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A Grudge Match of Pong http://web.archive.org/web/20000915154425/www.wired.com/news/...

A Grudge Match of Pong


by Arik Hesseldahl

3:00 a.m. May. 24, 1999 PDT


NEW YORK -- Never mind the action in Quake 2 and Starcraft. The real grudge match at the Professional
Gaming League's championship tournament was in Pong.

PGL commissioner, Pong creator, and Atari founder Noln Bushnell defeated Dennis Fong, a former champion
at Quake, in an exhibition match Saturday. The pair met at a PGL tournament last year, with Fong defeating
Bushnell soundly. But Bushnell exacted his revenge with a 15-5 rout of Fong, leaving open the possibility of
another rematch.

The two played the home version of Pong, which was one of the first home-gaming consoles to be sold in the
late 1970s. It led the way for the Atari 2600 and 5200 consoles that were popular during the 1980s.

Tournament attendees also got a look at a restored 1972 vintage coin-operated Pong machine. Pong was the
first commercially successful coin-operated videogame.

The machine, which Bushnell autographed, is on permanent display at the museum of The Atari Historical
Society in Staten Island, New York.

Museum curator Curt Vendel said he found the coin-operated Pong machine in an abandoned garage in
Texas.

Vendel's curiosity about a handful of Atari projects that were cancelled when Atari was sold in 1984 turned
into a lifelong passion to preserve the company's history and products. With the systematic determination of
a historian -- and by calling former Atari employees and even dumpster diving -- he said he has managed to
assemble an extremely detailed chronology of the company's history and a cache of technical documents and
Atari hardware.

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Cheaters Never Prosper


29.Apr.98

Fong Wins Gaming League Championship


2.Feb.98

Gamers, Choose Your League


3.Nov.97

Fragging for Profit


14.Oct.97

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