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kottke.org posts about Pong

The inside story of Pong

On the 40th anniversary of the seminal game’s invention, Chris Stokel-Walker looks back at the history of Pong and why it was such a big deal for the gaming industry.

On Nov. 29, 1972, a crude table-tennis arcade game in a garish orange cabinet was delivered to bars and pizza parlors around California, and a multi-billion-dollar industry was born. Here’s how that happened, direct from the freaks and geeks who invented a culture and paved the way for today’s tech moguls.