how did Atari become what it is today??

The History of Atari

The rise and the fall of the pioneer firm of video game industry.

• 1971 Nolan Bushnell designed the first commercial arcade video game called "Computer Space", but it was not a big success.
• 1972 Atari Inc. was founded by Nolan Bushnell from a $250 investment. Pong arcade game becomes a smash hit.
• 1976 Atari Inc. was sold by Bushnell to Warner Inc. for $28 million.
• 1980 Atari Inc. posted record sales, $2 billion profits annually. Atari occupied 80 offices in Sunnyvale, California.
• 1983 Decline of video games and irresponsible spending by Atari Inc. resulted in record losses ($536 million, up to $2 million daily).
• 1984 Warner divided Atari Inc. to Atari Games (arcade games), and Atari Corporation (Home division). Atari Corp. was sold to Jack Tramiel.
• 1985 Atari Corp. released Atari ST home computer.
• 1989 Atari Corp. released Atari Lynx, the world's first color hand-held video game system.
• 1993 Atari Games became Time-Warner Interactive.
• 1993 Atari Corp. released Atari Jaguar, the world's first 64-bit home video game system.
• 1996 Time-Warner Interactive (Atari Games) was sold to WMS.
• 1996 Atari Corp. merged with JTS Corporation.
• 1998 Atari Corp. software and hardware rights were sold to Hasbro Inc. for only 5 million dollars.

as you can see they have had there ups and downs but they are still going strong to this very day