as a fun project within their offices. After the studio decided to manufacture it for retail, Atari took legal action in February 2006. The two companies eventually reached an agreement in which Buro Vormkrijgers could produce
1305-469: A test of reaction times and very simple strategy stripped down to its barest essentials." Entertainment Weekly named Pong one of the top ten games for the Atari 2600 in 2013. Many of the companies that produced their own versions of Pong eventually became well known within the industry. Nintendo entered the video game market with clones of Home Pong . The revenue generated from them—each system sold over
1392-433: Is a two-dimensional sports game that simulates table tennis . The player controls an in-game paddle by moving it vertically across the left or right side of the screen. They can compete against another player controlling a second paddle on the opposing side. Players use the paddles to hit a ball back and forth. The goal is for each player to reach eleven points before the opponent; points are earned when one fails to return
1479-554: Is one of the earliest arcade video games ; it was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell , but Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney were surprised by the quality of Alcorn's work and decided to manufacture the game. Bushnell based the game's concept on an electronic ping-pong game included in the Magnavox Odyssey , the first home video game console . In response, Magnavox later sued Atari for patent infringement. Pong
1566-454: Is to be entered into the SYM-1's memory and executed to enable the oscilloscope display. This code provides control of the oscilloscope display, as well as a rudimentary character set. Resistors R42 and R45 are to be adjusted to refine the displayed image. Synertek sold ROMs which could be installed to add the BASIC programming language or a Resident Assembler/Editor (RAE). Synertek contracted with
1653-729: The Magnavox Odyssey 's Tennis game. In May 1972, Bushnell had visited the Magnavox Profit Caravan in Burlingame, California where he played the Magnavox Odyssey demonstration, specifically the table tennis game. Though he thought the game lacked quality, seeing it prompted Bushnell to assign the project to Alcorn. Alcorn first examined Bushnell's schematics for Computer Space , but found them to be illegible. He went on to create his own designs based on his knowledge of transistor–transistor logic (TTL) and Bushnell's game. Feeling
1740-496: The Pong prototype at a local bar, Andy Capp's Tavern. They selected the bar because of their good working relation with the bar's owner and manager, Bill Gaddis; Atari supplied pinball machines to Gaddis. Bushnell and Alcorn placed the prototype on one of the tables near the other entertainment machines: a jukebox, pinball machines, and Computer Space . The game was well received the first night and its popularity continued to grow over
1827-792: The Sega Genesis , Paired with Asteroids and Yars Revenge on the Game Boy Advance . Atari Classics Evolved on the PlayStation Portable , Retro Atari Classics on the Nintendo DS , and Atari: 80 Classic Games in One! for personal computer , and the Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration (2022) compilation for Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 , Steam , and Xbox One . Through an agreement with Atari, Bally Gaming and Systems developed
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#17330934052051914-456: The "Top 100 Games of All Time", recounting that " Next Generation staff ignor[ed] hundreds of thousands of dollars of 32-bit software to play Pong for hours when the Genesis version was released." In 1999, Next Generation listed Pong as number 34 on their "Top 50 Games of All Time", commenting that, "Despite, or perhaps because of, its simplicity, Pong is the ultimate two-player challenge –
2001-501: The 40th anniversary of Pong by releasing Pong World for iOS , which was developed by zGames. In 2020, a new game titled Pong Quest was developed by Chequered Ink and released by Atari on Steam, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. A remake of Pong has been announced for release exclusively for the Intellivision Amico . The game is featured in episodes of television series including That '70s Show , King of
2088-453: The 6501's advantage of being able to be used in place of the Motorola 6800 in existing hardware, it was so inexpensive that it quickly became more popular than the 6800, making that a moot point. The 6502 was so cheap that many people believed it was a scam when MOS first showed it at a 1975 trade show. They were not aware of MOS's masking techniques and when they calculated the price per chip at
