Ralph Baer stepped away from video game development more than 35 years ago, but he will always be known “The Father of Video Games” for his contributions to the earliest game consoles. Sadly, Baer passed away over the weekend at the age of 92.
Baer began tinkering with the possibility of playing games on a television set in the late 1960s while employed by Sanders Associates. By 1969 he completed work on a prototype that was nicknamed the “Brown Box” due to the brown tape added to the case to simulate a wood grain finish. In 1972, the “Brown Box” was released as the Magnavox Odyssey, the first game console designed for consumers. Baer designs served as the inspiration for Nolan Bushnell’s work with the Atari 2600 and Baer himself would help Magnavox produce the Odyssey 2 in 1978.
Baer has been honored many times for his work with video games. In 2006, President George W. Bush awarded him with the National Medal of Technology for his contributions to the “groundbreaking and pioneering creation, development, and commercialization of interactive video games.” And in 2008, the Game Developers Conference awarded him a long overdue Game Developers Choice Pioneer Award.
PBS profiled Baer as part of their Inventors digital series last year, which you can view above.
[Source: Gamasutra]
