Al Alcorn - the Father of PONG (and much more!)I produced and edited this profile of Allan Alcorn for the PBS affiliate in the Silicon Valley, KTEH (now branded as KQED+). You probably know that Al is the Father of PONG, but you're going to amazed when you find out the other projects he's had his hand in. Personally, it was a real treat for me to meet Al and spend a few hours with him. Very similar to the structure of Guy Kawasaki's piece: there's an opening scene, a linear story of his life, then a return to the opening scene (which allows me to re-cap the story you were just told). Graphically, it's based on the box of the Atari home version of PONG. Not an outright copy, but it uses the curved line and the bands of orange color. The rest of the graphics were a real egg hunt. Al provided a few pictures from the 1970s, but the rest came from trolling around on Atari tribute sites. I was very sad to cut out an early section about the importance of his Berkeley years. He witnessed the tear gassing of rioters on Telegraph Avenue and considers it to be an important event in his life. It took about thirty seconds for Al to tell the story, and it was only cut because This Is Us had to fit it's running time.
