Nolan Bushnell facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Nolan Bushnell
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Bushnell in 2013
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Nolan Kay Bushnell
February 5, 1943 Clearfield, Utah, U.S.
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| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater | University of Utah Stanford Business School |
| Known for | Co-founding Atari, Inc. Pong Creator & founder of Chuck E. Cheese |
| Awards | Video Game Hall of Fame Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Electrical engineering Computer software |
Nolan Kay Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American businessman and electrical engineer. He is famous for starting Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre restaurants.
Nolan Bushnell is recognized as one of the "founding fathers" of the video game industry. He has started more than 20 companies! He is also known for "Bushnell's Law," which says that the best games are "easy to learn and difficult to master."
Contents
Personal life
Nolan Bushnell was born in 1943 in Clearfield, Utah. He grew up in a regular family. He went to Davis High School and later studied engineering and business at the University of Utah. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.
He married his first wife, Paula Rochelle Nielson, in 1966. They had two daughters and moved to California. Later, in 1977, he married Nancy Nino, and they had six children together.
Business career
Starting with games
When Nolan Bushnell was in college, he worked at Lagoon Amusement Park. He managed the games department and learned a lot about how arcade games work. He saw how much people loved playing them and how to keep the machines running. This experience helped him understand the game business.
After college, Bushnell wanted to work for Disney, but he couldn't get a job there. Instead, he became an electrical engineer at a company called Ampex. There, he met Ted Dabney, and they became friends. Bushnell shared his idea of creating pizza places filled with electronic games. He even showed Dabney a computer game called Spacewar at Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
In 1970, Bushnell and Dabney started their own company called Syzygy. Their first goal was to create a game similar to Spacewar called Computer Space. They worked with another company, Nutting Associates, to build the arcade cabinets. Computer Space didn't sell as well as they hoped, but it still made over $3 million. Bushnell learned that his next game needed to be simpler so people could play it without reading instructions.
Creating Atari and Pong
In 1972, Bushnell and Dabney decided to start a new company. They named it Atari, which is a term from the game Go. Nolan Bushnell loved playing Go.
They rented an office and hired their second employee, an engineer named Allan Alcorn. Bushnell had seen a simple table tennis game on the Magnavox Odyssey console. He asked Alcorn to make a similar game as a test. Alcorn added his own ideas, like making the ball speed up during the game. This new game was called Pong, and it became incredibly popular!
Pong was a huge success, and Atari released many more Pong-style arcade games. However, Bushnell and Dabney had some disagreements, and Bushnell bought Dabney's share of Atari in 1973.
To make more arcade games, Bushnell secretly started another company called Kee Games in 1973. This company made games that were very similar to Atari's. In 1974, Atari merged with Kee Games. This helped Atari make more games and improve its finances.
With Atari doing well, Bushnell decided to enter the home gaming market. The first home Pong consoles came out in 1975. Atari then worked on a new, more advanced home console that could play different games using game cartridges. This console was released in 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System, later known as the Atari 2600.
Before the Atari 2600 was finished, another company released a similar console. To speed up development, Bushnell decided to sell Atari. In 1976, Warner Communications bought Atari for $28 million. This deal helped Atari finish the Atari 2600, which was released in 1977.
Nolan Bushnell stayed on as CEO for a while, but he had different ideas than Warner Communications about the company's future. He left Atari in early 1979 to pursue new projects.
Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre
In 1977, while still at Atari, Nolan Bushnell started Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre. He wanted a place where kids could eat pizza and play video games. This would also be a great way to show off Atari's games.
Chuck E. Cheese's was special because it also had animatronic animals that played music and entertained guests. Bushnell had always wanted to work for Walt Disney, and Chuck E. Cheese was his way of creating a fun, entertaining place like Disney.
Later, the company faced financial challenges. In 1984, Nolan Bushnell left the company. Eventually, a competing restaurant, ShowBiz Pizza Place, bought Pizza Time Theatre. Today, there are over 560 Chuck E. Cheese's locations.
Other companies and ideas
Nolan Bushnell founded Catalyst Technologies, which was like a "business incubator." This means it helped new companies get started. One of these companies, Etak, was the first to create digital maps for cars. These maps later helped create Google Maps! Another company, Axlon, made fun consumer products like the AG Bear, a toy that repeated what children said.
Many of Bushnell's ideas were ahead of their time. For example, some companies tried to develop high-definition television or allow people to shop online using kiosks. The technology wasn't quite ready for these ideas back then, but they paved the way for future innovations.
Bushnell also started uWink, a company that aimed to create interactive restaurants. Guests could order food and play games on touchscreens at their tables. While the restaurants eventually closed, the idea of combining dining with interactive entertainment was innovative.
More recently, Nolan Bushnell has rejoined the board of directors for Atari SA, the company that now owns the Atari brand. He is also a founder of Modal VR, which creates large-scale virtual reality systems for training. He is involved with Anti-Aging Games, which offers online memory and focus games.
BrainRush
BrainRush is a company Nolan Bushnell founded that uses video game technology to make educational software. He believes that many school lessons can be turned into fun mini-games. This allows students to learn things like foreign languages, geography, or math facts in an engaging way.
BrainRush's technology is called "Adaptive Practice." It helps users learn faster. In tests, students using BrainRush for Spanish vocabulary learned 8 to 10 times faster than with traditional methods.
Other ventures
- In 1981, Bushnell created the TimberTech Computer Camp.
- In 1982, Bushnell had a 67-foot racing yacht named Charley built. It won a big race in 1983.
- In 1983, Bushnell introduced the first "Androbot" TOPO, a robot.
- In 1984, Bushnell purchased the arcade game company Videa and renamed it Sente Games.
- In 1991, Bushnell supported the Commodore International CDTV, a computer that used CD-ROMs.
- In 1995, Bushnell announced plans for new amusement centers called E2000, similar to Chuck E. Cheese's but with a video game theme.
- In 2005, he was a judge on the TV show Made in the USA.
Media appearances
Nolan Bushnell has appeared in several documentaries, including Something Ventured and Atari: Game Over. He was also in an animated TV show called Code Monkeys. For Atari's 50th anniversary, he was interviewed for the Atari 50 video game, where he talked about his time with the company.
Accolades
Nolan Bushnell is often called the "father of electronic gaming." This is because he helped create the arcade game market and founded Atari. While Ralph H. Baer is known as the father of home video gaming, Bushnell is recognized for his innovations in arcade games.
In 2009, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave Bushnell a special award called the Academy Fellowship. This award recognized his amazing achievements as a founder of the video game industry.
Planned biographical film
Since 2008, there has been interest in making a movie about Nolan Bushnell's life. Paramount Pictures and other companies have considered making the film. There was even talk of Leonardo DiCaprio starring as Bushnell.
Images for kids
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Bushnell in 2013
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The Magnavox Odyssey provided the inspiration for Bushnell's successful Pong.
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The Atari 2600 would go on to revolutionize the home gaming market, but Bushnell was forced out of Atari not long after its release.
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Nolan Bushnell's 67ft boat Charley (Ron Holland design, 1983)
See also
In Spanish: Nolan Bushnell para niños
