Today in Manchester they unveiled a statue of home video game pioneer Ralph Baer, about whom I have written many times. It shows him sitting on a bench playing with the “brown box” that was the first iteration of what eventually became Maganvox Odyssey, the first play-games-on-your-TV system.
It’s OK, I guess – you can see a picture of it below, with one of his sons and a couple of his grandkids alongside – but what was cleverer was the way it was hidden.
As shown in the photo above this article, they encased it in a big box pained to look like an old-fashioned console TV set playing TV Tennis, the first game he developed. (No, it’s not Pong – that was the variant from Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and one of Ralph’s arch enemies.) Very clever!
The statue of Ralph Baer is admired by Jim, one of Baer’s sons, and two of Baer’s grandchildren during Friday’s unveiling in Arms Park in Manchester.
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Also very much a geek thing is that NH has a spot at the Smithsonian – American Museum of American History!
Our NH teachers on all those trips to DC need to insist that a visit be made to Ralph’s workshop to “SEE” and understand the story behind the start of Video games.
Ralph was a WWII Army veteran.
Not sure creating a gaming console was so noble or advanced the human race. Now we have generations of over weight, under achievers who sit around for hours playing war games and killing people. Thanks for that Mr. Baer!