To all who care. the REAL father of video games-Ralph Baer

[tekkengod]

I know this thread probably won't get many hits because most of the people who call themselves "gamers" are nothing more than addicts with a copy of the most recent game which is played once a week and left to fester under a bed somewherer.......BUT, to those of you who do care, about the legacy and empire that is gaming, there are a few things to know.
1. contrary to popular belief, the first home console was NOT the Atari 2600, or its predicessor or the Famlicom. It was the Oddessy.
2.As influential and successful as Nolan Busnell was with the Atari, and Shigeru Miyamoto as well, NEITHER is the pioneer of the industry.

Here is the story, of the REAL innovator, the TRUE father of Video Games

Ralph Baer



Contrary to what you might have been led to believe by fanboys, the father of video gaming is not Shigeru Miyamoto, Will Wright, or even Nolan Bushnell. And it certainly isn't Bill Gates.

What you may not know is that the technology that enabled the creation of video games was patented by engineer Ralph Baer in 1968, four years before Pong was ever introduced to gamers worldwide. However, Baer had developed the concept much, much earlier.

Born in 1922, Baer grew up Jewish in Germany during a time when National Socialism was just starting to take hold.


his family decided to relocate to the U.S. in August 1938, three months before the Holocaust began. After his family settled in New York, Baer worked in a factory and paid for correspondence courses to learn radio technology. In 1943, Baer was drafted by the U.S. Army and served as an interrogator in England, narrowly missing the battle at Normandy due to an illness that landed him in the hospital. When he returned home, he attended classes at the American Technical Institute of Television and received his degree in Television Engineering.

After landing a job at a New York TV manufacturing company, Loral, Baer's first project was to build a television from scratch. Over the course of tinkering with the various parts, he had an idea that would change the course of entertainment forever--he wanted to make an interactive game built into the TV. However, Loral didn't go for it, so Baer put his idea on the back burner for fifteen years.

In 1966, Baer had a flash of inspiration while waiting at a bus stop and wrote down his idea for his first prototype of his "game box"--a box that could be hooked up to a TV and use a local signal to play interactive games. Of course, in 1966, this involved moving a spot around a screen, but it worked. Baer took the product to the board of directors at his current place of employment, Sanders Electronics, and the response was enthusiastic. Sanders granted Baer $2,000 in seed money, and Baer was able to assemble a small staff to build the project. However, once it was finished, Baer found that it was going to be difficult to get someone to purchase the 'brown box' for distribution. In 1979, Magnavox finally agreed to license the technology that Baer developed released it as the Odyssey in 1971. As the world's first home video game console, the Odyssey came with 12 pre-installed games...for a whopping $100, despite Baer's idea for a low cost gaming solution.

Unfortunately, the Odyssey's high price and Magnavox's unclear marketing vision for the machine translated into fairly poor sales. To show the console off to the public, Magnavox takes the Odyssey around the country to trade shows, where a man named Nolan Bushnell tries out the console for the first time. Bushnell stated that he wasn't very impressed by the games but was impressed by the technology, which he then used to create Pong with Allen Allencord without permission from Baer or Magnavox. However, the popularity of Pong helps boost sale of the Odyssey, and by the 1975, 350,000 units of the Odyssey are sold.

Though sales were picking up, Pong was far more popular and selling better, and someone at Magnavox suggested they take Atari to court. Rather than pay immense legal fees to lose a patent case, Atari settles with Magnavox and decides to take legal action against other video game companies as well. Though the money starts to roll in, and continues to do so through the early 80's, when Nintendo and Sega entered the market with their 8-bit home consoles, Magnavox found it hard to keep making money on its own in the game market with the Odyssey. After the Odyssey 2 failed to compete with the Atari 2600, Magnavox scrapped any further plans for home game consoles.

Ralph Baer also left Sanders and Magnavox and went on to create other such memorable gadgets as the Simon electronic memory game that became a cultural icon in the early 1980's. Baer is often brought up as an influential figure in the history of video games, but unfortunately it is often Nolan Bushnell that is incorrectly credited as "the father of video games." However, Baer delights in having been named 'Inventor of the Year' by the state of New York in 1979 and New Hampshire in 1980.

I think it is an absolute shame that Mr. Baer did not get the credit he deserved, and that the likes of Miyamoto and Bushnell succeeded by stealing and utilizing his ideas. I for one am going to nominate him for Most Influental Man in next years G4 awards.

[Topher]

Ralph Baer started it, Nolan Busnell refined it and Shigeru Miyamoto made it what it was today.

[Twelve Eggs]

psh. how many times do i have to tell you. I'M the father of videogames.

[tekkengod]

well then, that means you and Baer hit it off.........i suggest you take a LONG HARD look at his picture before you claim that......

[davethekodiak]

whos the mother of video games, bill gates?

[Stan O'Kella]

Yeah Bill Gates, but you missed the other word that comes after mother.

[Cougar_v203]

Fudger?


Godlike props to Ralph Baer.

[Stan O'Kella]

Originally Posted by Cougar_v203

Fudger?

