New Direction: Pong/Clones
- Thread starter HarrySeven
- Start date
I'm pretty sure i heard Nolan Bushnell say this in an interview once upon a time now you mention it. "we had to call them Ping" or something like that.
I don't think a single Atari Pong machine has turned up in the UK to date, they have all been imports in the last 15 years and have the Pong title intact.
I don't think a single Atari Pong machine has turned up in the UK to date, they have all been imports in the last 15 years and have the Pong title intact.
HarrySeven
Active member
And I'm still looking for Pong clones...
Alpha1 said:
Yes, she's the one who changed them by hand and ran the delivery route for shipping them off.
For those not familiar, I'm the Marty Goldberg that's been working with Curt Vendel on the book on Atari Inc. due out for the brand's 40th anniversary.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ataribook/atari-history-book-volume-1-beginnings-to-1984
We've been conducting interviews and such for a good 8 years now and are actually heading out to Silicon Valley for our last big batch (a ton of people from Syzygy/Atari coming out of the woodwork).
As far as the PINGs my fear is they're long since gone because collectors in the UK hadn't heard the story before and just assumed they were clones. That's why I popped in on the hopes maybe someone had seen one.
martyg said:
I think you underestimate just how rare early videogames are here. If one ever turned up in collector circles, you can bet it would be saved/hoarded, not discarded just because it said 'ping' instead of Pong, thats a bit insulting to our intelligence and our passion for old games
Cyclo has some of the earliest UK videogames found, and i've been collecting 1970's Atari games and info since 1997, and no Pings have turned up. We are not a large country, storage is not cheap, our climate is horrible to wood/electronics and as such these things very rarely survive.
Old thread, interesting collection, there was actually still a lot of stuff like this running at my local fairground when I was a kid, and there used to be a black and white game dumping ground at the back of some arcade in Litthempton (opposite the harbour) but nobody was really playing anything like that then so they probably got roasted in a large bonfire. I guess they were just 'wallpaper' as the ops around here liked to call it.
But I think you're all forgetting that balls are not supposed to have corners
But I think you're all forgetting that balls are not supposed to have corners
P-Man said:
The burial itself is not a myth, it was well covered by the local media there during the few days it occured over. They were even interviewing some of the local kids who were pulling out stock, which is what caused Atari to come and steamroll and pour concrete over it. What's a myth is that it was all E.T.'s, and it's a myth that sprung up later. It was a full scope of product that was dumped (computers, consoles, peripherals, cartridges, etc.) from the Texas plant that was being closed down. It was not uncommon for Atari to landfill overstock, they even used to do that for the foundation of a few warehouses (steamroll overstock and pour concrete over it).
I think the reason the Alamogordo, NM dump caught so much attention was simply because of the timing and the financial problems. Ray Kassar had been let go and Jim Morgan had come in and was in the middle of a re-organization of the company trying to restructure it, evaluate and shut down unwanted products, and generally save the company.
As far as the I, Robot deal - we're going to be interviewing a bunch of the coin people this next week when we're in the Silicon Valley area (have about 80 interviews to do in a weeks time). I'll try and address that one specifically to a few.
martyg2012-04-12 05:35:32
Ok, so when I was in California doing the interviews, I talked to several important people in coin at the time. Nobody ever heard of any I-Robots being destroyed or being dumped off a ship.
Also clarified with the woman I talked to, the PINGs were shipped to Australia, not the UK.
Also clarified with the woman I talked to, the PINGs were shipped to Australia, not the UK.
HarrySeven
Active member
I like thread hijacks liike this!
Well, I'm still looking for anything Pong coin-op related, so please keep your eyes peeled!
Well, I'm still looking for anything Pong coin-op related, so please keep your eyes peeled!
virtvic said:
We'll be having the pre-release material out on June 27th for the anniversary and the full book in July. There's just been way too many last minute contributions, donations, etc. from Atari alumni.
All updates are being posted here right now:
http://www.facebook.com/syzygycompany
urban_paranoia said:I like thread hijacks liike this!
Well, I'm still looking for anything Pong coin-op related, so please keep your eyes peeled!
It actually started out PONG related, regarding PONG's being renamed to PING because of the slang meaning of PONG.
Well, I have a Computer Space Ball for sale in the ... well, in the for sale section. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->
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L0v32012-08-20 15:50:48
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