Pong Culture

In British slang, "pong" means stink. However, I do not use the term with this definition. Rather, I refer to the mother of all video games - Pong.

I remember back to the time where calculators, home computers and cable television were nonexistent in our culture. Digital watches had yet to make a real appearance and, when they did, were the clunky black-banded red LED variety. Same with calculators, for that matter. In other words, basic subsistence technology was not in place during my tender youth. Technology for fun was not a top priority.

Then came Pong. The simple yellow console. The arcane cabling and boxes required to hook the magic to the television. A black and white TV was fine - Pong was black and white. You could play singles or doubles, fast or slow. Back and forth hitting a square white ball with flat white paddles. A video game for the television. A completely novel idea for a generation just getting an inkling of what the new electronic era would provide them.

I thought I was quite privliged to have my Pong game. I caged a discarded black and white TV to put in my bedroom and watched my father have a cerebral vascular event while trying to successfully hook up the device. But, once set up and ready to go, I barricaded myself in my room with 32-oz glass bottles of Coke or Tab and didn't exit for days. The fun thing about Pong was that the simplicity of the game allowed the imagination to rule the show. The ball and paddles could be anything. My mission knew no bounds. My opponent, whether real or imaginary, could be anyone. We created our own fantastic scenarios, dangerous missions, heroic characters to fit our mood. My mother, if I had company, would leave us alone, except to deposit paper trash bags filled with freshly-popped popcorn and more soda just inside my bedroom door.

Pong lasted me a good while. My parents weren't Rockefellers, so as technology progressed, I had to wait patiently for anything new to make it into our house. The next salvo in the video game war was Atari 2600. I begged and pleaded with my parents for an Atari system. My friends and I would spend our free time at the mall or in bowling alleys playing the arcade games - Pac Man, Centipede, Space Invaders, Asteroids...Atari offered these and, it seemed at the time, so much more. Finally, I was rewarded with a gleaming new Atari 2600 system and fell into worship almost immediately. I had, by that time, obtained small color television set. The screen size was such that I and any companions had to huddle close to the set in order to adequately visualize the action. That was ok, we were used to forming a clot of humanity around the arcade games at the mall.

The color, graphics and performance of the Atari system was, by today's standards, laughable. But, it was a major departure from the minimalist Pong environment. We could now see our spaceships blasting our foes, our heroes vanquishing the villains...life was good. Then came The Grand Disruption.

Pong had been the only game in town. With the realized potential of the video game industry, a variety of units hit the market. My friends got a Texas Instrument system. Their games were different than mine and our games could not be played on opposing systems. The Nintendo revolution hit, bringing improved functionality and quality of graphics. Every time, the cost of console and game increased. Quickly, the kids in my neighborhood saw the writing on the wall - we weren't going to be vanguards in the new video revolution. Our parents didn't have the money to keep up with the ever changing technology. I went no further than my early Atari system. One friend got an early Nintendo, but couldn't afford more than a couple of games.

Gaming culture took off with a blast, but we were left in the dust. It was not until I could afford my own computer, as an adult, that I began to play again. Being both poor and cheap, I downloaded demo versions of games onto my machine and made do for a long time. Duke Nukem, Doom, Castle Wolfenstein...I never bought any game software, but had a good time with the free offerings. Even today, if I get the urge to play, I find a free site online and make use of their bandwidth.

My generation built the video universe. Many of us dropped off early on and let others push the developers for new and better programs and hardware. We stragglers were content to play what we had, old and sad as it was, and use our imaginations to fill in the gaps. One day I may jump back into the matrix and rejoin my Pong culture brethren. One day, when I win the lottery....