I don’t like the comparison to Pong-era video games. I think it’s better to say that this is like a pre-ENIAC computer: it can be made to work, but the hardware is specialized to one problem at any given time, and reprogramming it is not going to be quick. Still, we know where traditional computers went from there. Now seems like as good a time as any to declare that we are living in the future.
As a bit of trivia, I’ll mention that Bill Gates’ only published academic paper was on the pancake problem. And Wikipedia mentions that Futurama co-creator David Cohen’s most notable academic paper was on the burnt pancake problem. Truly, a highly fertile area of research.