Close your eyes and imagine you're walking into a living room many years ago.

The television is large and boxy, sitting on wooden furniture.

There are no streaming shows, no smartphones, and no internet.

A family gathers around the TV, not just to watch something, but to play.

Someone holds a simple controller with a small joystick and one red button. On the screen,

a tiny white square bounces back and forth like a glowing ball. Everyone cheers when it hits

the paddle just right. This was the beginning of home video games and at the center of it

all was a company called Atari. Atari was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in California.

At the time, video games barely existed.

Computers were large machines used mostly by scientists and businesses,

not something people imagined having at home.

Bushnell believed games played on screens could become fun entertainment for

everyone, not just researchers. His goal was simple, but bold. Bring electronic games into everyday life.

The company's first big success was a game called Pong. Pong was inspired by table tennis.

Two players controlled paddles on opposite sides of the screen and tried to bounce a square ball past each other. The graphics were extremely simple,

just lines and dots, but the game was exciting because people could play together.

The first Pong machine was placed in a pizza restaurant. Soon the owner called

Atari with a problem. The machine had stopped working. When a technician opened it, he discovered

the real issue. It was filled with coins. So many people had played that the coin box overflowed.

This showed Atari they had created something special.

Pung quickly became popular in arcades, which were places filled with game machines

where people paid coins to play.

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