1972 | Everyday Life
Everyday Life
Bobby Fischer becomes the first American to win the world chess title. Now 29, Chicago-born player Robert James Fischer became the youngest U.S. chess champion at age 15, returned to tournament play 2 years ago after dropping out for a year (he charged that the Federation Internationale des Echecs was letting Soviet players monopolize the matches), and defeats Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky 12½ games to 8½ at Reykjavik, Iceland, in July, winning a record purse of $250,000; the event focuses unprecedented world attention on chess.
Atari (the name is equivalent to check in the Japanese game go) is founded by Utah-born computer-games inventor Nolan Bushnell, 27, and his friend Ted Dabny with an investment of $250 each to manufacture and market "Pong"—the first commercial video-arcade game (see Spacewar, 1962). Beside it is a dark wood cabinet holding a black-and-white cathode-ray screen and the instruction, "Avoid missing ball for high score." Drop in a quarter, the machine "serves" a ball automatically from one side of the screen, a white blip darts about the screen, and the player uses controls to hit the blip with his ball. Bolting a coin box to the outside, Bushnell installs the game in Andy Capp's tavern, a Sunnyvale, Calif., pool bar, in the fall. He takes consulting jobs with electronics firms to raise money, persuades a local bank to give him a $50,000 line of credit, puts together a team of techies who work 12 to 16 hours a day assembling Pong machines (using Motorola TVs) while listening to Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin records, and sells about 10 machines per day, mostly to distributors who handle pinball machines and jukeboxes. He will find a venture capitalist to back him and will sell 6,000 "Pong" games at more than $1,000 each (see 1975).
Magnavox introduces "Odyssey," a video game it has licensed from Sanders Associates, whose supervising engineer Ralph Baer created it in 1966. Played on a 17" RCA color set, the Magnavox version uses Mylar overlays taped to the TV screen to show different game boards or playing fields, it will sell 100,000 in its first year, but Atari's "Pong" is cheaper, it has a sharper picture, and its controls are more sensitive. Some 100,000 "Pong" type games will be sold by 1974, about 10,000 of them by Atari, which will sell $13 million worth of video games, including "Quadropong" for four players and "Puppy Pong," marketed in a Formica doghouse. But the games are easily counterfeited (see "Space Invaders," 1978).
Benny Binion of Binion's Horseshoe at Las Vegas takes over the World Series of Poker started 2 years ago at Reno, increasing antes and blinds to produce a winner in shorter time (see Binion, 1951). Eight players willing to stake an initial $10,000 each participate in the event, which will grow by the end of the century to attract 512 players.
The annual All-American Soap Box Derby at Akron, Ohio, admits girls fo the first time since its founding in 1933. Founder Myron E. Scott, now 65, criticizes the decision, Chevrolet ends its sponsorship, and a nonprofit organization takes over.
Nike Inc. is founded by Portland newspaper publisher's son Philip H. Knight, 33, and his former Oregon University track coach William J. "Bill" Bowerman, 61, who since 1964 have been importing Japanese-made running shoes (see New Balance, 1962). Having coached at Oregon for 24 years, won four NCAA track and field championships, and had 19 Olympians, including distance runner Steve Prefontaine, Bowerman coaches this year's U.S. Olympic track team, but Prefontaine finishes fourth in the 5,000 meters and Bowerman will retire from coaching next year. Knight received his MBA from Stanford in 1962 after producing a business plan for a proposed running-shoe company. Blue Ribbon salesman Jeff Johnson has come up with the name Nike (for the Greek goddess of victory), designer Carolyn Davidson has received $35 for devising the "swoosh" logotype, Bowerman has developed a "waffle sole" and added padding, Knight and Bowerman obtain endorsements from athletes, customers buy 250,000 pairs of Nikes, cheap labor in Korea and Taiwan produces the shoes, and by 1990 Nike will be the world's largest sneaker company, overtaking West Germany's Adidas and making Knight a billionaire as the growing market for athletic shoes attracts dozens of competitors (see Reebok, 1979).
Boston entrepreneur James S. Davis, 28, buys the mail-order running-shoe company New Balance from the Kidd family with backing from his Greek-born father and will soon challenge Nike, Brooks, and other athletic-shoe companies by offering width-sized shoes at premium prices (see 1962).
L'eggs brand hosiery is introduced by the 71-year-old Hanes Corp. of Winston-Salem, N.C., whose management will spin L'eggs off as a separate entity.
Fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga dies at Valencia March 23 at age 77, having retired in 1968 after a long career in which he has helped to popularize the trend toward capes and flowing clothes without waistlines and (more recently) the use of plastic for rainwear; brassiere designer and Maidenform cofounder Ida Rosenthal dies at New York March 28 at age 77; Norman Norell suffers a stroke at his New York apartment in mid-October on the eve of a 50-year retrospective fashion show to be held at the Metropolitan Museum (he has fought throat cancer since 1961), and he dies October 25 at age 72.
The annual All-American Soap Box Derby at Akron, Ohio, admits girls for the first time since its founding in 1933. Founder Myron E. Scott, now 65, criticizes the decision, Chevrolet ends its sponsorship, and a nonprofit organization takes over.
Physical culturist Charles Atlas dies at Long Beach, N.Y., December 23 at age 78.