2175-447: The 6502 chip. At Commodore, Peddle convinced the owner, Jack Tramiel , that calculators were a dead end, and that home computers would soon be huge. However, the original design group appeared to be even less interested in working for Jack Tramiel than it had for Motorola, and the team quickly started breaking up. One result was that the newly completed 6522 (VIA) chip was left undocumented for years. Bill Mensch left MOS even before
2262-586: The 6502 was, the company itself was having problems. At about the same time the 6502 was being released, MOS's entire calculator IC market collapsed, and its prior existing products stopped shipping. Soon they were in serious financial trouble. Another company, Commodore Business Machines (CBM), had invested heavily in the calculator market and was also nearly wiped out by TI 's entry into the market. A fresh injection of capital saved CBM, and allowed it to invest in company suppliers in order to help ensure their IC supply would not be upset in this fashion again. Among
2349-459: The 6502—were achieving a success rate of 70 percent or better. This meant that not only were its designs faster, but they also cost much less as well. When the 6501 was announced, Motorola launched a lawsuit almost immediately. Although the 6501 instruction set was not compatible with the 6800, it could nevertheless be plugged into existing motherboard designs because it had the same functional pin arrangement and IC package footprint. That
2436-464: The 650x line from MOS, including Rockwell International , GTE , Synertek , and Western Design Center (WDC) . A number of different versions of the basic CPU, known as the 6503 through 6507, were offered in 28-pin packages for lower cost. The various models removed signal or address pins. Far and away the most popular of these was the 6507 , which was used in the Atari 2600 and Atari disk drives. The 6504
2523-616: The Commodore Semiconductor Group superfund site. Most of the MOS chips are named according to following rules, which shows used technology (logic gate design): 40°07′27.9″N 75°25′07.2″W / 40.124417°N 75.418667°W / 40.124417; -75.418667 Pong Pong is a table tennis –themed twitch arcade sports video game , featuring simple two-dimensional graphics , manufactured by Atari and originally released on 29 November 1972. It
2610-515: The Commodore takeover, and moved home to Arizona. After a short stint consulting for a local company called ICE, he set up the Western Design Center (WDC) in 1978. As a licensee of the 6502 line, their first products were bug-fixed, power-efficient CMOS versions of the 6502 (the 65C02 , both as a separate chip and embedded inside a microcontroller called the 65C150). But then they expanded
2697-558: The Hill and Saturday Night Live . In 2006, an American Express commercial featured Andy Roddick in a tennis match against the white, in-game paddle. Other video games have also referenced and parodied Pong ; for example Neuromancer for the Commodore 64 and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts for the Xbox 360 . The concert event Video Games Live has performed audio from Pong as part of
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2784-656: The Midway executives did not want it and vice versa—to preserve the relationships for future dealings. Upon hearing Bushnell's comment, the two groups declined his offer. Bushnell had difficulty finding financial backing for Pong ; banks viewed it as a variant of pinball, which at the time the general public associated with the Mafia. Atari eventually obtained a line of credit from Wells Fargo that it used to expand its facilities to house an assembly line. The company announced Pong on 29 November 1972. Management sought assembly workers at
2871-531: The Odyssey game and I didn't think it was very clever." After considering his options, Bushnell decided to settle with Magnavox out of court in June 1976. Bushnell's lawyer felt they could win; however, he estimated legal costs of US$ 1.5 million, which would have exceeded Atari's funds. Magnavox offered Atari an agreement to become a licensee for US$ 1.5 million payable in eight installments. In addition, Magnavox obtained
2958-451: The SYM-1 is its ability to allow an oscilloscope to be added to provide a 32 character display under software control. As explained in Chapter 7 of the "SYM Reference Manual", the vertical input, ground and trigger input of the oscilloscope are to be connected to the "Scope Out" connector AA on the SYM-1 board. The "Oscilloscope Output Driver Software" code provided in this chapter of the manual
