Atari Computer was a video game manufacturer founded in 1972 in Sunnyvale, CA, by Nolan Bushnell, who named the company after a word used in the Japanese game of Go. Atari became famous for "Pong," a video game that simulated Ping-Pong on TV. In 1976, Atari was sold to Warner Communications which came out with a game computer dubbed the Atari Video Computer System. In 1978, the Atari 400 and 800 home computers were introduced and became successful. Later came the 600XL and 1200XL models.

In 1984, Atari was sold to Jack Tramiel and investors, which introduced the ST personal computer line in 1985 to compete with the Macintosh. The STs were advanced machines that were available into the 1990s, but although popular, they received limited application support. Atari made attempts at offering IBM-compatible PCs, but failed in that arena. In late 1992, Atari introduced the Falcon multimedia computer, but soon shut down its R&D. At the end of 1993, it introduced the Jaguar video game, but sales were not sufficient to continue. In 1996, Atari merged with JTS Corporation, a San Jose-based manufacturer of hard disks. In 1998, Hasbro acquired the Atari name and intellectual property rights from JTS.