Nolan Bushnell

Cofounder of Atari

• Born: February 5, 1943
• Place of Birth: Clearfield, Utah

Primary Company/Organization: Atari

Introduction

Legendary entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell has been involved in the computer industry since its advent, working to produce hardware, software, and games that have proven highly popular over time. Bushnell has also served as a mentor, consultant, and guiding force to many young entrepreneurs, making him highly influential in several generations of technology, restaurant, and gaming pioneers. As someone who has initiated more than twenty start-up businesses, Bushnell has been one of the foremost innovators and visionaries of his generation.

Early Life

Nolan Key Bushnell was born on February 5, 1943, in Clearfield, Utah, located near Ogden. His family, which included three sisters, were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Bushnell's father ran a family-owned concrete business. When Bushnell was in the third grade, his teacher assigned him a unit on electricity. This so excited him that he experimented with various lamps and small appliances at home and then decided that he wanted to be an engineer. Bushnell eventually assumed the management of this business when his father died when Nolan was fifteen; he also enrolled at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. Bushnell soon transferred to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where he studied at its College of Engineering. He graduated with a degree in electrical engineering in 1968. While a student at Utah, Bushnell was a member of the social fraternity Pi Kappa Alpha.

From the age of nineteen and continuing throughout college, Bushnell had a summer job working at Lagoon Amusement Park in Farmington, Utah. He was especially fond of working on the park's midway arcade, where a variety of games were available to customers who wished to try their luck at winning a prize. After several years working at Lagoon Amusement Park, Bushnell was promoted to a supervisory position in the games section of the park. While enrolled at Utah, Bushnell had access to the university's Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-1 computer. Using the PDP-1, he began playing Spacewar!, one of the earliest computer games, devised by students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Spacewar! is played with two participants, each of whom controls a spaceship and tries to destroy the other. The University of Utah then boasted one of the pioneering computer science departments in the United States, and its students' expertise in designing computer graphics led to a variety of Spacewar! imitators, including Bushnell.

Life's Work

Upon graduating from the University of Utah, Bushnell and his friend Ted Dabney began working for Nutting Associates, an early manufacturer of coin-operated arcade games. While at Nutting, Bushnell and Dabney worked to design a clone of Spacewar! that they would try to make commercially available to arcades. By 1971, Nutting was producing its product, Computer Space, which ultimately was a commercial failure because it was too complex to be produced using the technology available during the early 1970s. Despite this, Computer Space set many precedents that influenced the industry for decades to come. The game was coin-operated and available only on a machine that was dedicated to providing that gaming experience to users. During the development of Computer Space, Bushnell and Dabney worked repairing broken pinball games to generate money to keep their project afloat. Although it generated sales of more than $3 million and sold between five hundred and one thousand units, Computer Space was unable to sustain itself; Bushnell blamed Nutting Associates for not promoting it well. Bushnell determined that although it had been poorly implemented, his concept for video games was sound.

Bushnell and Dabney next formed Syzygy Engineering to produce their own video games. Initially Syzygy planned to produce a driving game, but Bushnell decided that would be too complicated for their limited resources. In early 1972, Bushnell had seen a demonstration of the Magnavox Odyssey, the first video game console available for home use. The Odyssey had contained a tennis game, and Bushnell decided that Syzygy would produce an arcade version of a tennis game named Pong. While the machine was in development, Bushnell received a cease-and-desist letter informing him that the name Syzygy was already in use by a California corporation. Needing to change the company's name, Bushnell decided on the term atari, which came from the Chinese game Go. Syzygy was rebranded Atari, Inc., just in time for the launch of Pong. After piloting the machine in a Sunnyvale, California, bar, where customers lined up to play the game, Bushnell realized he had a hit. After Nutting Associates declined an offer to produce Pong, Bushnell decided that Atari would produce the game itself. Atari was almost instantly successful as a company that designed and produced arcade games, and it produced a variety of other successful games, including Space Race, Rebound, Gotcha, QuadraPong, Tank, and Gran Trak 10.

