If Bushnell had not rejected jobs,

Atari and founder Bushnell were often turned out of the musty by the media because of Jobs ' first job at the gaming company Atari. According to Bushnell, Mr. Jobs asked him in 1976 whether he could invest 50,000 dollars in exchange for a one-third per cent stake in the Atari company. Bushnell originally "Cruel" to refuse, now very regret. What would happen now if I didn't say no? Jobs will be the boss of the game industry? Apple will not appear? Is the iphone still a prop for a sci-fi show? Atari will avoid the fate of a few years later?

History is not so much if, only the result. In fact, the change of any one person, in Bushnell at that time, will choose to refuse. Because Atari is the same age as Apple, Atari was the same as the current iphone, those products are the young people's favorite "trendy gadgets", Bushnell was waiting for more powerful buyers. In that year, Warner Company bought Atari with 28 million dollars in cash, Bushnell to retire. Looking at the final deal price, it is naïve to know that jobs wanted to spend 50,000 of dollars to "have one of the three branches."

In other words, it's not like Steve Jobs took the stakes, otherwise it might be another fate to spend 100 million of billions of dollars in research and development money and a "jump ticket" to the Atari 2600 game host that was finally sold in 1977. In those days, it was the world's most successful home video game machine, the second generation of games in the history of the host, and its sales miracle has continued to 1992, more than 10 years, the cumulative sale of 30 million units. But specifically, Atari was "expelled" from the game world after 1982.

As I mentioned in my previous column, the biggest success of Atari 2600 is that it is platform-ready to meet players ' needs by carrying new games. Its innovation is more than this, the machine's more important contribution is that it established the basic form of the game-the home TV as a monitor, so that the host separation, the cable-connected handle as a control unit. This, like the first iphone to use the touchscreen, has instilled new ideas around the world: the phone doesn't have to have a keyboard, and touching the screen with a finger is a better game. With a very high prevalence of television sets, as "plug" and the existence of the game machine can not only get better visual effects, but also rapid popularization, easy access to thousands of households.

At this point, the Japanese also think about it at the same time, but not the game machine, but the home video recorder. 1975, Sony developed a home Β-max-type video recorder; In 1976, Japan JVC, national and other companies launched the home VHS VCR, with the same period of Atari 2600 "principle", they are the TV "plug", It can be said that the single function of the TV into smart TV.

It seems too far away for people nowadays. To say a more familiar, Atari 2600 is actually the mouse "ancestor". Jim Yurchenco, an engineer who was involved in Apple's first generation of mouse development, said that when he designed the mouse, he was inspired to play Atari when he was 2600. He found that the success of this game, human-computer interaction is the key, and the focus is on the handle of the trackball, not fixed above or below, just floating, and use ray tracking trajectory of the movement of the ball, can replace the mechanical switch, let the damage rate down ... Since then, the mouse for the PC was born in Apple.

I doubt the veracity of this statement, after all, jobs came out of the Atari, he himself "pirated", for the 50,000 dollar Thing "revenge", it is hard to say.