[COFF] Bell System and the Video Game Industry?

[segaloco via COFF <coff@tuhs.org>]

So this evening I've been tinkering with a WECo 2500 I've been using for playing with telecom stuff, admiring the quality of the DTMF module, and it got me thinking, gee, this same craftsmanship would make for some very nice arcade buttons, which then further had me pondering on the breadth of the Bell System's capabilities and the unique needs of the video game industry in the early 80s.

In many respects, the combination of Western Electric and Bell Laboratories could've been a hotbed of video game console and software development, what with WECo's capability to produce hardware such as coin slots, buttons, wiring harnesses for all sorts of equipment, etc. and then of course the software prowess of the Labs.

Was there to anyone here's knowledge any serious consideration of this market by Bell?  The famous story of UNIX's origins includes Space Travel, and from the very first manual, games of various kinds have accompanied UNIX wherever it goes.  It seems that out of most companies, the Bell System would've been very well poised, what with their own CPU architecture and other fab operations, manufacturing and distribution chains, and so on.  There's a looooot of R&D that companies such as Atari and Nintendo had to engage in that the Bell System had years if not decades of expertise in.  Would anti-trust stuff have come into play in that regard?  Bell couldn't compete in the computer market, and I suppose it would depend on the legal definitions applicable to video game hardware and software at the time.

In any case, undercurrent here is the 2500 is a fine telephone, if the same minds behind some of this WECo hardware had gone into video gaming, I wonder how different things would've turned out.

- Matt G.