Iconic Atari turns 40, tries to stay relevant

NEW YORK (AP) – A scruffy, young Steve Jobs worked at Atari before he founded Apple. “Pong,” one of the world’s first video games, was born there, as was “Centipede,” a classic from the era of quarter-guzzling arcade machines. “Call of Duty” creator Activision was started by four of Atari’s former game developers.

The iconic video game company turns 40 years old this week, much slimmer these days as it tries to stay relevant in the age of “Angry Birds” and “Words With Friends.”

But Atari’s influence on today’s video games is pervasive.

Although it wasn’t the first company to make video games, Atari was the first to make a lasting impression on an entire generation. At arcades — or at video game bars such as Barcade in the trendy Williamsburg section of Brooklyn — nostalgic patrons still gather around such Atari classics as “Asteroids,” ‘’Joust” and “Centipede.”

The Atari 2600, launched in 1977, was the first video game console in millions of homes, long before the Nintendo Entertainment System (1985), Sony’s PlayStation (1994) and Microsoft’s Xbox (2001).

Today’s younger iPhone gamers might not remember how “Pong,” that simple, two-dimensional riff on PingPong, swept across living rooms and arcades in the 1970s. But they might recognize elements of it in easy-to-learn, hard-to-master games based on simple physics — among them, “Angry Birds.”

“For tens of millions of Gen X-ers, or kids who grew up in America in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Atari is a cultural icon, an intrinsic part of childhood,” says Scott Steinberg, tech analyst and author of “The Modern Parent’s Guide to Kids and Video Games.”

“Pong,” he adds, was in some ways the very first social video game, one designed to play in bars, at home or at an arcade, while spectators crowded around to watch the action.

Launched in 1972 from Atari’s Silicon Valley headquarters, “Pong” featured a basic black-and-white screen (that’s black and white only, no shades of gray here), divided by a dotted line. Short white lines on either side stood in for paddles. Two players controlled them and tried to get a moving dot — the ball — past their opponent.