Word: pong
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...totally different set on Tuesday and Thursday. I think that a sense of conflict between one's emotional response to absolute morality and one's rational sense of the implausibility of there being a God is obviously a part of what I call 'the Ping Pong game.' I always write about two people arguing. I play Ping Pong with myself, but there is no killing shot. It is like Ping Pong against a clock; there is a tendency for the argument to be won by the person who finishes speaking when the bell goes, rather than...
Typical of the new games is Pong*, a popular version of electronic table tennis manufactured by two-year-old Atari, Inc. (estimated fiscal 1974 revenue: $14 million) of Los Gates, Calif. Atari sold some 8,500 games to U.S. amusement parlors and other businesses last year, in addition to a substantial overseas trade. Pong is played on a standard television to which a simple circuit board has been added. This device projects images representing a "ball," two "paddles"-four for doubles-and a "net" onto the screen (actually, all are beams of light). By turning knobs, each player...
They are also more profitable. Atari executives report that Pong games frequently take in $200 to $300 per week. Each game costs a quarter, v. only a dime for most pinball machines; the total take from all the machines now in play is estimated at more than $900 million annually...
...least 18 U.S. firms and 23 European companies are fighting for a share of the more than $60 million that industry sources expect to rack up this year from selling electronic games. This hunt for profits could wind up in court. Atari, whose Pong machines were the first to show up in penny arcades, has secured a patent on the electronic circuitry that makes the games possible. Its management contends that other manufacturers should therefore be paying Atari a royalty on each game they produce. To the true pinball aficionado, of course, all this is beside the point; what...
...their work, and do show a certain openness, even kindliness, and spontaneity. This is partially true and may provide a resolution for the tensions revealed by extended discussion with Harvard undergraduates. Harvard students are at their most authentic in the gym and on playing field, even at the pong machine. The person's involvement in sport offers an opportunity for self-expression, for self-mastery, and for uniting form and substance. Students demonstrate authenticity in talks over a beer or joint, when one can see expressions of friendship, exchange of insight, and discussion of meaning. Again, in music practice rooms...