Ralph+Baer

=Ralph Baer: Moving game consoles into home use... = = =  Ralph Baer is credited with creating the first home video game. In fact, he worked very closely with a team of two other inventors, Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch at Sanders Associates, a large defense electronics company in New Hampshire. Together they created many games that were designed to be played on an ordinary home TV set by ordinary people. This proved to be a major step in the computer gaming industry. They called their first 1968 invention "The Brown Box".



In 1969, Magnavox decided to license the "Brown Box" and hired Baer to remodel it to their own specifications, releasing the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. Among the many games that Baer had developed for Magnavox was a simple game modeled after "Table Tennis". Most of us will recognize that game today as a more primitive version of what we know as "Pong" invented by Nolan Bushnell.





Baer was also the inventor of Coleco’s “ Telestar” video in 1975 and the popular interactive "Simon" game by Milton Bradley, which he invented with Howard Morrison. This game was popular in the late 70's and early 80's, among his many, many other game inventions. Baer and his team were meticulous record keepers, which in the end won them millions of dollars in law suits against other companies that invented other games after them, using their ideas. They kept the company they worked for out of the red when the defense industry nose-dived. Holding patents for their inventions became key to their success.

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 Baer has won many awards for his inventions ,work and contributions to the gaming industry including the 2006 U.S. National Medal of Technology, the highest homor a citizen can receive for achievements in technological progress.

To see more original drawings of Baer, Harrison and Rusch's drawing of home TV games invented while working at Sanders: [|http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=5&cId=3159462]


 * Invention:** Magnavox Odyssey in 1972
 * Definition: ** A video game system manufactured by Magnavox that consisted of a console, game cartages and translucent plastic overlays to cover a TV screen.
 * Patent: ** 3,728,480 (US) issued April 17, 1973
 * Inventor: ** Ralph H. Baer
 * Criteria: ** First to invent. First to patent.


 * Invention: ** SIMON ® game in 1977
 * Definition: ** An electronic, table-top, game consisting of four large buttons of different color lights and sound tones in a sequence that the player must match.
 * Patent: ** 4,207,087 (US) issued June 10, 1980
 * Inventor: ** Ralph H. Baer
 * Criteria: ** First to invent. First to patent

Original Source: from the book "Videogames: In The Beginning" Copyright Ralph H. Baer 2005 - Rolenta Press, ISBN 0-9643848-1-7
 * Resources:**

www.ralphbaer.com

Video Games turn 40: We celebrate four decades of those new-fangled "television games." by Benj Edwards, 05.15.2007 http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3159462

Youtube.com Ralph Baer and Bill Harrision demonstrate their ping pong game. [|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LsRGUODHlQ&feature=player_embedded#!]

Patent info: http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/baer.htm

The Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention & Innovation at the Smithsoniam Natinoal Museum of American History houses all of Baer's inventions and papers [|http://invention.smithsonian.org/resources/fa_baer_index.aspx#series4]

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