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Nutting Associates was an arcade game manufacturer based in Mountain View, California, incorporated in February 1967 by William Gilbert Nutting. [1] In 1977 the company was purchased by William "Si" Redd and eventually absorbed into the company Sircoma.
Bill Nutting was working as a buyer at a San Francisco department store when his father-in-law, Revere Ware executive Herbert Ullmann, alerted him to an educational technology company called Edex Teaching Systems looking for investors. Nutting became a partner in the company, which created a coin-operated trivia game called the Knowledge Computer in 1964. Nutting marketed the machine for Edex and bought the rights to it after Edex was purchased by Raytheon in 1965. In January 1966, he founded Nutting Associates to market the Knowledge Computer and a redesigned version of the device called Computer Quiz (1967) created by Richard Ball of Marketing Services. [2] In 1968 the model was redesigned into a solid-state version. [1] [3]
In 1971, Nolan Bushnell sold Nutting Associates on manufacturing the game Computer Space (1971). About 1,500 units were manufactured. [1] Afterwards, Bushnell wanted a large ownership stake in the company to continue creating games for Nutting Associates, but left after not being given that opportunity to form Atari Inc. with Ted Dabney. [4]
Nutting Associates continued manufacturing video games up until 1977 when the company was sold to "Si" Redd. A new Nutting Associates company was established in Nevada before being absorbed into the larger company Sircoma, a video poker manufacturer. [5]
Nutting's brother, Dave Nutting, also worked in the video game industry. He formed Dave Nutting Associates, a consulting firm that produced many of Midway's games during the 1970s and early 80s. [6]
Atari is a brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972, currently by Atari Interactive, a subsidiary of the French publisher Atari SA. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, California, in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company's products, such as Pong and the Atari 2600, helped define the electronic entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.
The Atari 2600, originally branded as the Atari Video Computer System until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released on September 11, 1977, it popularized the use of microprocessor-based hardware and of games stored on swappable ROM cartridges, a format first used with the Fairchild Channel F in 1976. The VCS was bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridge—initially Combat and later Pac-Man.
Pong is a table tennis–themed arcade video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released in 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, but Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney were surprised by the quality of Alcorn's work and decided to manufacture the game. Bushnell based the game's concept on an electronic ping-pong game included in the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console. In response, Magnavox later sued Atari for patent infringement.
Nolan Kay Bushnell is an American businessman and electrical engineer. He established Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre chain. Bushnell has been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame, received the BAFTA Fellowship and the Nations Restaurant News "Innovator of the Year" award, and was named one of Newsweek's "50 Men Who Changed America." Bushnell has started more than twenty companies and is one of the founding fathers of the video game industry. He is on the board of Anti-Aging Games. In 2012 he founded an educational software company called Brainrush, that is using video game technology in educational software.
Computer Space is a space combat arcade game developed in 1971. Created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in partnership as Syzygy Engineering, it was the first arcade video game as well as the first commercially available video game. Computer Space is a derivative of the 1962 computer game Spacewar!, possibly the first video game to spread to multiple computer installations. It features a rocket controlled by the player engaged in a missile battle with a pair of hardware-controlled flying saucers set against a starfield background. The goal is to score more hits than the enemy spaceships within a set time period, which awards a free round of gameplay. The game is enclosed in a custom fiberglass cabinet, which Bushnell designed to look futuristic.
1972 saw the release of the first commercially successful video arcade game, Pong, and the first video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey.
Chicago Coin was one of the early major manufacturers of pinball tables founded in Chicago, Illinois. The company was founded in 1932 by Samuel H. Gensburg to operate in the coin-operated amusement industry. In 1977, Gary Stern and Sam Stern purchased the assets of the Chicago Coin Machine Division as it was then called to found Stern Electronics, Inc.
Samuel Frederick Dabney Jr. was an American electrical engineer, and the co-founder, alongside Nolan Bushnell, of Atari, Inc. He is recognized as developing the basics of video circuitry principles that were used for Computer Space and later Pong, one of the first and most successful arcade games.
