![]() Today, Baer is still drawing new designs and reviving old ones, having most recently recreated a putting peripheral originally designed for the Magnavox Odyssey. In 1978, for instance, Baer created the runaway hit Simon game for Milton Bradley, becoming part of pop culture in the process. įor some, garnering the title "Father of Video Games" would be enough, but Baer continued to develop electronic toys and games for years to come. The system was a huge success, selling more than 700,000 units for the company over the next three years, despite the widespread misconception that the console would only work on Magnavox television sets. The system also came with colorful plastic screen overlays that allowed players to play "color" video games, as well as poker chips and other board game accessories. Like Baer's Brown Box, the Odyssey came with two paddle controllers and an optional light-sensing rifle peripheral. In 1971, Magnavox became the first licensee of Baer's "TV Game" and developed the Odyssey home video console based on the technology. Wanting to make the television stand out against the competition, Baer proposed building an electronic game into the television set, but the concept proved too outlandish for his manager to approve.įortunately for the legions of gamers out there, the story doesn't stop there.Īfter putting the finishing touches on Brown Box, Baer began searching for a company willing to take his video game system to the public. In 1951, Baer found himself tasked with designing the "world's best television" for a television company named Loral. ![]() After serving as a small arms expert throughout World War II, Baer enrolled in the American Television Institute of Technology, graduating with a degree in television engineering. Today, Baer is widely referred to as the "Father of Video Games," quite a distinction for someone who began his career as a radio technician in the early '40s. Baer created the first prototype of what would later become the Magnavox Odyssey, a groundbreaking video game console that, along with countless imitators, would spark the video game craze of the '70s. Although these and other electronic games captured audiences and imaginations across the country, the first true video game - one that transformed electronic signals into pictures on a screen by way of something called a raster pattern - wouldn't come along until 1967.
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