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Ralph H. Baer

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Ralph H. Baer
Baer (left) receives the National Medal of Technology from President George W. Bush (right)
Born(1922-03-08)March 8, 1922
Rodalben, Palatinate, Germany
DiedDecember 6, 2014(2014-12-06) (aged 92)
OccupationInventor
SpouseDena Whinston (1952–2006)
ChildrenJames, Mark, Nancy
Parent(s)James L. Baer, Lucy K. Linard
WebsiteOfficial Website

Ralph H. Baer (March 8, 1922 – December 6, 2014) was an American video game pioneer, inventor, engineer, and was known as "The Father of Video Games",[1] and was noted for his many contributions to games and the video game industry. In 2006, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology for inventing the home console for video games and spawning the video game industry.

Life

When Baer was eleven years old, he was expelled from school in Germany because of his Jewish ancestry and had to go to an all-Jewish school. His father worked in a shoe factory in Pirmasens at the time. Two months before Kristallnacht, he and his family escaped from Germany.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] In America, he was self-taught and worked in a factory for a weekly wage of twelve dollars. He graduated from the National Radio Institute as a radio service technician in 1940. In 1943 he was drafted to fight in World War II, assigned to military intelligence at the US Army headquarters in London.[11]

Baer graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Television Engineering (unique at the time) from the American Television Institute of Technology [12][13] in Chicago in 1949.

In 1949, Baer went to work as chief engineer for a small electro medical equipment firm, Wappler, Inc where he designed and built surgical cutting machines, epilators, and low frequency pulse generating muscle-toning equipment. In 1951, Baer went to work as a senior engineer for Loral Electronics in the Bronx, New York, where he designed power line carrier signaling equipment for IBM. From 1952 to 1956, he worked at Transitron, Inc., in New York City as a chief engineer and later as vice president. He started his own company before joining defense contractor Sanders Associates in 1956, where he stayed until retiring in 1987.[14]

Baer was best known for leading the development of the Brown Box and Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console and his pioneering patented work in establishing video games.[15] He later partnered with Bob Pelovitz of Acsiom, LLC, and they have been inventing and marketing toy and game ideas since 1983.[16] In 2006, Baer donated all his hardware prototypes and documents to the Smithsonian.[17]

Baer was a Life Senior Member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.[18].

Baer died on December 6, 2014, according to friends close to him.[19]

Inventions

Baer developed the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home gaming console.

Baer is considered to be the inventor of video games; in 1966 Baer, an employee of the defense-electronics company Sanders Associates in Nashua, New Hampshire (now part of BAE Systems), started to explore the possibility of playing games on television screens, and along with Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch, developed the "Brown Box" console video game system and several other prototypes.[20] In 1971, it was licensed to Magnavox, and after being renamed Magnavox Odyssey, the console was released to the public in 1972.[20] For a time it was Sanders' most profitable line, though many in the company looked down on game development.

Baer is credited for creating the first light gun and game for home television use, sold grouped with a game expansion pack for the Odyssey, and collectively known as the Shooting Gallery. The light gun itself was the first peripheral for a video game console.[21]

The success of the Odyssey led to competition form other companies, in particular Atari, led by Nolan Bushnell at the time. Bushnell saw Baer's successful devices and was able to create the first arcade machine in 1973 based on Baer's Table Tennis idea, resulting in Pong. Sanders and Magnavox successfully sued Atari for patent infringement over Baer's original ideas, but Bushnell would continue to push to lead Atari to become a leader in both home and arcade video games. This led to a lenghthy conflict between Baer and Bushnell over who was the true "father of video games"; Baer was willing to concede this to Bushnell, though noted that Bushnell "has been telling the same nonsensical stories for 40 years".[11] Baer would help both Magnavox and later Coleco to develop competitive units to Atari's products including the Odyssey 100 and the Odyssey 2.[11]

During 1978–79 he with others created three popular electronic games.[22] Baer, along with Howard J. Morrison, developed Simon (1978) and its sequel Super Simon (1979) for Milton Bradley, electronic pattern-matching games that was immensely popular through the late 1990s.[23] Baer also developed a similar pattern-matching game "Maniac" for the Ideal Toy Company (1979) on his own, though the game was not as popular as Simon; Baer considered that Maniac was "really hard to play" and thus not as popular as his earlier game.[24]

