For Immediate Release April 15, 2005

For More Information Contact: Rich Schneider, 317-278-4564 rcschnei@iupui.edu

Atari Co-Founder, Designer of PONG to Speak To IUPUI Students

INDIANAPOLIS - The man who co-founded Atari and designed PONG, the video game that gave birth to the video game industry, will share his views about digital media and pop culture with IUPUI students.

Alan Alcorn will speak to a class taught by Dan Baldwin that examines the impact of digital media within popular culture at 6:30 p.m. on April 26, 2005, in IT Room 152 in the Informatics and Communications Technology Complex. The complex is located at West and Michigan Streets.

Baldwin said Alcorn will be able to share his insights concerning what was happening in society when Atari was founded, the role of start-up companies outside of Silicon Valley , and his views on the future of video games.

Accommodations will be made to allow students beyond those enrolled in the class and the public to hear Alcorn's presentation.

Alcorn stood at the cradle of the revolution in the videogame industry when he designed PONG in 1972. Although it wasn't the first videogame, it was the first coin-operated game that was an immediate success.

PONG launched a video game boom that made thousands of kids want to become computer programmers and prepared an entire generation for interaction with a blinking and buzzing computer screen.

He was appointed a Fellow at Apple in 1986; while there he worked on many projects including several new computer prototypes and a project that led to Quick Time.

He started Silicon Gaming in 1994 to develop a multi-media slot machine for casino gaming. The company went public in September of 1996 and shipped their first machines in January of 1997.

In 1998 Alcorn founded Zowie Intertainment, a spinout from Interval Research. Zowie developed and produced a child's play set that had a location system that allowed the personal computer to respond to the child's play. ###