Pong was the turning point of our generation.
In the first half of the twentieth century, movies captures images and replayed them for audiences. We were no longer limited to seeing what was actually before us, we could conceive of and visualize a greater reality than the sphere of our personal presence (this of course built upon the nineteenth century developments of photography, the telegraph, the telephone and radio). This was the generation that witnessed the shrinking of distance because of the popularization of the automobile and the airplane, and the expansion of warfare to the point at which it encompasses the entire world. Thus, our grandparents are the generation of the expansion of images.
In the fifties and in the early seventies, television brought images to the home. The alternative realities were shrunk to the point that anyone could capture them and examine them in a living room. This was the generation of the contraction of images.
We are the generation of manipulation of images. Pong broke the uni-dimensionality of the TV, by allowing the individual to manipulate what appeared before them. We no longer had to watch whatever They placed before us on the screen; the screen would do our bidding, change according to our control, become a tool for our manipulation. We are addicted to the TV, but we do not worship it. It is not our God, it is our tool. Other generations could change the channel, but we are inclined to channel surf – it’s the control that matters.
Pong looks primitive to us today – how could we have found something like that interesting? But in the late 1970s Pong was so successful that Atari turned down a proposal from two enterprising young men named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniack to sell a version of their new personal computer – the Apple I – because Atari had it hands full with Pong sales.
Improvements in the graphics quality from then to now are tremendous, but differences of quantity of information rather than quality.
