Pong launches the video-game industry
1972 · Event
Atari installs a coin-operated cabinet with two paddles and a square ball in a California bar; within days it breaks down because the coin bucket is jammed full of quarters. Pong is the first video game the general public actually plays — the seed of an industry that now out-earns films and music combined.
On these timelines: The Digital Revolution, Master, Science & Technology, USA
More from The Digital Revolution
- Invention of the World Wide Web (1989)
- Google founded (1998)
- Turing's On Computable Numbers (1936)
- Moore's Law formulated (1965)
- Turing's Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)
- Mosaic makes the web visual (1993)
- First email sent (1971)
Around 1972
- The Troubles (1968)
- Apollo 11 moon landing (1969)
- Yom Kippur War (1973)
- Watergate scandal (1972)
- Iranian Revolution (1978)
- Six-Day War (1967)
- Vietnam War (American phase) (1965)
- Prague Spring (1968)
- Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
- Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)