Pong and Shattered (Star Trek: Voyager): Difference between pages

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{{ST episode|

<!--PLEASE read the information on the spelling of PONG in the opening section before editing the article. PONG is the correct spelling for the trademarked Atari version, while Pong is used for generic copies of the game.-->

name = Shattered|

image = [[Image:ST-VOY_7_11.jpg|270px]]<br />Chakotay is out of phase|

series = VOY|

ep_num = 157|

prod_num = 257|

date = [[January 17]], [[2001]]|

writer = [[Mike Sussman (TV series writer/producer)|Mike Sussman]]<br>[[Michael Taylor (screenwriter)|Michael Taylor]]|

director = [[Terry Windell]]|

guest = [[Manu Intiraymi]] as Icheb<br>[[Martha Hackett]] as Seska<br> [[Scarlett Pomers]] as Naomi Wildman<br> [[Martin Rayner]] as Dr. Chaotica|

year = 2377|

stardate = ?|

prev = [[Flesh and Blood (Voyager episode)|Flesh and Blood, Part II]]|

next = [[Lineage (Voyager episode)|Lineage]]

}}

'''Shattered''' is an episode of the TV series ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'', the eleventh episode of the seventh season

==Plot summary (a.k.a. spoiler)==

Chakotay encounters [[Icheb]] and [[Naomi Wildman]] in Cargo Bay 2. Naomi is enjoying the puzzle they are playing with, as Icheb misunderstands it as a teaching tool. Chakotay tells Icheb of his cider stash and how he wishes Neelix will not find it. Icheb suggests storing it with the Borg spare parts as Neelix does not care to examine that section.

[[Image:Pong.png|thumb|250px|''PONG'' helped bring computerized video games into everyday life]]

Later, an exploding nebula affects the warp core and Chakotay is hit with a blast of energy.

'''''PONG''''' is a [[computer and video games|video game]] released originally as an arcade [[arcade game | coin-op]] by [[Atari | Atari Inc.]] on [[November 29]] [[1972]]. ''PONG'' is based on the sport of [[table tennis]], and named after the sound generated by the circuitry when the ball is hit.<ref name="pongname">{{cite web

| url =http://www.samhart.com/vgh/first/atpongarc.shtml

| title = Atari PONG (Arcade Version)

| accessdate = 2007-1-12

| last = Hart

| first = Sam

}}</ref> Atari's ''PONG'' is spelled in capital letters and is a registered [[trademark]] of Atari Interactive, while the spelling ''Pong'' is used to describe the entire genre of "bat and ball" [[video games]]. Although ''PONG'' is often regarded as the world's first video [[arcade game]], ''[[Computer Space]]'' had been launched a year earlier in 1971. ''PONG'' was the first video game to achieve widespread popularity in both arcade and [[video game console|home console]] versions, and launched the initial boom in the video game industry.

Its creators were among the first to recognize that technology had evolved sufficiently to make video games a practical proposition. Displaying animated graphics on a television screen and reacting in real time to user input would have required more computing power than 1960s consumer products could deliver. Even in 1970, the tasks performed by a modern [[cell phone]] would have required a [[mainframe computer]] the size of a small apartment.

However, by restricting the graphics to two lines for the paddles, a dotted line for the net and a square for the ball, ''PONG'' could be played on the technology available in the early 1970s and [[video game console|console]] versions manufactured for home use.

He awakens in the Doctor's sickbay and is astonished to discover the Doctor believes it is now several years earlier. Chakotay explores the ship and realizes that it is fractured into many differing time periods. The Doctor's treatment of him, realigning his body with a chroniton serum, allows Chakotay to pass through the time barriers.

==History==

[[Image:PongVideoGameCabinet.jpg|thumb|250px|The original Atari upright cabinet. As is clear in the picture, the monitor was an ordinary black-and-white television set]]

While not the first electronic game, the earliest form of an electronic ping-pong game dates back as a game played on an [[oscilloscope]], by [[William A. Higinbotham]] at the [[Brookhaven National Laboratory]] in 1958. His game was titled ''[[Tennis for Two]]''.

During his exploration, he finds Engineering is in control of Seska and Kazon forces. He is beaten and detained by them but manages to escape as the upper level of Engineering is in a different time period all together. The bridge of the ship is a few days before the Caretaker incident, so Chakotay is regarded as a spy. He is detained and taken to the brig. He escapes when the security men who arrest him do not follow him through time as they do not have the serum.

