Chapter 4

The early years of Alpha Control were much like those of most start-ups. Working on a shoe-string budget, Bill King and a couple of starving engineering graduate students scraped by on small defense project contracts. It was really May's full-time teaching position that kept the roof over their heads in the beginning, and food on the table. Things got even tighter with the arrival of the King's first child, William, Jr., as May was out of work for nearly half a year, but the young people were resilient and muddled through it. Not surprisingly, the time would come when Bill and May would look back on those as "the good old days."

It was during a particularly dark time for King's fledgling company, a very slow period between projects, when opportunity finally knocked. King was on the verge of closing his company and returning to the workforce himself. When he could no longer make even his meager payroll, Bill King offered one of his most promising grad student workers a room in his apartment, and board. Mike Baker had been a college student long enough to recognize a good thing when he saw it; clean sheets and a hot meal. There was only one problem, Baker's longtime girlfriend Katy had recently moved in with him and the two were not about to separate.

Though still in his late twenties, King was of a time when cohabitation without the benefit of marriage was a bit dodgy and not sure if he could condone it under his own roof. In addition, it meant one more mouth to feed. Once again, it was the women who proved the more practical. Katy and May, who had always gotten along famously as they had both shared the peculiar joys of living with "mad scientists," came up with a plan. Katy would serve as a nanny to young Bill Junior so that May could go back to teaching. The economics of it made perfect sense to King, who was thrilled that he could keep his company running just a little longer, hoping for a break.

So many of the momentous events of world history are born of the truly insignificant. An innocuous event, no lesser or greater than the thousand other trivial events of the average day is all it takes to start the snowball rolling. In the case of Bill King and Alpha Control, that event was a casual word over a plate of budget-stretching spaghetti one night. That word was "Pong."

One evening, as the two couples chatted over a plate of pasta, (the third one that week), Katy recounted the events of her day, including a stroll she and Junior had taken for some fresh air. The young woman had wheeled her charge's stroller into a local pizza joint for a cold drink and noticed the craziest thing. Off in a corner of the small restaurant was a tall box with a black and white TV screen and a sign reading "Pong" across the top. About a dozen young people had gathered around the machine to watch as two of them played a game of ping pong on the screen.

"It was wild!" Katy laughed, "They would turn these two knobs to hit a square "ball" back and forth and the machine would keep score right on the screen."

"Sounds exciting," said King cynically, as he scooped up another helping of noodles.

"Well, a lot of people were lined up to play it at twenty-five cents a pop," retorted Katy. "Old Man Morelli never got that kind of a crowd around his pinball machine."

Mike Baker laughed. "We move blips around a screen all day long. Wouldn't it be nice if someone gave us a quarter every five minutes?"

King froze, his fork hanging in midair. Something wasn't quite right. Nobody would pay good money just to move a dot around on a screen. Would they?

"Kate, you say the players control the ball by turning knobs? What exactly do the knobs do?"

"It looked like they both just move a white rectangle up and down on opposite sides of the screen. Those are the paddles, I guess."

"Just up and down? No back and forth or diagonal movement?"

"Not that I saw. You should go down and see it for yourself. You ought to know as much about how it works as anyone," Katy suggested.

Bill King dropped his fork onto his plate with a clang and stood up suddenly. Bill Jr. jumped in his highchair, startled at the noise, and began to cry.

"Baker, let's take a walk."

"What about dinner?" asked May, who was also surprised by her husband's sudden actions.

"I'm full," King said. "Besides, I expect to see the leftovers again as tomorrow's lunch," he smiled grimly.

Baker grabbed up his jacket and bounded out into the cool night air, hustling to catch up with his boss, who was making a beeline for Morelli's pizzeria.

"What's got you all wound up, Boss?" asked Baker.

"I don't know just yet. I have to see this tennis game for myself first," replied King. Mike had worked around King long enough to recognize a brainstorm in progress and knew his job was to keep quiet and let the "Old Man" think. Soon enough King would start bouncing ideas and questions off him, thinking out loud, really, and Baker was as eager for a steady paycheck again as any of them. It had been several weeks since he had seen this much enthusiasm from King.

Soon the two men turned off the sidewalk into Morelli's. Oven-heated air, scented with cheese, basil and tomato sauce wafted over them in a warm wave.

"Hey, Billy… where you been, man?" greeted the owner from behind the counter in a growly but friendly voice. Nick Morelli was one of a very select few who got away with calling King "Billy," King's grandfather being one other. And like Grandad, Morelli was a self-made working man who "didn't take crap" from anyone. Morelli had been his own boss for more than forty years, except for a stint in the Navy during the war, and didn't suffer fools lightly, so when he engaged you at all, especially by name, it was a major compliment. Nick liked the young man, as he was sharp and going places. He thought King treated his people well and he knew how to keep his mouth shut and his ears open, unlike a lot of kids those days. King respected Mister Morelli's accomplishments and had often picked the older businessman's brain over a pizza and beer.

"How you doin', Mr. Morelli? Things have been a little slow down at the shop lately," King replied honestly. Before the slowdown the Kings and the AC staff had all been regular customers.

"I hear that, Billy! With this lousy oil embargo nobody has no money for nothin' no more," said Nick. "At this rate, gas is gonna go up to a buck a gallon! Can you imagine?"

"It looks like you're still drawing a crowd though," said King, gesturing to the knot of young people crowding around the Pong game.

"Yeah, the kids are comin' in, alright, but they don't buy nothin'. If I was smart, I'd get four more of those things and just shut down the kitchen," Morelli joked. "I'd make more money and have a tenth of the overhead costs."

"Maybe you should have a "two soft drink minimum" cover charge," offered Baker.

Bill King sidled up as close to the machine as the throng would allow. It didn't take him long to work out the basics of the game. It was nothing more than the kind of simple test program most electronics engineers wrote on cocktail napkins or other scrap paper in their idle moments. He had half a dozen similar loops and patterns scattered around his shop, but he never dreamed that people would actually pay cash money to play with them. He needed a peek inside the magic box.

"Mr. Morelli, you still close at nine?" King said quietly to the chef.

"I'll start closing up the kitchen at nine, but I'll let these jokers hang around until ten," said Morelli. "It's hard to turn away free money, ya know."

"Oh, I know," said King. "I'd sure love to have a look inside that thing, in private, if you know what I mean. It would be worth a hundred to you."

"Uh-oh! Do I even want to know?"

"It's just a wild hunch," said King. "But if it pans out I'll set you up with a whole chain of restaurants, or Pong parlors, or both! Morelli's will be even bigger than McDonald's! Whaddaya say?"

"Hoo-boy!" quipped the skeptical older man. "I better call the wife and tell her to start pickin' out curtains for the new mansion."

"You're a champ, Mr. M." King's mind was moving at a mile a minute. "I won't need more than twenty minutes, tops. Oh, and there's one other thing…"

"What's that, Rockefeller?" said Morelli, waiting for the catch.

"Will you take an IOU on the hundred?"

"Son of a…," he started, but broke into a hearty laugh before he could finish his thought.