A follow-up to this morning‘s posting “Crotch pong” (note the lower-case p), about crotch stink, and to Wendy Thrash’s comment on Facebook, right after I posted this:
I am SO disappointed that this isn’t a new game
to which I observed:
I really should have seen that coming.
— meaning that I should have expected someone to hope for a game Crotch Pong (note the upper-case P), somehow combining the ping-pong-ish features of the Atari game Pong with hard-core genital action (the mind reels).
But let me pass over the melding of the common noun pong and the proper noun Pong — they are homophones, after all — and look back (with some fondness) at Pong, which can be credited with helping to establish the video game industry.
From Wikipedia:
Illustration from the site This Day in Tech History, “Atari Introduces Pong” by Marcel Brown about the day 11/29/72 [AZ: over 50 years ago]Pong is a table tennis–themed [AZ: table tennis is popularly known (onomatopoetically) as ping-pong (me, I would prefer gnip-gnop, for its more imitative sound)] twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released in 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, but Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney were surprised by the quality of Alcorn’s work and decided to manufacture the game. Bushnell based the game’s concept on an electronic ping-pong game included in the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console. In response, Magnavox later sued Atari for patent infringement.
Pong was the first commercially successful video game, and it helped to establish the video game industry along with the Magnavox Odyssey.
… During the 1975 Christmas season, Atari released a home version of Pong exclusively through Sears retail stores. The home version was also a commercial success and led to numerous clones. The game was remade on numerous home and portable platforms following its release. Pong is part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., due to its cultural impact.
… still musing on the concept of Crotch Pong, hoping for something that doesn’t sound painful.
August 9, 2023 at 4:27 pm |
Ping-pong is actually a brand name. “The game was invented in England in the early days of the 20th century and was originally called Ping-Pong, a trade name. The name table tennis was adopted in 1921–22 when the old Ping-Pong Association formed in 1902 was revived.”
https://www.britannica.com/sports/table-tennis
August 9, 2023 at 4:34 pm |
Interesting. It *was* originally a brand name. But at some point the name seems to have been commonified, losing its status as a brand name. The cap Ps are long gone.