This Day in Pop Culture for November 29

Although not much more than a square-shaped “ball” and two rectangle “paddles”, the game Pong was one of the first video games. The electronic table tennis game was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise which he was given by Nolan Bushnell, the co-founder of Atari. It didn’t take long for copycat games to be made by rival companies. In 1975, Atari created a Pong game for home use which could be connected to the TV. The unit was sold exclusively by Sears. Think of it as an early version of the PlayStation.