Atari Corporation began official operations on June 27th 1972.   Nolan Bushnell, it's founding father, was an entrepreneur; he saw that electronics could be made profitable by their application in the entertainment market.  Taking inspiration from other projects at the time, such as Spacewar running on a DEC PDP-1, he quit his job as an engineer at Ampex in 1971.  Applying his thinking and with less than $1000 he produced the first "PONG" machine with his first employee, Al Alcorn, cleverly placing it in a local bar.

Legend has it, that the owner of "Andy Caps" bar in Sunnyvale, California, called his partner Al Alcorn, to pick up his now "broken" machine less than 48 hours since it had been installed - apparently it had only reached it's limit of quarters. Above, the original PONG machine from Andy Caps Bar!

The video game revolution had begun...