Not quite, but some of the letters are the same!

[chrispy]

Originally Posted by Homer J Simpson

Ralph Baer started it, Nolan Busnell refined it and Shigeru Miyamoto made it what it was today.

That's the long and short of it. Anyone that knows anything about video games knows that Nintendo was not the first house on the block. They were the first Mansion though.

We had an Atari 2600 when I was a kid, and our neighbourgh (I HATE SPELLING THAT WORD) had the Colecovision (sp?) and my grandma had the Atari 2800 (for like 20 years!) I loved them at the time, we had tons of games for our atari, but I think the most notable thing about those early systems is that it seemed to me games;

A) Had WEAK stories - shoot the asteroids, shoot the aliens, collect the pellets or money (lock 'n' chase) the only game I ever had for the Atari that had an ending that I knew of was E.T. -and it sucked. And games that had stories had to have the stories told in the instruction book.

B) 99/100 games were tests of endurance. Has anyone beaten asteroids? space invaders? the Original Mario Bros. (with the spiney's, crabs and fighterflies that come out of pipes)? I doubt it. why? because there was no ending they just went to the next level FOREVER.

Shigeru and Nintendo did not invent video games, we can all agree on that I hope, but without the success of Nintendo's Donkey Kong the arcade industry in the US might have dried right up (the was a show on discovery - the history of veido games or something like that that had lots of details about the beginnings of the phnomenon) and without Super Mario Bros. and Zelda the home console as we know it might not exist. Nintendo's not the father, It's the son that exceeded the entire family's expectations

[geves]

while your telling them about it tekkengod.

also add that street fighter is also THE most influencial (sp?) game EVER.

if not for street fighter most people wouldn't know about video games. and mortal kombat wouldn't be such an over-rated piece of crap (that it is).

i'm only posting this because i'm sick and tired of seeing games like metriod and castlevania (both good games) get better positions in "top 100 greates video games of all time: you heard it from EGM so it must be official because we're so respected and not crappy at all."

street fighter = #1. not only for what it did to transform the gaming community but also because it's a solid title and it gave companies like SNK (great company) and MIDWAY, a chance to steal from them.

companies were born from stealing this game.

[Hobbitlauncher]

a, its Nolan Bushnell (like the binoculars) b, Ralph wasn't the father, if you want to go that far back, I don't recall his name but there was a scientist who worked with audio equipment (including oscilloscopes) who, in his spare time, modded one to play the FIRST ever real video game, he didn't think much of it and I don't recall anything ever really coming from it. (other than the fact that the fine people at magnavox helping steal the idea, since he didn't think to copyright it)

--edit-- sorry for the spelling naziness (my bad if i shouldn't use that word) but I just get that way around the subject of gaming, (and in general somewhat too, i know, I'm sorry)

[geves]

no need to apologize about a word mate. in fact this the most relaxed section of the forum. (no one would give you crap anyways).

i hope it continues to be relaxed... this is the best section of any forum i've gone to (and i go to video game based forums often). and the most intellegent (with extra props to tekkengod, even though he's biased )

it only attracts smart people who actually know whats going on in the gaming world. it's relaxed nature is only a slight benefit to us. i hope it continues to grow.

[tekkengod]

Originally Posted by geves

no need to apologize about a word mate. in fact this the most relaxed section of the forum. (no one would give you crap anyways).

i hope it continues to be relaxed... this is the best section of any forum i've gone to (and i go to video game based forums often). and the most intellegent (with extra props to tekkengod, even though he's biased )

it only attracts smart people who actually know whats going on in the gaming world. it's relaxed nature is only a slight benefit to us. i hope it continues to grow.

now i feel special.

I agree, this is the most relaxed and open ended part of the site. no one snaps too overtly or often, its usually smart people who usually have all the facts arguing view points that end up being rather mutual anyway.

[tekkengod]

Originally Posted by Hobbitlauncher

a, its Nolan Bushnell (like the binoculars) b, Ralph wasn't the father, if you want to go that far back, I don't recall his name but there was a scientist who worked with audio equipment (including oscilloscopes) who, in his spare time, modded one to play the FIRST ever real video game, he didn't think much of it and I don't recall anything ever really coming from it. (other than the fact that the fine people at magnavox helping steal the idea, since he didn't think to copyright it)

at some point, everyone thought that they were the pioneer, that they were someone special, either in part due to the fact that they believed to do it first, got to the drawing board first.

Even Alexey Pajitnov {Tetris} thought so, when in reality, all he ended up doing was getting screwed out of a deal by the bigger boys on the already established block.

so did miyamoto, so did bushnell, so did baer. so did the scientist you mention.

But Baer did it first.

[Hobbitlauncher]

to note: this was about 5 years (give or take) before the Odyssey was even a concept, so in technicality you could say they were the father of videogames, for commercializing it. but it would also be wrong seeing as father would be assumed to mean the first in that line of thought. Heck there could have been someone before the scientist and his oscilloscope, but he is the first I know of. a better way would be to say Baer was the father of the home console gaming industry.