pong

The popular table-tennis arcade video game ‘Pong’ was created as a test exercise.

Atari founder Nolan Bushnell wanted to make a racing game for arcades and hired Allan Alcorn, an electronic engineer who had recently finished college.

Concerned that this project would be too complex for his new employee, Bushnell’s first request to Alcorn was to create a ping-pong game.

The rest, as they say, is history.