Pong is 45 Years Old Today

Wow, I must be getting old. Spent countless hours playing it at a friends house
 
Wow, some of you must feel old. Thankfully this one was. Before my time
 
Wow, I must be getting old. Spent countless hours playing it at a friends house

Shit you ain't da only one! I remember working my ass off saving money to get me an Atari console with the Pong game for free!
 
Coleco Telstar still in the closet.....
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I remember some version of Pong being in my high school student lounge. Air hockey was more fun and the games lasted longer.
 
I never saw a coin-op pong in the wild that I can remember, around here they would have been (since this is pre-arcades) in the dimly-lit bars and lounges of local restaurants, and depending on the crowd (which, to a kid under 10, looked like the denizens of Mos Eisley Cantina) I might gather up the courage to ask for a quarter to brave the drunken adult creepers to go play what was usually an Atari B&W game like Grand Prix or one of the other raster games, this is before vector games like Asteroids appeared. Space INvaders, once it finally dropped, was fucking everywhere.........Pong however I never really played in the real world, just on the home version. And then like a year or two later Atari 2600 and nobody thought much about pong anymore, after that it was all "BREAKOUT!".
 
My uncle purchased Pong early on, and I vividly remember playing it a couple of times when i was a kid.
I think they still have the console, although no longer in use.
 
Oh pong.

I miss Computer Space from Nutting Associates.
Pong stole it's glory....
 
Back when I had a paper route and saved and bought my first Atari game system(back then it wasn't even called the 2600 yet) my parents had the pong console. I think it had a couple of other games on it also. The system I'd bought was used and came with around a dozen games for a few hundred. A couple of years later I got my first computer, an Atari 400, that over time became my first modding experience.
 
Wow, some of you must feel old. Thankfully this one was. Before my time
Not old, just seasoned. :) Played Pong on on the Atari 2600 back when it was new. Later I moved on to arcades and eventually the NES, Sega Genesis, etc.
 
Oy, I definitely had a Pong Standalone game in the 70's as a kid. Can't remember though if it was Magnavox or Atari, leaning towards former. Looking at pictures isn't jogging memories though...want to say it may have been a clone from like Sears or something, possibly a wiid grain 'furniture' style one. But hey, I can't remember what I did yesterday either.
 
Just think about it though.. compare pong to a AAA title game today. Then try to image what video games will be like in 45 more years. It's not really possible to imagine, but if I could, it would probably something along the lines of not being able to distinguish real life from a video game where you hop into a neural uplink pod and enter the game which simulates reality.
 
Just think about it though.. compare pong to a AAA title game today. Then try to image what video games will be like in 45 more years. It's not really possible to imagine, but if I could, it would probably something along the lines of not being able to distinguish real life from a video game where you hop into a neural uplink pod and enter the game which simulates reality.
give it another 45 years and we'll be there
 
Coleco Telstar still in the closet.....
system-telstar1.jpg
I remember seeing ColecoVision displays where you could play Pong in stores back when I was in HS. Our first console was a Sears branded Atari 2600. I think I may be getting old.
 
Oy, I definitely had a Pong Standalone game in the 70's as a kid. Can't remember though if it was Magnavox or Atari, leaning towards former. Looking at pictures isn't jogging memories though...want to say it may have been a clone from like Sears or something, possibly a wiid grain 'furniture' style one. But hey, I can't remember what I did yesterday either.
This is the one I had in 1974 or 1975. The Hanimex 777 with four games!

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