In August 1972 a strange wooden cabinet in a Sunnyvale bar stopped working, and the engineer who opened it found the coin mechanism jammed with quarters. This episode traces the history of Pong from Nolan Bushnell's fake General Electric contract, a training exercise handed to new Atari hire Alan Alcorn, through the hardwired logic Alcorn built into a $75 television, the ball that sped up during rallies, segmented paddles, sound tapped from the video sync generator, and a wiring defect that became the game's most important feature.

The story continues with the Andy Capp's Tavern test, the decision to manufacture in a converted roller rink, the Home Pong chip that Harold Lee and Alcorn compressed onto a single piece of silicon, the Sears Tower demonstration that nearly failed due to antenna interference, and the 150,000-unit order that requi ...