Who would play you in the movie of your life? For Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, it’s not an academic question. “I’d like Adam Driver,” he says, clearly finding the whole notion amusing. “There’s been talk of making a film [of my life] for a long time, and it’s still flopping about. I saw a screenplay and it was pretty accurate… and it wasn’t all pink bunny rabbits. I’d like it to be made, but both movies about Steve Jobs were crap and that put the kibosh on films about Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.”

If the Apple founder is worthy of two biopics, Bushnell is surely deserving of his own. After all, he produced the first commercially sold coin-op videogame, Computer Space, in 1971, and the colossus that emerged from it – Atari – is credited as being the fastest-growing company in US history.

Atari dominated the arcade business it created, with early hits such as Pong and Tank, before moving into the home market with the all-conquering Atari VCS console. Bushnell sold out to Warner in 1976 for $28 million (approx £135m in 2021 terms), using some of the earnings to keep control of the Pizza Time Theater restaurant business he’d recently launched.

“I was pretty good at selling,” he smiles. “I don’t know where I got it from. I suppose I’ve always been good with the spoken word. I’m a great bullshitter, but that’s OK. Yes, I was surprised how quickly Atari grew but there’s a saying that good luck happens to the prepared. I think I was surprisingly prepared for the chaos rapid growth brings. When you get used to a certain level of chaos, you’re not flummoxed by it.”

Bushnell stayed with Atari after the Warner takeover, parting ways several years later after a very public falling-out, and has been involved with a succession of game and tech companies ever since. He even has a law named after himself: Bushnell’s Law, which states that a good videogame should be ‘easy to learn, difficult to master’.

“I’ve said a lot of quotable things. A good saying is like a line of poetry, and I like the efficiency of good poetry, distilling thoughts and images to their essence –a lot of knowledge in very few words.” With this in mind, let’s dig into seven key stanzas of Bushnell’s life in the videogame business to date.

“IF YOU KNEW ABOUT NEWTON’S LAW, IT MADE TOTAL SENSE, BUT IF YOU WERE A TRUCK DRIVER, IT WAS BAFFLING”

Since it was a new concept in arcade gaming, Computer Space needed some explaining. Its relative complexity held it back from becoming a monster hit in 1971

COMPUTER SPACE

Developer/manufacturer Nutting Associates Format Coin-op Release 1971

You have to go back to when I first saw [pioneering PDP-1 game] Spacewar! in the labs at the University Of Utah, where I started studying in 1964. That summer, I had been managing the Lagoon Amusement Park and had 150 kids working for me when I was 21 years old. I knew how the coin-op business worked and I knew if I put a coin slot on Spacewar! I’d make money. But divide 25 cents for three minutes’ play into $250,000, which is what the [PDP-1] computer cost, and the math doesn’t work. I filed it away and thought one day the costs might come down to make this a reality. And they did.