When most people think of Steve Jobs, they think of Apple computers, the iPod, iPad and iPhone. When I think of Steve Jobs, I think of Breakout, my favorite video game of all time. Back when he was a bearded, barefoot, drug-taking hippie, Jobs worked for Atari, the video game pioneer based in Los Gatos in the heart of Silicon Valley. Jobs worked at Atari as an engineer before he started Apple with fellow nerd, Steve Wozniak.

The story of Breakout has always fascinated me. Basically it's an advanced version of Pong, which was Atari's first hit video game. The goal is to break through walls of bricks. Advance and the formations change and of course it gets harder. Until Space Invaders, I dropped hundreds of quarters into Breakout machines.

Back in 1981 when I was researching my book Video Invaders, Atari game designer Steve Bristow told me that Jobs ("this non-degreed engineer, but sharp kid from Palo Alto") had an unusual working relationship with Atari in 1975. Atari founder Nolan Bushnell would describe a game and specify a certain number of integrate circuits he wanted Jobs to use. For every IC he saved, Jobs received a $100 bonus. Jobs created a compact prototype that eventually turned into Breakout. "He brought it down from 80 to 30 ICs," Bristow smiled. "It wasn't common, but that's what happened."

Since then the story of Breakout has changed. Wozniak now gets credit for reducing the number of ICs (Jobs asked for his help). "It was remarkable, a tour de force," explained Pong engineer Alcorn "It was so minimized, though, that nobody else could build it. Nobody could understand what Woz did but Woz. It was this brilliant piece of engineering, but it was just unproduceable. So the game sat around and languished in the lab." Alcorn assigned another engineer to finish the game, which used 100 ICs.

"Jobs never did a lick of engineering in his life. He had me snowed," Alcorn recalled. "It took years before I figured out that he was getting Woz to 'come in the back door' and do all the work while he got the credit."

Unveiled in arcades on Apr. 13, 1976, Breakout was a hit (11,000 were sold) and the colorful sequel Super Breakout (right) followed in 1978.

In 1999, Wozniak told Steve Gelsi of High Times, "I designed it. The Atari folks know this. Steve came to me to design it. He was the middleman. Steve wire-wrapped my design, but I did the testing. After it was done, Jobs may have added a chip to make sound on my 'hit' signal. I called my BASIC, Game Basic. It was stripped a little and enhanced a lot only to make it better for games. All this had nothing to do with Steve Jobs. He was more involved in making a successful company, about which I cared very little."

To my knowledge, Jobs never publicly provided his side of the Breakout story. Let the record show that Atari passed on Apple and the rest is history. Now, excuse me while I get back to a game of Brick Breaker on my BlackBerry.

CelebStoner publisher Steve Bloom is the author of Reefer Movie Madness (2010), Pot Culture (2008) and Video Invaders (1982).

Also see:
Did Pot Prohibition Kill Steve Jobs?
Steve Jobs and Drug Policy
More Blogs by Steve Bloom
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