3045-539: The Sears Tele-Games versions are often cheaper than those with the Atari brand. Several publications consider Pong the game that launched the video game industry as a lucrative enterprise. Video game author David Ellis sees the game as the cornerstone of the video game industry's success, and called the arcade game "one of the most historically significant" titles. Kent attributes the "arcade phenomenon" to Pong and Atari's games that followed it, and considers
3132-406: The ability to "fix" its masks after they had been produced. This meant that as flaws in the design were discovered, the masks could be removed from the aligners, fixed, and put back in. This allowed them to rapidly drive out flaws in the original masks. The company's production lines typically reversed the numbers others were achieving; even the early runs of a new CPU design—what would become
3219-455: The aftermath; those that survived did so by finding other chips to produce. MOS became a supplier to Atari , producing a custom single-chip Pong system. Things changed dramatically in 1975. Several of the designers of the Motorola 6800 left Motorola shortly after its release, after management told them to stop working on a low-cost version of the design. At the time there was no such thing as
3306-424: The aligners by the truckload. This meant that if a flaw was found in the design, it would cost a significant amount of money to fix it, as all the older masks would have to be thrown out. In contrast, with Micralign there was only one mask per aligner, so there was no inherent cost in replacing the mask if need be, although the cost, and especially time, of producing these master masks was considerable. MOS developed
3393-452: The announcement of the Atari 2600 by a few months to avoid disclosing information about the system under the settlement agreement. The Pong arcade games manufactured by Atari were a great success. The prototype was well received by Andy Capp's Tavern patrons; people came to the bar solely to play the game. Following its release, Pong consistently earned four times more revenue than other coin-operated machines. Bushnell estimated that
3480-399: The ball to the other. Pong was the first game developed by Atari . In 1971, Bushnell and Dabney founded Syzygy Engineering to develop the concept of a standalone computer system with a monitor and attaching a coin slot to it to play games on. Drawing inspiration from Spacewar! , the duo created Computer Space . As the game did not fare well commercially, Bushnell decided to form
3567-401: The basic game was too boring, Alcorn added features to give the game more appeal. He divided the paddle into eight segments to change the ball's angle of return. For example, the center segments return the ball at a 90° angle in relation to the paddle, while the outer segments return the ball at smaller angles. He also made the ball accelerate the longer it remained in play; missing the ball reset
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3654-480: The building which broadcast on the same channel as the game, obtained approval. Bushnell told Quinn he could produce 75,000 units in time for the Christmas season ; however, Quinn requested double the amount. Though Bushnell knew Atari lacked the capacity to manufacture 150,000 units, he agreed. Atari acquired a new factory through funding obtained by venture capitalist Don Valentine . Supervised by Jimm Tubb,
3741-466: The company had filled 2,500 orders, and at the end of 1974, sold more than 8,000 units. The arcade cabinets have since become collector's items, with cocktail cabinets being the rarest. Soon after the game's successful testing at Andy Capp's Tavern, other companies began visiting the bar to inspect it. Similar games appeared on the market three months later, produced by companies like Ramtek and Nutting Associates . Atari could do little against
3828-510: The company, operating under the name GMT Microelectronics ( G reat M ixed-signal T echnologies ), reopened MOS Technology's original, circa-1970 one-micrometre process fab ( semiconductor fabrication plant ) in Audubon , Montgomery County , Pennsylvania that Commodore had closed in 1993. The plant had been on the EPA's National Priorities List of hazardous waste sites since October 4, 1989. This
3915-471: The competitors as they had not initially filed for patents on the solid state technology used in the game. When the company did file for patents, complications delayed the process. As a result, the market consisted primarily of " Pong clones"; author Steven Kent estimated that Atari had produced less than a third of the machines. Bushnell referred to the competitors as "Jackals" because he felt they had an unfair advantage. His solution to competing against them
