Events
- Agnes Kim opens the first Electronics Boutique, a kiosk at the King of Prussia Mall in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania selling transistor radios and calculators.
- Atari opens the first Pizza Time Theater (later Chuck E. Cheese's), a combination video arcade/pizzeria conceived by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell. In June, Bushnell purchaes the rights to Pizza Time Theater back from Atari for $500,000 USD.
- Sega acquires Gremlin Industries, a major developer of coin-operated "wall games."
- Nakamura Manufacturing Ltd. formally changes its name to Namco (which it has employed as a brand name since 1971), and establishes Namco Enterprises Asia Ltd. in Hong Kong, its first subsidiary based outside of Japan.
Notable releasesVideo game consoles
- Atari develops the Game Brain (model C-700), a dedicated console and the first Atari system to utilize cartridges. Only a handful of Game Brain prototypes are produced, and none are released commercially.
- Coleco releases a number of new models of the Telstar console: the Telstar Alpha, the Telstar Colormatic, the Telstar Regent, the Telstar Ranger, the Telstar Galaxy, and the Telstar Combat. Most of these systems feature only minor variations on the original Telstar model, such as new controller types (for example, the Ranger featured a light gun, while the Galaxy included joysticks).
- Bally releases the Bally Home Library Computer video game console through mail order retailer JS&A National Sales Group. Delays in production of the system, however, mean that none of the units will actually ship until the following year.
- In January, RCA Corporation releases the Studio II video game console.
- In October, Atari releases the Video Computer System (later known as the Atari 2600) video game console alongside nine launch titles.
Games
- Cinematronics releases Larry Rosenthal's Space Wars, the first vector graphics arcade game.
- Mattel releases Missile Attack, the first handheld electronic game to feature an light-emitting diode (LED) display.
- Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, the future founders of Infocom, develop the first version of Zork on a PDP-10 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Computer Science.
- While studying for a Ph.D. at the University of Virginia, Kelton Flinn begins developing a text-based aerial combat game called AIR, an early precursor to 1987's Air Warrior, the first massively multiplayer online game.
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