This year , the video game turns 40 . allow ’s call it an occasion to spend a few more hours in front of our TVs , the stead where it all started .
In 1951 , some 12 million television Seth were in existence and Ralph Baer , a television engineer at Loral Electronics , wondered what adulterous tricks TV sets could do . The fellowship was push television tech forward , and Baer mentioned to his chief that would n’t it be fun to incorporate an interactive plot ingredient into the experience ? Dude was onto something cock-a-hoop , but his superiors were n’t quick for the innovation . It would take more than two decades and a different company for the suggestion to get anywhere .
colour television regenerate Baer ’s interest in the possibility of take on game on the political machine . So in 1966 , now at Saunders Associates , he sketched out how a game of pursual might work . The result is a four - page document Baer call up his television game Eureka import .
Using a emptiness tube form and a Heathkit CG-62 TV Alignment Generator , Baer cobbled together something that could move short letter and square across the screen door . It was a working prototype , and finally his political boss were impressed . Baer acquire the green light plus some money to whip his innovation into commercial shape .
A month and a squad of research worker later , the group had developed a “ light gun ” that could direct public square on the television . ( Early Duck Hunt , anyone ? ) Baer called this 2nd endeavour at a console the “ Pump Unit ” for a lever on the right side of the table . It had individual circle for timing , as well as spot and color propagation . As the model evolved , so did the games : they branch out from chase and shot games to ping niff and handball .
Baer create seven consoles before land on the switch - programmable interpretation he boringly call in the “ Brown Box . ” ( He probably would have scream it something like HolyshitamazingsauceGameMachine if he had known it would complain off the multi - billion dollar game industriousness ) After parading it around to a twosome of fellowship , Baer licensed the Brown Box to Magnavox in July 1971 . During the year - prospicient secret plan testing , Magnavox referred to the building block as the “ Skill - o - Vision , ” before landing on “ Odyssey ” when it went to mart in 1972 . The system did well , selling 100,000 console in its first yr , but it was n’t quite a runaway success . The misconception that the Odyssey would only work on a Magnavox television may have slowed sales , but another participant in the video biz , um , secret plan also played a role .
Baer calls himself the father of home video games , but it was the father of arcade games who in reality did the most to found the video game industry . After seeing Baer ’s ping pong plot during an Odyssey demo in May of 1972 , Nolan Bushnell , father of Atari , come out with Pong after that twelvemonth . The secret plan first debuted as a coin - go complimentary - standing simple machine before making the transition to TV sets . Similarities certainly live between the two , but Bushnell ’s version was pared down with wide-eyed control and a clod that did n’t fly off the screen .
Pong was a hit , give Odyssey a little sales - bump on its coattails . More game like it came out , and while it tax revenue was n’t as boastful , Magnavox won in the form of multiple patent of invention infringement lawsuits . ( In fact , Atari licensed the technology from Magnavox in 1976 after losing one such fight in royal court . )
After that , Atari carry the torch . The company went on to sell 30 million console over the infinite of three decades . Programmable read-only memory cartridges for software store in their 1976 Atari 2600 VCS system fork game from console table designing for the first time , and a company form by some ex - Atari designers called Activision ( maybe you ’ve heard of it ) became the first troupe to focus exclusively on making games in 1979 .
Forty years after Baer ’s first design and eight generations of consoles later on , the play industry is looking rather spry . That ’s what the folks at all thosegamer blogswould have you believe , anyway .
Images : Shutterstock / Berci , Smithsonian
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