Nolan Bushnell
Biography
Nolan Bushnell is an American businessman and electrical engineer who established Atari and the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant chain, and he is considered a founding father of the video game industry. While attending college he worked at Lagoon Amusement Park, where he managed the games department and learned how the game business worked. He and Ted Dabney formed Syzygy in 1970 and produced Computer Space, which sold well but was a commercial failure. The pair incorporated Atari in 1972, where engineer Allan Alcorn developed Pong after Bushnell assigned him a table tennis game as a test project. Bushnell later founded the business incubator Catalyst Technologies, returned to the Atari board in 2010, and started the educational software company BrainRush. He was featured in the documentaries Something Ventured (2011) and Atari: Game Over (2014), and received a BAFTA Fellowship in 2009.
83years old
Turns 84 on February 5in 111 days
- Born Clearfield
- Star sign: AquariusThe sign runs January 20 to February 18
- Also credited as Nolan Key Bushnell and Nolan Kay Bushnell
Movie Career
- Films
- 3
- Career span
- 4 years2011 to 2015
Every film, newest first
- 2015Steve Jobs: The Man in the MachineIMDb rating 6.9
- 2014Atari: Game OverIMDb rating 6.7
- 2011Something VenturedIMDb rating 7.0
Genres
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A role that slipped away
Nolan Bushnell turned down a one-third equity stake in Apple Inc. for $50,000 when Steve Jobs offered it to him in 1975, choosing instead to keep Atari focused on arcade and home consoles.
A role that slipped away
Warner Communications and Bushnell both saw that he was no longer suited to lead the company, and in early 1979 they removed him as CEO and Chairman. Warner then offered him a director and creative consultant role, which he turned down.
A change of course
In 1973, Bushnell quietly arranged for his neighbor Joe Keenan to start Kee Games, which made close imitations of Atari's games. This let him get more arcade games to market and get around exclusivity limits set by coin-op distributors.
A first
Bushnell started Etak in 1984. It was the first company to digitize the world's maps, for the first commercial automotive navigation system, and those maps later became the backbone for Google Maps and mapquest.com.
A change of course
Bushnell had always hoped to work for Walt Disney, but after graduation he kept getting rejected when he was starting out. Chuck E. Cheese was his homage to Disney.
Nolan Bushnell movies on Netflix
Worked with
Nolan Bushnell made one film with each of them. Pick a number on the chart or a name in the list to see the films they share.
Films together
Werner Herzog's page
Alex Gibney's page
Steve Jobs's page
Zak Penn's page
Nick Denton1 film together, 2015
Nick Denton's page
Steve Wozniak's page
Daniel GellerDirector, 1 film, 2011
All films by Daniel Geller
Awards
One award and honor, one of them major.
| Year | Award | Film | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| BAFTA | |||
| 2009 | Fellowship | Won | |
Online
Official profiles and reference pages.