Ralph Baer

The Father of Video Games “ One Sanders executive saw potential in Baer's idea and gave him $2,500 and two engineers to work on the project.

Over the years they churned out seven prototypes in a secret workshop, before landing on a version that Baer and Sanders would use to file the first video game patent in 1971” Steve Mullis, NPR lthough credited for single-handedly creating the first video game system, Ralph Baer (b. 1922 - d. 2014) was actually aided by two colleagues, Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch. However, the original four-page schematic and notes were the sole product of Baer himself. His invention, the Odyssey, first went on sale in 1972, but began its humble roots in the summer of 1966 as a design he called the “Brown Box”. As a defense contractor for Sanders Associates, it was risky for

Baer to propose such a contraption. In fact, while working for Loral Electronics in 1951, he was tasked with developing a TV on the cutting edge of technology. When Baer expressed interest in adding an interactive, game playing component his manager simply scoffed.

This system would open up a plethora of unseen avenues for the future of interactive computer games.

Ralph Baer poses with the final version of the Odyssey c.1980

Baer during his military service c.1938

alph Baer’s story starts in Germany, where he was born into a Jewish family on March 8th in 1922. At the age of 16, and in the middle of World War II, he and his family fled to New York City. Upon arriving Baer was intrigued by an advertisement for a course on fixing radios and televisions. He saved up to take the class and with that, he was hooked. He worked in a factory until he had enough money to support his own business servicing radios.

In 1943, Baer was drafted into the army as an intelligence officer, where he was assigned to General Eisenhower’s command post. Yet his mind was still preoccupied with technology. Throughout his time in the armed forces he would dedicate every free moment to studying math and developing radios from spare parts. Upon completion of his military service, Baer went to the American Television Institute of Technology where he received a degree in television engineering — one of the first of its kind.

In 1956 he joined Sanders Associates, a company that he stayed with until 1987, when he decided to fully devote his time to his own consulting business; R.H.Baer Consultants. Baer has constantly been inventing, with 48 patents in his name, all of which revolve around television and video games.

It was while working at Sanders that he first got the idea for the invention that would evolve into the Odyssey. In 1966, when he began furiously designing a system that would allow people to play board games and sports on their television sets, it was just the beginning.

On a hot day in the summer of 1966, Ralph Baer paused, seated at a bus stop, waiting for a ride to work. It was in this moment that he was struck with inspiration. For a long time he had wanted to create a system that would allow people to interact with their televisions. On four pages, he summarized a design that would allow just that.

This design would go through several iterations before becoming the Odyssey, the world’s first home video game console.

The first iteration of the Odyssey c.1967

The written concept for the Odyssey c.1966

“Coming up with novel ideas and converting them into real products has always been as natural as breathing for me�

Ralph Baer

Video Games: In the Beginning c. 2005

“[Baer made the television] an extension of you, the player…It would let you interact with a square on a black-and-white screen, and if you had even the lamest imagination, it made you believe you were volleying at tennis, aiming carefully as a brave marksman, even playing the innocent as you saved lives” Harold Goldberg

In 1972 the Odyssey arrived on store shelves, and it didn’t sell well. This was partly due to a misconception that it would only work on Magnavox television sets, an assumption based on the fact that it was being sold through Magnavox. However, after a successful advertising campaign the sales of the console were able to recover.

The popularity of the system, which had sold about 350,000 units by 1975, paved the way for the creation of modern video game consoles such as the Playstation, Xbox, and Wii. The Odyssey Video Game System c.1972

The final version of the Odyssey System c.1978

Original packaging for the Odyssey 2 c.1980

The Simon Electronic Game c.1978

aer is responsible for many other creations as well, including various peripherals and alternative game controllers. One of these controllers is the “Brown Box Lightgun” (1967 – 1968), which allowed people to play target practice games with a life-like toy gun. Baer has also spawned the ever-popular Simon Electronic Game, or Simon Says. The creation, which was produced from the combined efforts of Baer and Howard Morrison, hit the market in 1978. The disc shaped system featured four different colored buttons that made noises in a pattern that the player had to repeat. By the 80’s it had become a sensation, and it is still being sold today.

Baer has had many roles in the history of video games, but one of his most important tasks was in preserving that history. He made a point of collecting early video game hardware and ensuring that the parts remained in good condition. In 2006 he donated most of his collection to the National Baer during a video interview c.2012

Museum of American History. His work s still on display there as part an exhibition titled, “The Father of the Video Game: The Ralph Baer Prototypes and Electronic Games”, and includes finished and experimental versions of the Odyssey, as well as all of his annotations and illustrated drafts.

Ralph Baer was certainly not the first to produce an interactive video game. Even before Baer, in 1958 William A. Higinbotham had created Tennis for Two, which is widely contested as being the first computer game. Despite this, it is Baer who made video games not only popular, but also accessible. With his invention of the Odyssey, anyone who had a television set and the money to spare could experience a video game. The critical acclaim of the Odyssey impressed many companies, many of whom decided to enter the race to create the best console. By designing the Odyssey, Baer set the evolution of video games in motion.

Advertisement for the Odyssey System c.1978

Designed and written by Quinn Spence Composed in Lucida Grande, typeface designed by Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes in 2000, and Data 70, typeface designed by Bob Newman in 1970.

Printed from a Canon Image Runner onto 60# Hammermill.

Copyright © 2015 Quinn Spence, Portland, Maine, Maine College of Art

Sources: Baer, Ralph H. Video Games: In the Beginning. (Springfield, NJ: Rolenta Press, 2005) Goldberg, Harold. All Your Base Are Belong to Us: How Fifty Years of Video Games Conquered Pop Culture. (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2011) Martin, Douglas. Ralph H. Baer, Inventor of First System for Home Video Games, Is Dead at 92. (The New York Times) Mullis, Steve. Inventor Ralph Baer, The ‘Father Of Video Games,’ Dies At 92. (NPR)