By 1975, Bushnell was working on a game console that, hooked up to a television, could replicate the Atari arcade game experience at home. Similar to the problems with Computer Space, the main problem was that the available technology was not adequate to support the product he envisioned. This changed when MOS Technology, Inc., introduced the MOS Technology 6502, an 8-bit microprocessor that was powerful enough to provide a good gaming experience yet inexpensive enough to be practicable. Bushnell proceeded with the Atari 2600, a revolutionary machine at the time. In 1976, Bushnell was approached by Warner Communications, Inc., which offered to purchase Atari for $30 million. Although Bushnell was confident that the then-unreleased Atari 2600 would be successful, he accepted the offer and agreed to stay on at Atari. The Atari 2600 proved to be one of the most successful game consoles ever released upon its debut the following year. Bushnell next began the development of the Atari 800, an 8-bit home computer that would compete with the Apple II, the Commodore PET, and the Atari 400, a lower-powered version. Although the Atari 800/400 was designed to replace the Atari 2600, it also had a keyboard and a proprietary disk operating system (DOS) that featured a drop-down menu that was quite advanced for the time. While the Atari 800/400 was highly successful upon its release in 1979, selling more than 4 million units over the next five years, Bushnell left the company the same year and company infighting led to Atari's contraction and ultimate sale to Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore International.

In 1977, Bushnell had purchased Pizza-Time Theater from Warner, which had originally been conceptualized as a place where children could play video games while eating pizza. After leaving Atari, Bushnell refined the concept, renaming it Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theater, with an animatronic show and rides added. Although the enterprise was very successful, Bushnell turned over its operations to a new hire with extensive restaurant experience.

Bushnell next focused on his newest venture, Catalyst Technologies Venture Capital Group, one of the first business incubators designed to help new technology businesses get started. Although Catalyst had shut down most services by 1986, it nurtured several innovative firms and served as a model for future business incubators. Bushnell invested in Sente Technologies, an arcade game producer founded by former Atari workers. He later purchased Sente and used it to supply his Pizza-Time Theater stores with games, until in turn selling Sente to Bally Manufacturing Corporation, the parent of Bally-Midway.

During the 1990s, Bushnell became involved with a small game developer as a consultant. Later he worked with uWink, the developer of bistro software, and, after that, a small California restaurant chain that combined food with entertainment: Using touch screens, customers could both place their orders and play games while they waited for their food to arrive. Although none of these endeavors proved as successful as Atari or Pizza-Time Theater, they were innovative and received a certain amount of positive publicity. In 2010, Bushnell was named to the Atari board of directors. He remained involved in the industry with a software company, Brainrush, and its antiaging games, which provide online games that are intended to assist users in improving concentration, focus, and memory. In early 2019, he was appointed as the chief executive officer and chairman of Global Gaming Technologies.

In 2023 Bushnell launched ExoDexa, an educational adaptive video gaming platform. He served as chair of ExoDexa, which planned to incorporate curricula for students K-12. The platform was developed to reinforce learning through active, entertaining engagement. Bushnell and Dr. Leah Hanes, president and CEO of ExoDexa, published a book explaining their theories in 2023.

Personal Life

Although raised in a Mormon household, Bushnell considers himself a former member of the church. He married Paula Rochelle Nelson in 1966; the couple had two daughters and a son, but the marriage ultimately ended in divorce. Bushnell later remarried; with his second wife, Nancy, he would have five children. Bushnell has stated that he has enjoyed tinkering with electronic devices since he childhood and claims that as a youngster he nearly burned down his parents' garage during one of his “experiments.” He enjoys a variety of hobbies, including games such as Go (either in its original format or on a computer), and he played tournament-level chess while enrolled in college. He also learned to rollerblade and snowboard.

Upon his sale of Atari to Warner Communications, Bushnell purchased the Folger mansion in Woodside, California, which sat on sixteen acres of land. Bushnell eventually settled in Los Angeles, where he owned a boat he named Charlie, which was his father's name. Although known for being gregarious, Bushnell draws a great deal of inspiration from solitude, which he finds in his “cave,” a converted garage that is a combination office, library, and workshop. In honor of his many contributions to a variety of fields, Bushnell has been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame. He has also received the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) fellowship in recognition of his pioneering role in the video games industry and was recognized by Newsweek magazine as one of fifty individuals who changed America.

Bibliography

Atari's Founder Nolan Bushnell Announces New Educational Gaming Company ExoDexa." Business Wire, 7 Sept. 2023, www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230907425201/en/Atari%E2%80%99s-Founder-Nolan-Bushnell-Announces-New-Educational-Gaming-Company-ExoDexa. Accessed 7 Mar. 2024.

Bagnall, B. Commodore: A Company on the Edge. 2nded. Winnipeg: Variant, 2010. Print.

Bissell, T. Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter. New York: Vintage, 2010. Print.

Bushnell, Nolan, and Leah Hanes. Shaping the Future of Education: The ExoDexa Manifesto. Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2023. Print.

Cohen, S. Zap: The Rise and Fall of Atari. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987. Print.

Donovan, T. Replay: The History of Video Games. Lewes: Yellow Ant, 2010. Print.

Kent, S. L. The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon—The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Saved the World. New York: Three Rivers, 2001. Print.