Pong (1972)

An Atari Pong upright signed across the yellow front by its engineer, Al Alcorn, shown in a museum exhibit on the golden age of video games in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The 1972 cabinet is plain by later standards: wood sides, a flat top, a yellow panel around the screen and two rotary knobs, one per player. That plainness is the point. It looked at home in a bar, and a knob that moves a paddle up and down needs no instructions, so anyone could walk up and play their first video game.