Pong T-Shirt

Ahh, Pong... Often considered to be the world's first video game, Pong has had a colourful history.

The concept was initially developed by William A. Higinbotham in 1958, who played the game on an oscilloscope using a variety of switches and electronic doodads. Over a decade later, a similar game was patented by electronics company Magnavox, who hoped to use it to sell their television sets. In 1972, a demo of the Magnavox system was played by one 'Nolan Bushnell'. Nolan later created Atari, with a view to create arcade games. He wanted to market a driving game, but first as a practice exercise, asked his programmer (Al Alcorn) to make a version of the Pong game he'd played in '72. When Atari tested their new Pong machine in a bar, it was so popular that people were queuing outside. The machine eventually stopped working because it was too full of money!!! After a brief legal 'squabble' with Magnavox over the licence, Atari put Pong into mass production both in arcade machines and home units and the game fast became a legend. You'd have thought, after having to pay Magnavox around $700,000 to sell Pong machines, Atari would have learnt a thing or two about patents and copyright. Unfortunately they hadn't, and so Pong was cloned and copied by many different companies. Here in the UK, you're most likely to have played Pong as a kid on a 'Binatone' machine...

Pong is now available, on a stylish t-shirt from... well... from us actually. ;)