4002-419: The concept of electronic ping-pong based on detailed records Ralph Baer kept of the Odyssey's design process dating back to 1966. Other documents included depositions from witnesses and a signed guest book that demonstrated Bushnell had played the Odyssey's table tennis game prior to releasing Pong . In response to claims that he saw the Odyssey, Bushnell later stated that, "The fact is that I absolutely did see
4089-433: The current industry yield rates, it did not add up. But any hesitation to buy it evaporated when both Motorola and Intel dropped the prices on their own designs from $ 179 to $ 69 at the same show in order to compete. Their moves legitimized the 6502, and by the show's end, the wooden barrel full of samples was empty. The 6502 would quickly go on to be one of the most popular chips of its day. A number of companies licensed
4176-412: The designs in the evenings. After the designs were approved, fellow Atari engineer Bob Brown assisted Alcorn and Lee in building a prototype. The prototype consisted of a device attached to a wooden pedestal containing over a hundred wires, which would eventually be replaced with a single chip designed by Alcorn and Lee; the chip had yet to be tested and built before the prototype was constructed. The chip
4263-561: The factory fulfilled the Sears order. The first units manufactured, branded with Sears' "Tele-Games" name, started to sell around the end of October to mid November 1975 with a 1-year warranty for $ 98.95 and an additional $ 7.95 for the optional AC adapter. Atari later released a version under its own brand in 1976. In April 1974 Magnavox filed suit against Atari, Allied Leisure, Bally Midway and Chicago Dynamics . Magnavox argued that Atari had infringed on Sanders Associates' patents relating to
4350-503: The firm basically became Commodore's production arm, they continued using the name MOS for some time so that manuals would not have to be reprinted. After a while MOS became the Commodore Semiconductor Group (CSG) . Despite being renamed to CSG, all chips produced were still stamped with the old "MOS" logo until week 22/23 of 1989. MOS had previously designed a simple computer kit called the KIM-1 , primarily to "show off"
4437-428: The game earned US$ 35–40 per day (i.e. 140–160 plays daily per console at $ 0.25 per play), which he described as nothing he'd ever seen before in the coin-operated entertainment industry at the time. The game's earning power resulted in an increase in the number of orders Atari received. This provided Atari with a steady source of income; the company sold the machines at three times the cost of production . By 1973,
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#17330934052054524-424: The game to feature realistic sound effects and a roaring crowd. Dabney wanted the game to "boo" and "hiss" when a player lost a round. Alcorn had limited space available for the necessary electronics and was unaware of how to create such sounds with digital circuits . After inspecting the sync generator , he discovered that it could generate different tones and used those for the game's sound effects. To construct
4611-530: The home console's success, many of which continued to produce new consoles and video games. Magnavox re-released their Odyssey system with simplified hardware and new features and, later, released updated versions. Coleco entered the video game market with their Telstar console ; it features three Pong variants and was also succeeded by newer models. Nintendo released the Color TV-Game 6 in 1977, which plays six variations of electronic tennis. The next year, it
4698-458: The line greatly with the introduction of the 65816 , a fairly straightforward 16-bit upgrade of the original 65C02 that could also run in 8-bit mode for compatibility. Since then WDC moved much of the original MOS catalog to CMOS, and the 6502 continued to be a popular CPU for the embedded systems market, like medical equipment and car dashboard controllers. After Commodore's bankruptcy in 1994, Commodore Semiconductor Group, MOS's successor,
4785-399: The local unemployment office, but was unable to keep up with demand. The first arcade cabinets produced were assembled very slowly, about ten machines a day, many of which failed quality testing. Atari eventually streamlined the process and began producing the game in greater quantities. By 1973, they began shipping Pong to other countries with the aid of foreign partners. In Japan, Pong
4872-406: The next one and a half weeks. Bushnell then went on a business trip to Chicago to demonstrate Pong to executives at Bally and Midway Manufacturing ; he intended to use Pong to fulfill his contract with Bally, rather than the driving game. A few days later, the prototype began exhibiting technical issues and Gaddis contacted Alcorn to fix it. Upon inspecting the machine, Alcorn discovered that
