Consumer electronics: Electronic gamesmanship: It's man vs. microcircuit as video games entertain by challenging human skill (now) and intellect (soon)

Spawned by the fantastic success of Atari's quarter-gulping “Pong” game (now standard equipment at taverns and shopping mall arcades), home video games are essentially an add-on feature that consumers buy and connect to their television set's antenna terminals. The heart of all such games is low-cost logic and memory. Some are built with hard-wired circuit boards and standard ICs, while others use microelectronics specifically designed for generating video game action, sound, and scoring. This latter field is presently dominated by the General Instrument Corp., but Fairchild, National Semiconductor, RCA, Rockwell International, and Texas Instruments have all announced product and/or development efforts regarding video games and game chips. And dozens of small assemblers have bought parts, designed games/packaging, and now await Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval. Meanwhile, “second generation” video games containing microprocessors and featuring ROM or tape cassette programming are under rapid development, with one product announced (to date) and several others imminent.