In 1966, [[Ralph Baer]], then working for [[Sanders Associates]], made a design for running simple computer games over a television set. His ideas were [[patent]]ed, and he created a game resembling ''PONG'' proper, except with slightly more complex controls. In 1970, Baer demonstrated his video game system to corporate heads at [[Magnavox]], who became convinced that such a device would help sell more Magnavox television sets. Magnavox and Sanders Associates joined forces, with Baer and his patents at the center, to develop a stand-alone unit called the Odyssey 1TL200 to be sold to consumers for use in the home.

He eventually gains more of the serum. He again finds Kathryn Janeway on the bridge. Janeway, a guard and Chakotay talk in her ready room. Despite his knowledge of her past, he is not implicitly believed. He manages to take Kathryn hostage and injects her with the serum. They pass through a time barrier, leaving Janeway's guard Andrews unable to see her. This convinces Janeway to help Chakotay.

In the spring of 1972, the [[Magnavox Odyssey]] system was on display at a demonstration in [[Burlingame, California]] where [[Nolan Bushnell]] played the Odyssey's ping-pong game for the first time. Soon afterwards Nolan and a friend formed a new company, [[Atari]]. Nolan envisioned creating a driving game for arcades. He hired an electronic engineer, [[Al Alcorn]], fresh out of college. Concerned that the game he envisioned would be too complex for his new employee, Nolan first directed him to build a [[ping-pong]] game. The game Alcorn created was so much fun that Nolan decided to go ahead and market it. Since the name ''Ping-Pong'' was already [[trademark]]ed, they settled on simply calling it ''PONG''. Atari, which in Japanese means "to aim/target" had not been envisioned as a manufacturer but only a developer of [[arcade game]]s. Nolan set about demonstrating his new game to several amusement manufacturers. ''PONG'' was conceived as a game for two players, unlike [[pinball]] which was the dominant arcade game at the time. Amusement industry experts were unsure about ''PONG'''s potential, and initially there was little interest in the product <ref name="armchair">{{cite web

| url =http://www.armchairarcade.com/neo/node/577

| title = Atari: The Lost Years of the Coin-Op, 1971 – 1975 (Parts I - IV)

| accessdate = 2007-1-12

| last = Rapp

| first = David

| date = 2006-11-29

}}</ref> <ref = "heritage">{{cite web

| url = http://www.americanheritage.com/people/articles/web/20061129-pong-video-games-nolan-bushnell-atari-al-alcorn-nintendo.shtml

| title = The Mother Of All Video Games

| accessdate = 2007-1-12

| last = Fulton

| first = Steve

| date = 2006-06-30

}}</ref>

There was a need for the game to undergo a field test, and before departing on a trip to Chicago (Nolan had appointments scheduled with [[pinball]] makers [[Williams (gaming company)|Williams]] and [[Bally Midway|Bally/Midway]]), he and Alcorn added a coin operated switch to the machine so that it could be used as an arcade game.

Their efforts reveal they must inject the serum into the bio-nueral gel-packs on many areas of the ship. If successful, Chakotay will find himself in his right time and be able to stop the time-fracturing.

The system was initially tested in a small bar in [[Grass Valley, California]] and Andy Capp's Tavern, a bar in [[Sunnyvale, California]]. Within a day, the game's popularity had grown to the point where people lined up outside the bar waiting for the place to open.

In the process, he refers to several episodes from the past seven years. Janeway begins to second-guess decisions she hasn't even made yet, especially after learning her human doctor will soon perish. She knows she started with 153 crewmen and struggles with wanting to know how many more she will lose. After a close encounter with the macroviruses, she becomes convinced that entering the Delta Quadrant at all is wrong, as it is a 'gigantic deathtrap'. Chakotay convinces her not to alter the timeline to avoid stranding the ship in the Delta Quadrant.

Before long, the unit broke down, and the bar's owner called Alcorn at home to have him remove the game. When he opened the unit to start a game, he quickly discovered the problem - the milk carton placed inside to catch the coins was overflowing with [[Quarter (U.S. coin)|quarters]] to the point that the coin switch was jammed. Alcorn immediately called Bushnell in Chicago to tell him about the game's outstanding success, and Nolan decided they should manufacture ''PONG'' themselves.

During the course of this they visit many areas and time periods. Cargo Bay 2 is from when the Borg have formed an alliance with Voyager. They meet [[Seven of Nine]] who is still part of the collective. Astometrics, a section the younger Janeway did not know existed, is staffed by a much older Icheb and Naomi Wildman, both wearing Starfleet uniforms. Both are shocked as, according to their points of view, both Chakotay and Janeway had died long ago. Icheb reveals he had never exposed the ___location of the cider.

