Pong History

Pong, was the worlds first popular coin op arcade game, originally produced by Atari in 1972.This truly was the dawn of the videogame era, a time in which amusement companies who had previously been making games like Pinball machines like Williams, could see the potential that videogames offered, following the success of Pong, and so many new companies or divisions were created, solely to produce videogames, even if they were intially all Pong based games.Of course it wasn't long, before Atari realised that videogames would be popular in the home, and so Pong became the first TV game for the home.In 1975, General Instruments released the AY-3-8500, better known as the 'PongOnAChip', this enabled anyone, wishing to cash in on the success, to easily produce their own Pong TV game units.In the UK alone, most of the consumer electronics companies made versions, or rebadged others, including Prinz (Dixons own brand), Binatone, Tandy and Grandstand, unfortunately as most used the 'PongOnAChip', they all offered exactly the same.

As a collector of retro games, consoles, computers and handhelds, I have quite a few Pong type TV game systems, which I've discovered work, and look best on an suitably vintage B&W TV, not very practical, so this flash game is a great alternative.