4959-679: The normal operation of the board's monitor and languages such as Synertek Systems BASIC. One of the later home/education computers that uses this concept extensively is the BBC Micro produced by Acorn Computers in the UK. Some of the other computer designers of this era failed to grasp the significance of this elegant use of vectors to the software mapping of new developments in hardware. MOS Technology MOS Technology, Inc. ("MOS" being short for Metal Oxide Semiconductor ), later known as CSG (Commodore Semiconductor Group) and GMT Microelectronics ,
5046-573: The original's gameplay by adding new features. During the 1975 Christmas season, Atari released a home version of Pong exclusively through Sears retail stores. The home version was also a commercial success and led to numerous clones. The game was remade on numerous home and portable platforms following its release. Pong is part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., due to its cultural impact. Pong
5133-591: The person. You could play left-handed if you so desired. In fact, there are a lot of people who have come up to me over the years and said, 'I met my wife playing Pong ,' and that's kind of a nice thing to have achieved." Atari remade the game on numerous platforms. In 1977, Pong and several variants of the game were featured in Video Olympics , one of the original release titles for the Atari 2600 . Pong has also been included in several Atari compilations on many different platforms, such as Arcade Classics on
5220-449: The problem was that the coin mechanism was overflowing with quarters. After hearing about the game's success, Bushnell decided there would be more profit for Atari to manufacture the game rather than license it, but the interest of Bally and Midway had already been piqued. Bushnell decided to inform each of the two groups that the other was uninterested—Bushnell told the Bally executives that
5307-413: The prototype, Alcorn purchased a $ 75 Hitachi black-and-white television set from a local store, placed it into a 4-foot (1.2 m) wooden cabinet , and soldered the wires into boards to create the necessary circuitry. The prototype impressed Bushnell and Dabney so much that they felt it could be a profitable product and decided to test its marketability. In August 1972, Bushnell and Alcorn installed
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#17330934052055394-451: The reduction of Pong from a large arcade printed circuit board (PCB) down to a small LSI chip for use in a home system. The initial development cost for a game on a single LSI chip was expensive, costing around $ 50,000 (equivalent to $ 376,000 in 2023), but once the chip was developed, it became significantly cheaper to mass-produce the game as well as more difficult to reverse-engineer . In 1974, Atari engineer Harold Lee proposed
5481-403: The release of the home version the successful beginning of home video game consoles . Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton of Gamasutra referred to the game's release as the start of a new entertainment medium, and commented that its simple, intuitive gameplay made it a success. In 1995, Flux magazine ranked the game 56th on their "Top 100 Video Games." In 1996 Next Generation named it one of
5568-454: The right to full information on Atari products publicly announced or released over the next year. Magnavox continued to pursue legal action against the other companies, and proceedings began shortly after Atari's settlement. The first case took place at the district court in Chicago, with Judge John Grady presiding. Magnavox won the suit against the remaining defendants. Atari may have delayed
5655-573: The several companies were LED display manufacturers, power controllers, and suppliers of the driver chips, including MOS. In late 1976, CBM, publicly traded on the NYSE with a market capitalization around US$ 60 million , purchased MOS (whose market cap was around US$ 12 million ) in an all-stock deal. Holders of MOS received a 9.4 percent equity stake in CBM on the condition that Chuck Peddle would join Commodore as chief engineer. The deal went through, and while
5742-597: The site. Announced in March 1999, GMT would have provided foundry services based on TelCom's Bipolar and SiCr (silicon chromium) Thin Film Resistor processes and would have been a licensed alternate source for TelCom's Bipolar based products, with production running at 10,000 5-inch semiconductor wafers per month, producing CMOS , BiCMOS, NMOS, bipolar and SOI ( silicon on insulator ) devices. In 2000, GMT Microelectronics discontinued operations and abandoned all of its assets at