Two weeks later, Magnavox learned of ''PONG'', and notified Atari that they already had a patent on the concept. The two companies went to court. Magnavox was able to produce witnesses who had seen Nolan playing the [[Magnavox Odyssey|Odyssey]]'s ping-pong game, and they had a guestbook from the event which Nolan had signed. Magnavox and Atari eventually settled when Atari paid the television manufacturer $700,000 to license the patents. [[Image:Super Pong.JPG|thumb|200px|right|Atari Super PONG, a refinement with more options]]

The home version of ''PONG'' was conceived in 1973 and designed by Al Alcorn, Bob Brown, and Harold Lee in 1975. Atari demonstrated the unit at the 1975 Summer [[Consumer Electronics Show]] (CES). Because of the failure of the Odyssey (the unit was discontinued in 1974), retail outlets weren't interested by Atari's home console. These systems had on-screen digital scoring, something absent from other versions of ''PONG''.

However, soon after the show, Atari was contacted by Tom Quinn, sporting goods buyer for [[Sears]]. Quinn met with Nolan Bushnell, and asked how many units Atari could produce in time for the holiday shopping season. Bushnell said they could probably produce 75,000. Quinn told them Sears wanted double that many units, and they would pay to boost production to that level. In return, Sears would be the exclusive seller of Atari ''PONG''.

Both Astrometics and Cargo Bay 2 have provided vital information to the problems, but the next few sections provide many dangers. The Transporter room is filled with angry Maquis, led by Torres, who do not trust the two. The holodeck, which is malfunctioning, is running a dangerous [[Captain Proton]] program, which Janeway must talk herself out of. Again, Chakotay must visit Engineering. He enters it alone. Seska decides to realign Voyager with her time period and use the knowledge of the future to guarantee she will keep control.

[[Image:Pong iv.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Sears Tele-Games Pong IV]]

[[Christmas]] 1975 was the most popular season for ''PONG'', with customers lined up outside Sears, waiting for shipments to arrive. That season's popularity caught the attention of [[Al Franken]] and [[Tom Davis (comedian)|Tom Davis]] during ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'s'' first year; the comedy duo wrote and voiced several segments for ''SNL'' in which no actors were visible; all viewers saw was an active Pong game display, looking just like it would if they were playing the game themselves. As the game proceeded, Franken and Davis would talk to each other as friends, commenting only occasionally about the game itself (though the conversation of the players clearly had an occasional detrimental impact on their game skills).

It does not work. Janeway had organized a resistance movement from all corners of time and ship. Borg-Seven, early Harry and Tom, the Maquis and future Icheb and Naomi, all injected with Chakotay's serum, help defeat Seska's forces and allow the plan to go forward.

By 1977 the home version of PONG had become so popular that it was copied by other manufacturers until the market was overrun with cloned machines. The flooded market could not absorb more Pong systems -- real or cloned -- and the resulting "crash" in demand contributed to Fairchild's decision to exit the market.

In a few seconds the ship is back to the origanal time and Chakotay manages to stop the distarer. When Janeway asks him why he turned the deflector dish into a giant lightning rod he say he can't tell her because of the [[temporal prime directive]]. Later, Chakotay has dinner with the Janeway, who lets on that she knows the ___location of Chakotay's cider stash but can't tell him how she knows because of the temporal prime directive.

By the end of March 1983, Atari had sold between 8,000 to 10,000 coin-operated ''PONG'' systems.

==VersionsNotes==

Many versions of ''PONG'' were released, including ''[[Pong Doubles]]'' (a four-player ''PONG''), ''[[Quadrapong]]'' (also four-player) and ''[[Doctor Pong]]''. Aside from Atari's arcade units, there were a slew of ''PONG'' clones as well. In their rush to market, Atari did not wait to file for copyrights or patents on their unit. Despite Atari's success, only one in five ''Pong'' style games in arcades were actually made by them. To reduce this problem, Atari purposely mismarked the chips in genuine Pong units to confuse anyone who tried to clone one. As video game technology improved, home console versions of ''PONG'' appeared with color graphics, and the later consoles often included additional games such as [[Breakout]], which is a variation of ''PONG''.

A consequence of the popularity of ''PONG'' was that enthusiasts would play the game for hours at a time on their home consoles, leading to damage to the [[television]] screen being used as the display. Since the white lines forming the tennis court were shown constantly, they could become burned into the [[phosphor]] coating on the [[cathode ray tube]] of the television, causing irreparable damage to the screen. After a number of incidents where this occurred, the instruction books of video tennis games mentioned the risk and advised against extended play, or suggested that the brightness and contrast controls of the television be turned down in order to reduce the risk of damage. Another feature of constant play was the tendency of the control paddles to wear out and require replacement.

