1943 Clearfield [USA]

The electronic engineer who founded Atari with Ted Dabney at the age of 29.

During his electrical engineering studies at the University of Utah, Bushnell was one of the lucky computer scientists who played Spacewar! on one of the university computers. This would lead him years later to develop the game Computer Space with Ted Dabney. Nutting Associates manufactured and distributed the game as an arcade machine, but it wasn't very successful due to its innovative nature.

Years later, at a trade show in Burlingame, California, where he saw the Magnavox Odyssey console for the first time, he played a version of ping-pong. He asked Al Alcorn, a newly hired engineer, to create the game based on his modifications of the one he had seen. The result was the Pong arcade machine, which was tremendously successful, so much so that clones began to appear everywhere.

Bushnell later acquired Dabney's stake, becoming the sole owner.

Their next step, given the number of competitors who had copied their Pong arcade machines, was to design a home version of Pong that could be played on a television.
In 1975, Pong was the hottest Christmas gift, mainly thanks to the distribution agreement with Sears.

In 1977, they introduced the Atari 2600, which helped revolutionize the market; it is considered the birthplace of the console industry. Demand was so high that even Atari executives went down to the lines to help with production during the first Christmas season.
But liquidity problems to launch it led to the company being sold to Warner Communications.
And later, management disagreements led to Bushnell's abrupt dismissal in 1978.