Oh, ###. Does that mean we just missed something entertaining on google? After poring over the globe I tried google dot samoa, but learned only that in some places the main screen calls itself Goog and that's all. (Has it always been that way? Did I never notice before?)
LifeinAsia
5:16 pm on Nov 30, 2012 (gmt 0)
There's a YouTube video from 1969 showing the first video ping pong game. It's too bad Atari dumbed it down- the original allowed you to move the paddles left to right (not just up/down), manually serve, and put English on the ball.
engine
5:36 pm on Nov 30, 2012 (gmt 0)
This was the only video game I managed to learn to play.
40th anniversary, eh, well, that sure dates me.
SevenCubed
5:45 pm on Nov 30, 2012 (gmt 0)
Yep I remember playing it as a kid whenever I went over to my cousin's place. Other than that game, as far as I can remember I played Risk on DOS on a waaaaaaaay expensive laptop sometime back around 1988. Later got a Windows version of it. That was the extent of video games for me.
lucy24
7:40 pm on Nov 30, 2012 (gmt 0)
What? No Asteroids? Yes, OK, so it was just Pong rotated 90%...
johnhh
11:11 pm on Nov 30, 2012 (gmt 0)
ahhh long days at university wasted playing that game, 10p a go. Asteroids .. we even had a company league table , but the pub used the tables for meals as well.
Marshall
12:01 am on Dec 1, 2012 (gmt 0)
| *|
Marshall
lawman
1:42 am on Dec 1, 2012 (gmt 0)
Like just about everyone else I played pong but not a big fan. Now asteroids in all of its versions - that I liked. It was so much fun it felt like I was committing a sin.
moxie
6:46 pm on Dec 2, 2012 (gmt 0)
Heh Pong; first video game I owned. Loved Asteroids; but loved Space Invaders even more.
minnapple
2:24 am on Dec 3, 2012 (gmt 0)
I bought pong for my little sister that was ten years younger than me for Christmas way back when. It was magical for her and for my brother and me. Simple pleasures.
minnapple
2:31 am on Dec 3, 2012 (gmt 0)
Asteroids was an addiction.
lgn1
9:22 pm on Dec 6, 2012 (gmt 0)
Here is the orginal commercial for the orignal pong game.
Show this to your children, while reminiscing about walking five miles to school each day in a blinding snowstorm, uphill both ways.
travelin cat
6:50 pm on Dec 13, 2012 (gmt 0)
I wish I could get back the hours I spent on Pong. My parents had a table version that they got from a restaurant supply house. I got pretty good at putting spin on the ball.
I probably could have retired by now if I would have studied instead of playing pong.
lexipixel
10:13 pm on Dec 13, 2012 (gmt 0)
table version that they got from a restaurant supply house
...any old fart BBS sysops here remember when Wayne Gregori recycled some of those coin-operated Pong tables into "RJ-11 Tables"?
In the early 90's, Wayne added modems and terminal software to the tables and put them in San Francisco area coffee-houses to give patrons coin-op dial-up access to SF NET, (his BBS).
Side note: I'm getting more and more impressed with Wikipedia. The amount of info is getting deep -- they even have an article about Wayne and the tables: [en.wikipedia.org...]
