Allan Alcorn was desperate when he recruited Steve Jobs, a young college dropout.
The young computer games business for whom he worked, Atari, was hurrying to staff up following the unexpected success of its debut game, Pong. A young hippy in sandals waited in reception and requested a position as a technician.
“It was 1973, and there was a young man, about 18 years old, who was so excited about technology – he said his name was Steve Jobs,” Alcorn told The Post. “I recruited him.”
Jobs was terminated from the day shift as a result of two not-insignificant issues with the new employee.
Alcorn said that the man who would go on to start Apple computers was a nuisance to work with and had a serious problem with body odor, so he was required to work at night. “It was best for all parties,”
Pong made its commercial debut in 1972 and infiltrated American homes in 1975, establishing the culture of home gaming.
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On November 29, it will have been 50 years since Pong, the revolutionary computer game invented by Alcorn, was initially released throughout California and, eventually, the world, bringing computer games out of laboratories and into the public.
Pong was the catalyst for the boom of home video games, yet Alcorn is humble about his achievements.
The 74-year-old remarked, “I don’t know, I assume I came up with the simplest game you could possibly imagine.” “What, exactly, is Pong? Two paddles. A net. One moving item… and really addicting.”
Alcorn (far right) with Atari co-founders Ted Dabney (left) and Nolan Bushnell (right) and Atari employee Fred Marincic, displaying an early Pong machine.
Thanks to Allan Alcorn
Before accepting a position at Ampex, a prominent engineering business in Redwood City, California, a University of California, Berkeley electronic-engineering graduate supported himself by repairing televisions.
It was then that he met Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, who would later found Atari. In June 1972, they hired Alcorn, then 24 years old, making him the company’s third employee. (He still retains his employee identification bearing the employee number 003 as evidence.)
“We had no money, no capability for manufacturing, and nothing else. But I figured, ‘I’ll go along with it until it explodes,’” Alcorn, who was paid $250 a week, said. It sounded like it may be entertaining.
Steve Jobs was employed by Alcorn before he founded Apple, but he was demoted to the night shift because he was difficult to work with and had an offensive body odor.
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It was so low-budget that it was a one-person operation.
“People often ask me, ‘Who did the sound effects for Pong?’” I did. Or, “who designed the visuals for Pong?” he said. “At that time, it was just me, left to my own ways for two months, and Pong was the result.”
His own type of beta testing followed. With the game’s programming done in September 1972, Alcorn purchased a black-and-white Hitachi television from Walgreens and housed it in a tabletop box housing all the circuitry. He installed a coin receptacle from a laundromat, with a cut-off plastic milk jug below to collect the money.
Alcorn was the third employee of Atari.
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Next visit was Andy Capp’s Tavern, one of the Atari team’s neighborhood taverns in Sunnyvale, California – just 10 minutes from the eventual location of Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino. Alcorn abandoned the game and waited between a pinball machine and a jukebox. “I just wanted to test whether anyone would really play it,” he remarked.
The pub owner contacted the Atari office a few days later.
Pong had gone awry.
“It wasn’t constructed to last, so I wasn’t surprised that it was shattered,” said Alcorn, who went to the pub to inspect it.
The next day, he dropped up a hefty bag of quarters at Nolan Bushnell’s office. “I responded, ‘I’ve identified the issue: the damned thing is producing too much money,’” he remembered. The collector of coins was stuffed.
Alcorn constructed a Pong system and placed it at a local pub to test it with consumers; however, it broke when too many people attempted to play for money.
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Alcorn substituted a larger bread pan for the milk jug, and Atari went to work. Immediately thereafter, twelve coin-operated Pong machines were placed in bars around California. They cost $500 to produce, and Atari sold them for $1,000 in advance. The company flourished rapidly and even expanded internationally.
By 1975, Atari was producing a home console version of Pong, and its rapid success brought the business to the attention of much larger competitors. However, an upstart contacted Alcorn for assistance.
When Apple was created in 1976 by former employee Steve Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak, Alcorn was given shares in exchange for resolving a technical issue.
In 1976, when Steve Jobs co-founded Apple, he gave Alcorn stock in exchange for resolving some technological concerns. Alcorn made the mistake of requesting a computer.
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“I instructed them to give me one of their laptops instead,” he said, recalling his expensive error.
Jobs, Wozniak, and the whole Apple team traveled to Alcorn’s residence to install his Apple II.
“About a dozen people put it up and taught me how to make it work on the television,” he remembered. “After they went, I boasted to my wife that I could program this computer to perform any task. She said, “Great, have it do the dishes!” When I informed her that it couldn’t do that, she just said, “Get the stupid thing out of the living room. I desire to see television.”
In 1976, Warner Communications agreed to purchase Atari for $30 million.
Warner Communications reached an agreement to acquire Atari for $30 million, and Alcorn received a windfall from his ten percent share.
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“And I was like, ‘Holy s–t! I’ve acquired 10 percent stock!” Alcorn stated.
Although the shift to Warner made financial sense, Alcorn, Bushnell, and Dabney were disappointed with the results. Atari preferred a chance; Warner had little taste for risk.
Alcorn stated, “They had money and marketing expertise, but they did not comprehend gaming, nor did they comprehend Silicon Valley.” “We had a number of failures at Atari that aren’t very well-known, but if you have to succeed every time, you’ll never be innovative.”
With Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Centipede, Atari rose to prominence in the 1970s.
In 1981, it became evident that Alcorn was no longer needed at Warner, despite the fact that Atari’s annual sales had surpassed $1 billion and the company dominated over 75% of the home video-game industry with successes such as Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Centipede.
Warner placed him on two years of paid leave.
“We were placed on the seashore. They paid us our entire pay and expenses. I even had a business automobile that I didn’t use,” Alcorn recalled with a giggle.
Steve Jobs awarded him an Apple Fellow in 1985 for his work in digital video reduction, but Alcorn claimed he was hesitant to work with Jobs again.
Steve Jobs appointed Alcorn an Apple Fellow in 1985, although he was not enthusiastic about working with Jobs again: “He could be a genuine jerk to work for.”
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“I had no desire to work for the man. “He might be a really unpleasant boss,” he remarked. However, it sounded intriguing, and it was Apple.
One of the final things he worked on at Apple was a project that compressed video into a datatype, making it more compact and flexible.
“I had no idea that it would result in the internet being flooded with cat and dog videos,” he added.
Now retired, Alcorn’s inventiveness is deservedly acknowledged for its role in establishing the worldwide video gaming business as we know it today.
Even after all these decades, Pong remains as popular as ever. Alcorn even sold a prototype of the home version of Pong for $279,010 at auction.
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Meanwhile, Pong has never lost its popularity.
In March, Alcorn sold the first prototype of the home version of Pong for $279,010 at an auction in Boston, Massachusetts. “My wife instructed me to clean up the garage, and it was just sitting there,” he shrugged.
“I do save a few items, but if someone wants to offer me a quarter-million dollars for something similar, then by all means, feel free to do so.”
Scientists at Melbourne, Australia’s Cortical Labs were able to educate networks of brain cells in a Petri dish how to play Pong.
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In an attempt to demonstrate “synthetic biological intelligence,” researchers at Cortical Labs in Melbourne, Australia, have recently taught networks of brain cells in Petri dishes how to play Pong.
And, fifty years later, people continue to play the game.
Alcorn stated, “At a convention for video games, I observed a young boy playing an old arcade Pong machine by himself.” “Therefore, I went to him and played.
“When I defeated him, I told him, ‘Years ago, I was the world’s best Pong player.’”
False, said the child.
What Alcorn did not tell the child was, “I was the only Pong player in the world for a few months.”