5829-449: The speed. Another feature was that the in-game paddles were unable to reach the top of the screen. This was caused by a simple circuit that had an inherent defect. Instead of dedicating time to fixing the defect, Alcorn decided it gave the game more difficulty and helped limit the time the game could be played; he imagined two skilled players being able to play forever otherwise. Three months into development, Bushnell told Alcorn he wanted
5916-569: The sporting goods section of its catalog. Atari staff (including Bushnell and Lipkin) discussed the game with a representative, Tom Quinn, who expressed enthusiasm and offered the company an exclusive deal. Believing they could find more favorable terms elsewhere, Atari's executives declined and continued to pursue toy retailers. In January 1975, Atari staff set up a Home Pong booth at the American Toy Fair (a trade fair ) in New York City , but
6003-554: The title Pong 2000 , as part of their series of arcade game updates for the system and was set to have an original storyline for it, but it was never released. In 1999, Hasbro Interactive released a new title known as Pong: The Next Level for home computers and the PlayStation . This game was released as part of a trend within the time period of popular arcade games being remade with 3D graphics and art styles. The game also featured many power-ups . In 2012, Atari celebrated
6090-454: Was a semiconductor design and fabrication company based in Audubon, Pennsylvania . It is most famous for its 6502 microprocessor and various designs for Commodore International 's range of home computers . Three former General Instrument executives, John Paivinen, Mort Jaffe and Don McLaughlin, formed MOS Technology in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in 1969. The Allen-Bradley Company
6177-452: Was a similar inversion in pricing. The 6800 sold in small lots for $ 295 ; with no other changes than using a Micralign , the same design could sell for $ 42 . The change to the Micralign revealed a further advantage. Previously the masks were mass-produced by photography companies like Kodak , who would make tens of thousands of copies of a master mask, or " reticle ", and ship the masks to
6264-417: Was bought by its former management for about $ 4.3 million , plus an additional $ 1 million to cover miscellaneous expenses including a United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) license. Dennis Peasenell became CEO. In December 1994, the EPA entered into a Prospective Purchase Agreement (limiting the company's liability in exchange for sharing the costs of cleanup) with GMT Microelectronics. In 1994,
6351-469: Was complete. In 1974 Perkin-Elmer publicly introduced the Micralign system, the first projection scanner. Instead of placing the mask on the surface of the chip, it held it far from the surface and used highly accurate optics to project the image. Masks now lasted for thousands of copies instead of tens, and the flaw rate of the chips inverted so that perhaps 70% of the chips produced would work. The result
6438-411: Was due to a 1978 leak of trichloroethylene (TCE) from an underground 250-gallon concrete storage tank used by Commodore Business Machines in the semiconductor cleaning process. Leaks from the tank had caused the local groundwater to become contaminated with TCE and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in 1978. By 1999 GMT Microelectronics had $ 21 million in revenues and 183 employees working on
6525-418: Was enough to allow Motorola to sue. Allen-Bradley sold back its shares to the founders, sales of the 6501 basically stopped, and the lawsuit would drag on for many years before MOS was eventually forced to pay US$ 200,000 in fines. In the meantime MOS had started selling the 6502 , a chip capable of operating at 1 MHz in September 1975 for a mere US$ 25 . It was nearly identical to the 6501, with only
6612-540: Was especially significant in its role as a social lubricant , since it was multiplayer-only and did not require each player to use more than one hand: "It was very common to have a girl with a quarter in hand pull a guy off a bar stool and say, 'I'd like to play Pong and there's nobody to play.' It was a way you could play games, you were sitting shoulder to shoulder, you could talk, you could laugh, you could challenge each other ... As you became better friends, you could put down your beer and hug. You could put your arm around
6699-427: Was finished in the latter half of 1974, and was, at the time, the highest-performing chip used in a consumer product . Bushnell and Gene Lipkin, Atari's vice-president of sales, approached toy and electronic retailers to sell Home Pong , but were rejected. Retailers felt the product was too expensive and would not interest consumers. Bushnell contacted Sears after coming across a Magnavox Odyssey advertisement in
