Ancient Video Game

Pong
@norcal (4889)
Franklinton, North Carolina
June 18, 2016 4:23pm CST
There was a little bar and grill on the corner in the little town I lived in the early 70s. They used to have pinball in there, but in 1972 they got a new machine. It was called Pong. It was a simple 2 dimensional game for 2 players. A little dot bounced back and forth across the screen, and all you had to do was move your paddle into the path of the bouncing dot to send it back to the other side. It was like a screen version of table tennis. It was such a simple little game, who could have seen what it would lead to? It was totally addicting and everyone was playing it... until Pac-Man came along.
6 people like this
5 responses
Judy Evans
@JudyEv (382104)
• Rockingham, Australia
19 Jun 16
Our boys used to play this on the very old type of computer. Vince bought the first computer in town for the machinery business we were partners in. It was used to keep track of stock and for managing accounts. The kids were only little but loved the game.
1 person likes this
Judy Evans
@JudyEv (382104)
• Rockingham, Australia
19 Jun 16
@norcal They were lucky. There was a very simple golf game on it too and they quickly learnt to program it so they got a hole in one every shot. They loved beating their dad!
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Sherry
@norcal (4889)
• Franklinton, North Carolina
20 Jun 16
@JudyEv That's funny, smart boys!
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Sherry
@norcal (4889)
• Franklinton, North Carolina
19 Jun 16
What lucky boys they were to have access to a computer.
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Jessica
@missjessicadawn (3286)
• United States
20 Jun 16
I was born a little late for this but I have played it before. Pac-Man will always be a favorite! :-)
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Sherry
@norcal (4889)
• Franklinton, North Carolina
20 Jun 16
Yeah, Pac-Man was still simple, but quite a leap forward.
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Jessica
@missjessicadawn (3286)
• United States
20 Jun 16
@norcal definitely. It's amazing how advanced games have become.
topffer
@topffer (42155)
• France
19 Jun 16
I played this one on my first TV game console. We had a lot of fun with it. Before PacMan we had Space Invaders, but it was not available at home like this tennis game. At the time there was quite no computers. I have had my first home computer in 1981, a Sinclair ZX with 16 kb of RAM.
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Sherry
@norcal (4889)
• Franklinton, North Carolina
19 Jun 16
Right. Before people had computers in their house we had to have the game console to play video games. There were the hand held ones too, like the Game Boy. I didn't have a computer in my house until the late 80s
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Anna
@LadyDuck (502487)
• Italy
19 Jun 16
I had pong in 1972, we played it on the TV, because we had not yet our first personal computer. It came later, the first one we owned was an Apple II in 1979.
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Sherry
@norcal (4889)
• Franklinton, North Carolina
20 Jun 16
You got on that personal computer thing early!
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Anna
@LadyDuck (502487)
• Italy
20 Jun 16
@norcal Yes, my husband loves the electronics and he wanted to try the personal computer as soon as it was available. We lived in Monte-Carlo (south of France) and France was the first European country to import the Apple computers.
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Genipher
@Genipher (5405)
• United States
18 Jun 16
I remember my mom playing that when I was little! Eventually she moved on to Mario.
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Sherry
@norcal (4889)
• Franklinton, North Carolina
18 Jun 16
I liked Tetris. My kids liked Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt (they had Nintendo.)
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