Artifact Details

Description

Descriptoin by Al Alcorn:

The Prototype contains the actual wire-wrap board-set that was used to design the custom chip. The wire-wrap was made by my wife, Katie Alcorn, in 1974 while I de-bugged the design. The wire-wrap boards were installed in a wooden case and a wooden model of the proposed plastic case was attached to show prospective customers what it was going to look like.

This is the prototype that was used to convince Sears to give us our first order and make the custom chip that was to be in the consumer Pong games we were envisioning. The wooden model of the Pong unit showed what the finished product would look like. The brown woodgrain box contains the two large wire wrap boards later reduced to the custom chip. Once we got the custom chip working we still didn’t have the plastic case designed so there was one more model created that had the working chip in it but still had a wooden mock up of the finished case.

The unit had an RF modulator so that the game could be connected to a standard TV set and viewed on channels 3 or 4. When we used this unit for the Big Demo on the 35th floor of Sears Tower in Chicago, using a Sears supplied TV, it didn't work because a local station broadcast channel 3 from Sears Tower. I had to open the unit up and re-tune it to channel 4 in the middle of this demo, thus exposing the large wire-wrap panels to the Sears executives, who then wondered how we were going to get "all that stuff on a piece of silicone [sic] the size of your fingernail."

I have always had the unit in my possession since it was built. It was constructed at Atari offices in Los Gatos and at my home in Los Altos. The logic design was done by Harold Lee after my original Pong Arcade design. The case was designed by George Faraco (sp?). The schematics were drawn by Harold Lee and marked up by myself and Harold.

A. Alcorn
July 20, 2022

Date

1974 ca.

Manufacturer

Atari, Inc.

Dimensions

overall: 10 in x 20 in x 14 in

Category

Game

Credit

Gift of Al Alcorn

Lot Number

X5381.2009