Bushnell’s love of electricity led him to Utah State University where he studied for a BS degree in Electrical Engineering. While in the engineering department, Bushnell was exposed to a DEC PDP-1 computer, and Steve Russell’s game Spacewar! He fell in love with the quirky little one-on-one space battle game, and was fascinated by the impact it had on the other students, especially in how much free time the other students spent playing it.

At the same time, Bushnell was working his way through college by working at Lagoon Amusement Park in Farmington Utah. There, he worked the midway games like a master carnival barker.

“I think that working at the amusement park gave me a sense that I had a special knack for that. I was able to have a lot of people have fun and spend their money while doing it. Those were two good characteristics” ⁱⁱⁱ - Nolan Bushnell

"When you divide 25 cents into an $8 million computer, there ain't no way,"^iv - Nolan Bushnell

He put the notion aside so he could start a career as an engineer. After graduation from Utah State as a “Distinguished Fellow” in 1968, Bushnell moved to California where he continued his graduate education at Stanford University. He wanted to work for Walt Disney, because he felt they were doing very interesting things with technology. Even though Bushnell thought of his endeavors as technical feats, he still felt the need to entertain people.

“I always considered myself an engineer. A guy who used technology to solve problems. I was fascinated with Disney who used technology to entertain people. I felt technology was truly magical.” ^v - Nolan Bushnell

However, since, Disney did not hire engineers straight out of school, so he had to look elsewhere.

"When I graduated from college, my vision of the perfect job was to work in the research section of Disneyland. But they weren't hiring new engineering grads. " ^vi - Nolan Bushnell

Bushnell found a job at Ampex Corp, in the Silicon Valley and started working as computer graphics department research designer. He worked at Ampex for a couple years, where he met fellow engineers (and future Atari employees) Al Alcorn and Steve Bristow. However, Bushnell was never able to settle down as a line engineer. The need to entertain people kept biting at him. Soon after, he was introduced to a free-standing version of Spacewar! named Galaxy Game, designed by Bill Pitt, another Stanford graduate.

Galaxy Game was a full version of the DEC PDP version of Spacewar!, right down the mini-computer that was necessary to run it. While the technical feat of a free-standing Spacewar! game was impressive, the $40,000 cost associated with basing a game on mini-computer was not. Bushnell knew he could do better. His day dreams of electronic games replacing pinball machines from working at Lagoon were rekindled. He felt he could engineer a machine that could entertain people, and still make money at the same time.