The logic chips used to prototype Breakout were designed by Atari employee Steve Jobs and Hewlett-Packard employee Steve Wozniak, who would both later go on to co-found the technology company Apple. Wozniak said he was the "designer — the engineer — and [Jobs] was a breadboarder and test technician." Jobs imposed on themselves a deadline of four days because he needed to catch a flight to Oregon, and after working for four days and nights straight, they turned in a breadboard that ran on 44 chips. Atari founder and Breakout game designer Nolan Bushnell promised that they would be rewarded $700 for turning in a breadboard that ran on less than 50 chips, but Wozniak later claimed that he had only received $350 as payment.

Breakout would later serve as a direct influence on Steve Wozniak's design for the Apple II computer, which included his design of color graphics circuitry, game paddle support and sound, and graphics commands in the Integer BASIC interpreter program. He used this to develop "Brick Out", a software clone of Breakout, and showed it off to the local Homebrew Computer Club he and Jobs frequented. Wozniak recalled the day he demonstrated Brick Out as "the most satisfying day of my life", and felt that being able to program hardware games in the BASIC language on the Apple II was "going to change the world."