Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded Atari in 1972, making it one of the earliest major arcade-video-game companies.
The company was incorporated in California on June 27, 1972. Its first commercial arcade game, Pong, was designed by Al Alcorn under Bushnell’s direction. A prototype placed in a Sunnyvale, California, bar became a major success after the coin mechanism began malfunctioning because the machine was filled with quarters.
Atari also helped popularize home video gaming with the Atari 2600, released in 1977. Bushnell later left the company, and ownership changed several times. Atari’s history is therefore different from that of Activision, which was founded in 1979 by former Atari programmers who wanted their names credited on games.