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Atari’s Nolan Bushnell: ‘we could have owned the internet’

Games studio Atari planned to launch a national gaming network over telephone lines in the mid-’70s, but the move was axed by Warner Communications executives after the company’s 1976 acquisition, according to founder Nolan Bushnell. “If we had gone ahead and done it, it could have essentially been the internet, in private hands,” laments Bushnell in a lengthy interview with TIME. “It’s kind of fun to think about owning the internet.”