ATARI King of The Serventies
Atari of the Seventies was a different animal to the corporate juggernaut that captured worldwide attention and became the fastest growing company in US history in 1980. This coin-op-focused Atari was chaotic and flew (and grew) by the seat of its pants. It broke new ground, buttressed by engineering smarts and Nolan Bushnell’s gutsy management, while attracting the notice of Wall Street and the general public.
Nolan Bushnell was an engineer at the Silicon Valley stalwart Ampex when he recruited his friend and coworker Ted Dabney to form a company to design video display-powered games. Nolan envisioned a consumer-focused version of the game Spacewar! he had played as a student at the University Of Utah. The duo created its first game, Computer Space, for Nutting Associates, a maker of quiz and electromechanical games. It was a modest success, selling 1,500 units and netting nearly $3 million in sales, which paved the way for future projects. But more importantly, it proved that there was a market for video-driven, hardware-based consumer games.
With the earnings from Computer Space, the two hired their first employee: engineer and fellow Ampex alum, Allan Alcorn. While he wasn’t enamoured with Computer Space, Allan was intrigued by its engineering and the potential challenge of a startup. “It was really, really insane to quit a good job and start a company,” Allan says. He points out that startup culture and entrepreneurship weren’t as common or as glamorised as they are now. “Today,
