Robert Smith
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
They exceeded that 150,000 number for the 1975 Christmas season.
And Sears sold all of them.
Pong was the hit game of the year.
Merry Christmas, Tiny Robert Smith.
Happy ending.
There are no happy endings in technology.
Nope.
There are only happy middles, right?
You do not get to make Home Pong and then coast on it forever.
It is not Barbie.
It is not Monopoly, right?
Because of Moore's Law, essentially, every year people are going to make better video games, right?
This is clear to anybody in Silicon Valley.
It's clear to Bushnell.
And in fact, the year after Atari wins Christmas in 1976—
Our old friend Fairchild, Fairchild Semiconductor.
Yes.
They start selling a home video game console that is not just one game like Pong, but it allows you to buy different cartridges and swap in different games.
It's called Channel F, like Fairchild, but also Channel Fun.
As I was reading that, I was also like, remember channels?