Letting The Genie Out of the Bottle 1977-1982

Atari was many things. It was a phenomenon. It was a revolution, and it was the first true consumer electronics company in Silicon Valley. Atari launched the global video game industry, now estimated to be over 30 billion dollars
a year, but it's also where we let the genie out of the bottle.

Atari was where we realized the television did not have to be a one-way device. Prior to Atari, the television was good
for one thing and one thing only, piping the media of the day into our living rooms to be absorbed drone-like, from the family sofa. Atari was the birth of inter-activity. It was where we learned that technology was not only smart, it could also be fun. It could entertain us, involve us, and importantly, it signaled what was to be the next great revolution, the birth of the personal computer.