The ''Pong'' consoles remained popular in the [[United States|US]] until the late 1970s and in [[Europe]] until the early 1980s.

===Ports===

Beyond the home versions, ''Pong'' has also been remade several times, including a version for [[PlayStation]]. It has been included in the recent "[[TV Games (manufacturer)|TV Games]]" collections, which are [[console-on-a-chip]] systems that feature "classic" games from the [[Atari 2600]] era.

''Pong'' also served as a source of inspiration for [[Atari]]'s game ''[[Breakout]]'' (1976) which was itself updated successfully ten years later by [[Taito Corporation|Taito]] under the name ''[[Arkanoid]]''.

''Pong'' is available on Arcade Classics for the [[Sega Mega Drive|Sega Genesis]].

The original version (with Cabinet Art) and an updated version of Pong is available in the ''[[Atari Anthology]]'' Video Game for the [[PlayStation 2]] and the [[Xbox]].

The original ''Pong'' is challenging to faithfully [[emulator|emulate]] because it uses [[7400]] chips and [[discrete logic]] rather than a CPU for game logic.

==Popular culture==

*The opening song to [[Frank Black]]'s album ''[[Teenager of the Year]]'' is titled "What Ever Happened to Pong?" The lyrics tell a story of two brothers who scam older men by placing wagers on Pong competitions at bars.

*Tennis star [[Andy Roddick]] starred in a commercial for [[American Express]] in which his opponent was Pong (his trainer advised him "he returns everything"). Roddick seems stumped as to how to defeat the bar, until he realizes the bar has no forward movement, and hits a drop shot over the net. The commercial ''Stop Pong'' also spawned a website, where the player, as Roddick, tries to beat Pong in a five-minute game.

*In an episode of [[King of the Hill]], Peggy and Bobby are busy throughout the entire episode playing Pong. Without a pause button they fall asleep with it still bouncing back and forth.

*[[Al Franken]] and collaborator [[Tom Davis]] did many sketches in the first season of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' which involved playing a home pong system and conversing in zany and odd conversations.

*In an episode of ''[[That '70s Show]]'', Kelso and Red try to make the game more challanging by tinkering with the console and making the paddles smaller.

*In the hospital scene in ''[[Silent Movie]]'', [[Dom Deluise]] and [[Marty Feldman]] tinker with the monitor to which the Studio Chief is hooked up, and cause its display to turn into a Pong game.

==See also==

{{dedicated video game consoles}}

{{CVG history}}

*[[History of computer and video games]]

*[[Pong project]]

==References==

<references />

As a final season episode, "Shattered" was intended as an affectionate look back at the series, referencing various earlier plot lines and bringing back long-gone alien threats like the [[Kazon]] and characters like [[Seska]]. The following past episodes are specifically referenced: "[[Caretaker (Voyager episode)|Caretaker]]", "[[Basics (Voyager episode)|Basics]]", "[[Macrocosm (Voyager episode)|Macrocosm]]", "[[Scorpion (Voyager episode)|Scorpion]]", etc. There are also moments humorously referencing recurring plot elements; in one scene, Chakotay finds the entire crew asleep, and notes that this has happened on a number of occasions.

==External links==

{{memoryalpha|Shattered|"Shattered"}}

*[http://www.pong-story.com ''PONG''-Story], the most comprehensive site about ''PONG'' and its origins.

*[http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/VOY/episode/114111.html Episode summary from Startrek.com]

*[http://www.thedoteaters.com/stage2.php ''PONG'' article at The Dot Eaters], a history of ''PONG'' and its development

{{Time travel stories}}

*[http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=P&game_id=9074 The KLOV entry on ''PONG'']

*[http://darkwatcher.psxfanatics.com/console/pong.htm List of home ''Pong'' systems] (in 1976 [[General Instruments]], released the [[AY-3-8500]] chip capable of running ''PONG'' which led to an explosion of consumer consoles, a large number of which are listed on the site)

*{{dmoz|Games/Video_Games/Action/P/Pong/}}

[[Category:1972 arcade games]]

[[Category:1975 computer and video games]]

[[Category:Arcade games]]

[[Category:Atari arcade games]]

[[Category:Atari games]]

[[Category:First-generation video game consoles]]

[[Category:Mobile phone games]]

[[Category:Pong variations| ]]

[[Category:Tennis computer and video games]]

[[Category:Star Trek: Voyager episodes]]

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