6786-549: Was followed by an updated version, the Color TV-Game 15, which features fifteen variations. The systems were Nintendo's entry into the home video game market and the first to produce themselves—they had previously licensed the Magnavox Odyssey. The dedicated Pong consoles and the numerous clones have since become varying levels of rare; Atari's Pong consoles are common, while APF Electronics' TV Fun consoles are moderately rare. Prices among collectors, however, vary with rarity;
6873-542: Was looking to provide a second source for electronic calculators and their chips designed by Texas Instruments (TI). In 1970 Allen-Bradley acquired a majority interest in MOS Technology. In the early 1970s, TI decided to release their own line of calculators, instead of selling just the chips inside them, and introduced them at a price that was lower than the price of the chipset alone. Many early chip companies were reliant on sales of calculator chips and were wiped out in
6960-628: Was officially released in November 1973 by Atari Japan, which would later become part of Namco . However, Pong had been beaten to the market by two Japanese Pong clones released in July 1973: Sega 's Pong Tron and Taito 's Elepong . After the success of Pong , Bushnell pushed his employees to create new products. A new electronic technology , the large-scale integration (LSI) chip, had recently become available, which Bushnell believed would "allow pioneering in new" game concepts. Atari began working on
7047-413: Was placed directly on the surface of the chip, which had the significant disadvantage that it sometimes pulled away materials from the chip, which were then copied to subsequent chips. This caused the mask to become useless after about a dozen copies, and resulted in the vast majority of chips having fatal flaws; for a complex chip like the 6800, only about 10% of the chips would work once the masking process
7134-446: Was planned for RAE. One of the more subtle features of the SYM-1 is the use of a look up table in the low memory of the 6502. This provides a vectoring function in its operating system to redirect subroutine calls to various input and output drivers, including interrupt servicing . Users are able to develop their own interface routines, and substitute new vectors for the original vectors in the startup UV-EPROM. This seamlessly maintains
7221-417: Was sometimes used in printers. MOS also released a series of similar CPUs using external clocks, which added a "1" to the name in the third digit, as the 6512 through 6515. These were useful in systems where the clock support was already being provided on the motherboard by some other source. The final addition was the "crossover" 6510 , used in the Commodore 64 , with additional I/O ports. However successful
7308-407: Was somewhat similar to the 6800, but by using several design simplifications, the 6501 would be up to four times faster. Previous CPU designs, like the 6800, were produced using a device known as a contact aligner . This was essentially a complex photocopier , which optically reproduced a CPU design, or "mask", on the surface of the silicon chip. The name "contact" referred to the fact that the mask
7395-545: Was the first commercially successful video game, and it helped to establish the video game industry along with the Magnavox Odyssey. Soon after its release, several companies began producing games that closely mimicked its gameplay. Eventually, Atari's competitors released new types of video games that deviated from Pong 's original format to varying degrees, and this, in turn, led Atari to encourage its staff to move beyond Pong and produce more innovative games themselves. Atari released several sequels to Pong that built upon
7482-448: Was to produce more innovative games and concepts. Home Pong was an instant success following its limited 1975 release through Sears; around 150,000 units were sold that holiday season. The game became Sears' most successful product at the time, which earned Atari a Sears Quality Excellence Award. Atari's own version sold an additional 50,000 units. Similar to the arcade version, several companies released clones to capitalize on
7569-553: Was unsuccessful in soliciting orders due to high price of the unit. While at the show, they met Quinn again, and, a few days later, set up a meeting with him to obtain a sales order. In order to gain approval from the Sporting Goods department, Quinn suggested Atari demonstrate the game to executives in Chicago. Alcorn and Lipkin traveled to the Sears Tower and, despite a technical complication in connection with an antenna on top of
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