Ralph Baer—The So-Called “Father of Video Games”
In 1972, Atari released a relatively new product, a coin-operated game that had a screen and used video technology…they called it Pong and it took bowling alleys and bars by storm. Though it seems almost paleolithic compared to the technology available today, it was a huge technological breakthrough, based on the work and research of a German-born inventor named Ralph Baer.
Ralph Henry Baer, born Rudolf Heinrich Baer in 1922 in Pirmasens, Germany, came to the United States in 1938, initially working in a factory before quitting to pursue a degree in electronics. After getting licensed as a radio service technician in the early 1940s, he was drafted and worked in American military intelligence in London until the end of the war. Baer sensed the future importance of television and got a degree in television engineering after his discharge from the military. Over the next 10 years, he worked with various companies, all of which were involved in radio or television equipment development.
Baer Develops the First Home Game Controller
In 1956, Baer briefly ran his own company before entering into business with Sanders Associates, a defense contractor in Nashua, New Hampshire. The company employed approximately 500 engineers, who were all working to integrate electronics into military devices or components.
Baer first recognized the potential for using technology to play games on a television screen in 1951, but found that the cost of a television at that time did not make the idea commercially viable. Fifteen years later, while working at Sanders, he did additional research into the concept of video games, submitting a proposal that garnered him two full-time engineers and $2,500 to develop a device that would allow the user to play games on a television screen. Together, they built what became known as the “brown box,” because of the brown tape they covered the device with to make it look like it was constructed of wood. Baer knew he had a revolutionary idea when he submitted the brown box for a patent and learned from one of the examiners that, within an hour of receiving a prototype of the device, “every examiner on the floor wanted to play the game.”
After securing a patent, Baer initially approached a number of the major television manufacturers for backing, by found little interest. Finally, in 1971, when Nutting Associates released Computer Space (the first commercially viable video arcade game), Magnavox saw the potential and licensed it, introducing it to the market as the “Magnavox Odyssey.” The Odyssey featured 12 games, including table tennis, dice, cards and football.
In the wake of the success of Atari’s Pong, a public dispute arose as to whether Baer was truly the father of the video game or that title should go to Nolan Bushnell, co-founder of Atari. Within the industry, Baer is still commonly recognized for inventing the home video game console, with Bushnell getting credit for the arcade machine.
After the success of Magnavox Odyssey, Baer continued to develop electronic games, most notably
- Simon—Based on the popular “Simon says” game, this video version had four lights and four distinct tones and required players to play back long, random patterns, with the pace of play increasing as players get deeper into the game
- Super Simon—This upgrade to Simon had eight colored panels and five different game modes, with four different skill levels
- Maniac—Also a pattern-matching game, this was deemed extremely difficult to master and was not as successful
Over the course of his life, Baer successfully obtained more than 150 patents and was awarded the National Medal of Technology. His prototypes and original home workshop are now a part of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
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