Get the latest tech news

How were 70s versions of games like Pong built without a programmable computer?

My Dad once commented "Back in the 70s - when Wozniak was working at Atari - they were building games using electronics - not programming computers." As a Computer Science graduate withou...

My Dad once commented "Back in the 70s - when Wozniak was working at Atari- they were building games using electronics - not programming computers." If you get into the Atari 2600 you'll find that it's really weird compared to other consoles (sprites with no clearly defined X coordinate, instead only the ability to place it at the actual current location of the CRT beam or nudge it a small amount either way), but that it starts to make a lot of sense when you realize they were implementing their Pong logic for a programmable chip. I know because one of my designs was the first to use a PLC(aka a Turing machine) as the primary control mechanism for Sydney Water - it still had a complete redundant implementation in relay logic.

Get the Android app