Atari

The founders of Atari pose with the first Pong upright arcade machine in 1972. From left to right:

Ted Dabney, electrical engineer and executive vice president. Dabney was the hardware guy who invented the video arcade cabinet. He also created the "motion circuit," the real breakthrough which made video games economically viable.

Nolan Bushnell, president. Bushnell paid his way through college working part time as a carnival barker. He was the extrovert and public face of Atari.

Frank Marincic, CFO. He had previously served as a senior accountant at Fairchild and Hewlett Packard.

Allen Alcorn, lead programmer. Alcorn designed Pong and made the code work on Dabney's hardware. He also hired Steve Jobs -- "a smelly hippie kid" -- and mentored him. Alcorn was an advisor to Jobs and his partner Steve Wozniak as they built the prototype for their Apple home computer.