Arcade · 1972 classic
Pong
Two paddles, one ball, first to 11. Play the computer at three levels, or a friend on the same keyboard or phone.
How to play
- Return the ball past your opponent's paddle to score. The first player to 11 points wins.
- One player: you are the left paddle. Move it with the mouse, by dragging on the court, or with W S (or ↑ ↓). The computer plays the right paddle at the level you choose.
- Two players: the left player uses W S and the right player uses ↑ ↓. On a phone or tablet, each player drags on their own half of the court.
- Press Space or tap to serve. After each point the next ball is served to the player who lost it.
- Where the ball meets the paddle sets its angle: the middle sends it straight back, the ends send it off at a sharp angle. The ball gets a little faster with every return.
- P pauses; the game also pauses when you switch away. Your game saves after every point.
Stats
| Games | 0 |
|---|---|
| Wins against Easy | 0–0 |
| Wins against Normal | 0–0 |
| Wins against Hard | 0–0 |
| Two-player games | 0 |
| Longest rally | 0 |
History
Pong was the first project of Atari, the company Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney had just founded.12 Bushnell assigned engineer Allan Alcorn to design a game based on ping-pong; Bushnell meant it as a training exercise, though Alcorn thought he was building a real product.34 His prototype, a wooden cabinet built around a cheap black-and-white TV set, went into Andy Capp's Tavern in Sunnyvale, California.13 Soon the bar reported that it had stopped working. It hadn't broken: the machine was overflowing with quarters.14
The coin-operated Pong debuted in November 1972, and the first player to reach 11 points won.2 Pong was not the first video game, but it was the first to win wide public attention.4 The same year, Ralph Baer's Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game system, came out with a game called Table Tennis.52 Atari brought Pong home in 1975, sold through the Sears catalog.43
Sources
- 1Dag Spicer, “50 Years of Fun With Pong,” CHM Blog, November 30, 2022, https://computerhistory.org/blog/50-years-of-fun-with-pong/ (accessed October 26, 2026).
- 2Allison Marsh, “Pong Was Boring—And People Loved It,” IEEE Spectrum (Past Forward), October 30, 2022, https://spectrum.ieee.org/pong-video-game (accessed October 26, 2026).
- 3Al Alcorn, interviewed by Henry Lowood, “Oral History of Al Alcorn,” Mountain View, CA: Computer History Museum, 2008, https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102658257 (accessed October 26, 2026). Cited at pages 10, 15–17, 23–26.
- 4The Strong National Museum of Play, “Pong,” World Video Game Hall of Fame, August 20, 2021, https://www.museumofplay.org/games/pong/ (accessed October 26, 2026).
- 5The Strong National Museum of Play, “What Was the First Video Game?” The Strong blog, n.d., https://www.museumofplay.org/blog/what-was-the-first-video-game/ (accessed October 26, 2026).
About this version
This version keeps the arcade game's essentials: two paddles, a square ball, a dashed net, big blocky scores and a game to 11. The computer opponent, the speed-up on every return and the touch controls are additions. Like Breakout here, it runs on a fixed clock, so the ball moves at the same speed on a 60 Hz or a 120 Hz screen.
A free, non-commercial tribute to Atari's 1972 arcade game; not affiliated with or endorsed by Atari. All artwork here is original.