NOTALOG
NOTALOG was a order callout system for the first Pizza Time Theatre location, San Jose, CA (370 S Winchester Blvd), created by Ted Dabney at the request of Nolan Bushnell sometime after 1979.[1][2]
Function
Not much is known about the exact hardware used. A large TV monitor was placed on the pickup counter, facing the showroom, connected to an unknown device with a numerical keypad on the employee side of the counter.
After an order would be placed, the customer would be assigned a number. Once their order was done, its number would be punched into the keypad by an employee, flashing it on the TV for thirty seconds. Afterwards it would be dropped down into a list of up to 16 currently ready orders displayed on the screen. After a customer picked up their order, the employee would punch the same number into the keypad to have it removed from the list.[3]
History
Ted Dabney was a friend and former partner to Nolan Bushnell, helping develop the video display system for Computer Space and later Pong. Nolan would invite Ted over to the first Pizza Time Theatre location, curious of what he thought of his new business endeavor after Atari. The store left a bad first impression on Ted, stating "The place was a bit dirty; it was very noisy. I had no idea when my pizza was ready. I kept going up to the counter and asking the girl until finally my order was up, and I took it back to the table and tried it out. The pizza wasn't very good.".
Explaining his griefs to Bushnell, he replied saying the cleanliness and appearance could be fixed, but that the noise needed to stay because of the games and kids having fun. Interested in his attention to not knowing when his order was ready, Nolan asked Ted to "build me a solution". Ted would begin to build the NOTALOG system in his garage, later selling it to Pizza Time Theatre for an unknown amount. This system would later evolve into the Color Call-out Monitor System in late 1981.