Gran Trak 10 is an arcade game developed by Atari through its subsidiary Cyan Engineering, and released by Atari in May 1974. In the game, a single player drives a car along a race track, viewed from above, avoiding walls of pylons and trying to pass as many checkpoints as possible before time runs out. The game is controlled with a steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedals, and a gear stick, and the car crashes and spins if it hits a pylon. Gran Trak 10 began development in late 1973; it was initially designed by Larry Emmons of Cyan, with the mechanical design handled by Eigen Systems, though after several design and production problems were uncovered during an initial small production run in March 1974 the design was overhauled by Allan Alcorn, the designer of Pong, with wider distribution beginning in May. The game's circuits include possibly the first instance of integrated circuit-based read-only memory (ROM), which thereafter became the standard for arcade games, replacing diode-stored graphics.
In the history of video games, the first-generation era refers to the video games, video game consoles, and handheld video game consoles available from 1972 to 1983. Notable consoles of the first generation include the Odyssey series, the Atari Home Pong, the Coleco Telstar series and the Color TV-Game series. The generation ended with the Computer TV-Game in 1980, but many manufacturers had left the market prior due to the market decline in 1977 and the start of the second generation of video game consoles.
Gotcha is an arcade game developed by Atari and released in October 1973. It was the fourth game by the company, after the 1972 Pong, which marked the beginning of the commercial video game industry, and the 1973 Space Race and Pong Doubles. In the game, two players move through a maze, which continually changes over time. One player, the Pursuer, attempts to catch the other, the Pursued; if they do, a point is scored, and the players reset positions. The game emits an electronic beeping sound, which increases in pace as the Pursuer gets closer to the Pursued, and each game lasts a set amount of time.
David Judd Nutting was an industrial design engineer who played a role in the early video game industry. He was a graduate of the Pratt Institute with a degree in industrial design.
Gremlin Industries was an arcade game manufacturer active from the 1971 to 1983 based San Diego, California, USA.
Space Race is an arcade game developed by Atari, Inc. and released on July 16, 1973. It was the second game by the company, after Pong (1972), which marked the beginning of the commercial video game industry. In the game, two players each control a rocket ship, with the goal of being the first to move their ship from the bottom of the screen to the top. Along the way are asteroids, which the players must avoid. Space Race was the first racing arcade video game and the first game with a goal of crossing the screen while avoiding obstacles.
Galaxy Game is a space combat arcade game developed in 1971 during the early era of video games. Created by Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck, it was one of the first coin-operated video games; its initial prototype display in November 1971 at the Tresidder student union building at Stanford University was only a few months after a similar display of a prototype of Computer Space, making it the second known video game to charge money to play. Galaxy Game is an expanded version of the 1962 Spacewar!, potentially the first video game to spread to multiple computer installations. It features two spaceships, "the needle" and "the wedge", engaged in a dogfight while maneuvering in the gravity well of a star. Both ships are controlled by human players.
Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari was responsible for the formation of the video arcade and modern video game industry.
The history of video games spans a period of time between the invention of the first electronic games and today, covering many inventions and developments. Video gaming reached mainstream popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, when arcade video games, gaming consoles and home computer games were introduced to the general public. Since then, video gaming has become a popular form of entertainment and a part of modern culture in most parts of the world. The early history of video games, therefore, covers the period of time between the first interactive electronic game with an electronic display in 1947, the first true video games in the early 1950s, and the rise of early arcade video games in the 1970s. During this time there was a wide range of devices and inventions corresponding with large advances in computing technology, and the actual first video game is dependent on the definition of "video game" used.
Death Race is an arcade game developed and released by Exidy in the United States, first shipping to arcade distributors on April 1, 1976. The game was a modification of Exidy's 1975 game Destruction Derby in which players crashed into cars to accrue points. In Death Race, the objective became to run into "gremlins" to gain score. The game could be played with one or two players controlling different cars. The original working title for the game which appeared on some early advertisements was Death Race 98.
An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games or merchandisers.
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