Nolan Bushnell Mandates Success at Atari

Nolan Bushnell Mandates Success at Atari

On August 3, 1973, Nolan Bushnell issued a memo to the engineering department of Atari with an eight-point action plan. These points included a specific quantity of Gotcha arcade machines, sufficient staff to be available when “emergency projects” arose, and plans for a color version of Pong.

Nolan also specified that their lack of production space was no excuse for why these points couldn’t be met.

Noting that the company was cash-poor at the time, Vice President of Engineering Al Alcorn replied to the memo with the following:

“In accordance with your memo dated August 3, 1973, will statements regarding our financial capability be applicable to the above design schedule?

Al E. Alcorn
Vice-President, Engineering”

Nolan responded with with a handwritten note, which was added to the bottom of Al’s reply.

“NO”

  • Richard Booth

    Rich has been involved in the gaming industry for over ten years, working with such companies as Jace Hall ShowTwin Galaxies and Nintendojo. He began GamesRelated in order to bring positivity to gaming journalism. Much of what is out today is completely negative, and GR aims to be the place where that stops and the news is simply reported.