Atari founders circa 1972-73 (from left to right):
Ted Dabney, Nolan Bushnell, Larry Emmons, and Allan Alcorn

[ Atari Pong turns 50 years old today, and I thought it might be fun to revisit an article I wrote about the game’s creation for Edge Magazine (Issue 248) back in 2012. Since the web version of that piece is no longer online and I retained the rights, I am republishing it here. –Benj ]

Forty years ago this November, Atari introduced the world’s first video game sensation, Pong. The game, while not the first of its kind, would provide the economic catalyst necessary to jump start a completely new industry.

In 1971, Nolan Bushnell and his partner Ted Dabney created the world’s first commercial arcade video game, Computer Space, for California coin-op manufacturer Nutting Associates. It made a minor splash in the arcade market, but it was not wildly successful.

For round two, Bushnell wanted to follow up with a driving game for Nutting, but he quickly found himself at odds with Nutting’s executive staff about the direction of the company’s video game products. He resigned from the company, taking Ted Dabney with him.

Bushnell began to shop his driving game idea around to other American coin-op makers. Bally, then the largest arcade amusement company in the US, showed interest in the idea. The firm awarded Bushnell and Dabney — then doing business under a partnership named “Syzygy” — a contract to develop a video game and a pinball table. Syzygy would create the video game design and license it to Bally, who would produce the hardware and sell it under the Bally name.

Under the new contract, Atari received $4,000 a month to develop the two games, which gave just enough financial room to hire an employee. Recognizing his limitations as an engineer, Bushnell reached out to Allan Alcorn, a former colleague from Ampex, and asked him to join the company.

Alcorn, then 24 years old, accepted the offer to work for Syzygy in June 1972. It was a risky move at the time, but after a few years at Ampex, Alcorn had grown bored with his work. He was ready for a new challenge at a startup company, and both Bushnell and Dabney recognized his considerable talents as an engineer.

That same month, Bushnell and Dabney incorporated their company under a new name, Atari, Inc., and set out to change the world of arcade entertainment forever.

[ Continue reading [ VC&G Anthology ] The Making of Pong (2012) » ]

In Memoriam: Samuel Frederick Dabney, Jr. (1937-2018),
co-founder of Syzygy and Atari

Samuel Frederick (“Ted”) Dabney, Jr., who co-founded Atari with Nolan Bushnell in 1972, died of esophageal cancer just three days ago. He was 81 years old.

I was not close with Ted, but I did interview him at length for articles about Computer Space and Pong back in 2011 and 2012. During our conversations, he was candid, detailed, kind, and very helpful. During my conversations with him, a lot of the details of early Atari history you can now read online were coming out of him for the first time, so he was a vital source of fresh information on that subject.

Ted did critical work as a partner of Nolan Bushnell in the early 1970s. He served as a creative sounding board for Nolan’s ambitious ideas and also as a key implementer of some of them.

Ted met Nolan around 1969 while working at Ampex, where they were office mates. They shared big dreams and secret sessions of the board game go while in the office, and in off-hours, they hung out and scouted locations for a new restaurant idea Bushnell had that involved talking barrels.

With Nolan at Syzygy Engineering, Dabney created the video control circuitry used in Computer Space, built the prototype cabinet for that game, designed its sound circuit, and more. On Pong, Dabney built the prototype cabinet and gave feedback to game designer Allan Alcorn. He also provided ideas for Atari’s third game, Space Race, before he left Atari in 1973.

There is some confusion about the reason Dabney left Atari. Dabney told me that Nolan forced him out. Bushnell commonly cites poor work performance as the reason Dabney left. Absent some documentary evidence, the real answer will always be one of those fuzzy historical points left to interpretation. What we do know for sure is that the two founders were no longer getting along.

(By the way, I have recently read some reports about Dabney that say he left Atari because he was angry that Nolan patented his motion control circuitry without including him on the patent. This is plainly false. Dabney did not even know that Nolan’s motion control patent existed until I informed him about it in a 2011 interview.)

A lot of the key info I gleaned from Dabney can be found in my 2011 piece on Computer Space, which is a primary source for some of the secondhand knowledge you’ll read about Dabney and Atari’s early days on the web. Some day I need to publish my full interview with Dabney on Pong, because it is very insightful.

It’s also worth noting that Dabney remained friends with Nolan throughout the 1970s despite the Atari business acrimony. They were never truly close like they were circa 1969-1972, but they still kept in touch, shared a hot tub or two, and Dabney created a trivia game for Nolan’s Pizza Time chain in the early 1980s.

I will miss talking to Ted. He was laid-back, easy going, and straightforward. He had so much skill and experience from his days before Atari, and I need to write about that some time. I had hoped to interview him again at some point, but life delayed those plans. May he rest in peace.

[The following news comes to us via video game historian Mary Goldberg, who has allowed VC&G to republish his Facebook announcement here so more people can see it. –Benj]

It is with a sad heart that we announce the passing of Atari legend and friend Stephen D. (“Steve”) Bristow, who died this past Sunday, February 22, 2015 at the age of 65 following a short illness.

Bristow was one of the originals, helping Nolan Bushnell out during the development of the world’s first commercial arcade game, Computer Space, while an intern at Ampex.

He then moved to Nutting Associates, the publisher of Computer Space, as an intern. At Nutting, he soon took over for Nolan Bushnell when Bushnell and business partner Ted Dabney left to form Atari.

In the early 1970s, Bristow joined up once again with Bushnell at Atari for a short while before being tapped to form secret Atari subsidiary Kee Games with Joe and Patricia Keenan. There, he lead the creation of several groundbreaking arcade games such as the full-color multiplayer Indy 800 and the seminal game Tank.

Bristow occupied many positions at Atari throughout the 1970s an 80s. Upon the merger between Kee Games and Atari, he oversaw Atari’s Coin Engineering as well as later projects like the Electronic Board Game Division. He later became Plant Manager of Pinball Production at Atari before moving to VP Engineering, Consumer and Home Computer Division, then VP Engineering of Atari’s Consumer Game Division in the early 1980s.

From there, Bristow moved to VP Advanced Technology, then VP Engineering, AtariTel Division (which produced telephone products). Then finally, he joined Atari’s Engineering Computer Division as VP and became an Atari Fellow before leaving Atari all together in February 1984.

Bristow continued with an impressive electrical engineering career afterword, but it’s his time and accomplishments at Atari (and all the fun he brought us) that are the reason we’re all here. He will be sorely missed.