Article updated at 16:30
At the time of Assasin’s Creed Unity and its graphics to cut the breath, we tend to forget that the beginning of the video game were characterized by large black and white rectangles displayed on a TV screen. It is difficult to date precisely the beginning of the video game era as different innovations in this area have been created in the same decade, the end of the 60s.
And in the great family of the pioneers of the game video, Ralph Baer has a special place. We owe him the first system able to be playable from a television screen in 1968, which will create Odysey (first marketed console) and Atari Pong. The man died this weekend at the age of 92.
Born in Germany, he fled the Nazi dictatorship and emigrated to the United States. After the Second World War, he worked for the military in an electronics company responsible for developing anti-submarine systems and electronic anti-radar (Sanders and Associates).
He takes the opportunity to develop with some colleagues a basic game system connected to the TV on which branch two analog controllers. In fact, one of his superiors advance him 2,500 dollars to complete this project provided not abandon its work on military intelligent systems. “After 15 minutes flat, all present at the floor were in the room, waiting to play the game, “he recalled in 2010. After several prototypes (Brown Box), the console is finally sold to the general public by Magnavox in 1972 under the name Odyssey. This is for many year 0 of gaming.
130,000 copies sold the first year. Eventually, more than 340,000 Odyssey consoles will be sold until 1975 and replace the simplified models: Odyssey 100 and 200. Scores that at the time are very important. Enough to give ideas to some Atari launch its competing system: Pong. Magnavox then drag Atari to court for plagiarism and win but history will remember the second rather than the first …
After Odyssey Ralph Baer will work on various projects and develop eg light gun to shoot the screen (Nintendo offered a his first console, the NES) or the Simon electronic game that made working memory of hundreds of thousands of children on the planet … Again mythical inventions …
In 2006, he received the National Medal of Technology for his entire career. It must be said that more than 150 patents bear his name.
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