By the time of his death, Baer had over 150 patents in his name.[25]

Awards

In addition to be considered the "father of video games", Baer has been recognized as a pioneer in the field. His accolades include the G-Phoria Legend Award (2005),[26] the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award (2008),[27] the Game Developers Conference Developers Choice "Pioneer" award (2008),[1] and the IEEE Edison Medal(2014).[28]

On February 13, 2006, Baer was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President George W. Bush in honor of his "groundbreaking and pioneering creation, development and commercialization of interactive video games".[29] On April 1, 2010, Baer was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the United States Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C.[30]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Hatfield, Daemon (December 20, 2007). "GDC 2008: Ralph Baer Receiving Pioneer Award – The "father of videogames" is getting props". Retrieved August 7, 2009. Cite error: The named reference "father" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  2. ^ http://gizmodo.com/5797942/the-father-of-video-games-fled-the-nazis-then-fought-them
  3. ^ http://kotaku.com/5797942/the-father-of-video-games-fled-the-nazis-then-fought-them
  4. ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-karras/ralph-baer-video-games_b_1988048.html
  5. ^ http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1690/the_right_to_baer_games__an_.php
  6. ^ http://www.g4tv.com/icons/episodes/4174/Ralph_Baer.html
  7. ^ Dillon, Roberto (2011). The Golden Age of Video Games: The Birth of a Multi-billion Dollar Industry. Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-4398-7323-6.
  8. ^ Wolf, Mark J.P. (2001). The Medium of the Video Game. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-79148-8.
  9. ^ Kent, Steven (2001). Ultimate History of Video Games. Random House. ISBN 978-0761536437.
  10. ^ http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=CKNVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mtkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6643,1187207&dq=ralph-baer+jewish&hl=en
  11. ^ a b c Burrowes, Declan (July 13, 2013). "Baer's Odyssey: Meet the serial inventor who built the world's first game console". Ars Technica. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  12. ^ Cf. Wolverton, Mark, "The Father of Video Games", American Heritage Invention and Technology magazine, Fall 2009 issue.
  13. ^ American Television Institute – article from the Early Television Museum.
  14. ^ Smithsonian Institution, "Administrative/biographical history", Ralph H. Baer Papers, The Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation
  15. ^ Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Witheford, Greig De Peuter (2003). Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing. McGill–Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-2591-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  16. ^ Sheffield, Brandon (June 23, 2008). "Paris GDC: Baer On The Industry's Birth, Preserving History". Gamasutra. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  17. ^ [1] – Ralph Baer related materials housed at the Smithsonian Lemelson Center
  18. ^ "NEWSLETTER: A House Journal of IEEE Kerala Section". April–June 2006. Retrieved April 17, 2007.
  19. ^ Graft, Kris (December 7, 2014). "Ralph Baer, 'father of video games,' passes away". Gamasutra. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  20. ^ a b "The Father of the Video Game: The Ralph Baer Prototypes and Electronic Games". Smithsonian Institute. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  21. ^ Horiuchi, Vince (November 7, 2011). "Ralph Baer, the Father of Video Games, reflects on his career". Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  22. ^ "Ralph Baer game designs". Retrieved October 12, 2012.
  23. ^ Tim Walsh (2005). Timeless Toys: Classic Toys and the Playmakers Who Created Them. Andrews McMeel Publishing. ISBN 0-7407-5571-4.
  24. ^ "Maniac Electronic Game, 1979". Smithsonian Institute. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  25. ^ Plunkett, Luke (December 7, 2014). "The Father Of Video Games, Ralph Baer, Has Passed Away". Kotaku. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  26. ^ "Wrap-Up: G4's G-Phoria Video Game Awards". Gamasutra. July 28, 2005. Retrieved April 18, 2007.
  27. ^ "IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award Recipients". IEEE. Retrieved May 2, 2008.
  28. ^ "Recipients of the 2014 Medals and Awards". IEEE. February 14, 2014. Retrieved April 24, 2014.
  29. ^ President George W. Bush Presents....
  30. ^ http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/697050-196/n.h.-brain-behind-gps-in-hall-of.html

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