Atari
More info
- Founded
- Founders
- Nolan Bushnell, Ted Dabney
- Known for
- Pong, Atari 2600, Atari ST
The company that created the games industry, lost it in a year, and has since lived on as a brand passing between owners.
Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded Atari in 1972, taking the name from a term in the Japanese board game go. After Pong came rapid growth, a sale to Warner in 1976 and the 2600 console that made games a household product. The culture was famously loose — Steve Jobs worked there for a while, and Steve Wozniak built the arcade game Breakout for the company.
The 1983 crash took almost all of it. Warner sold the home division to Jack Tramiel, who turned it into the Atari ST, while the arcade side continued separately. The name has changed hands many times since and is used today by a French company that mainly manages the rights to old titles.