|
|
Post by Nester the Lark on Dec 7, 2014 16:07:18 GMT -5
According to Chris Kohler, Ralph Baer, inventor of video games, passed away last night at the age of 92. He's considered to be the first person to come up with the idea of playing games on a television set. He created the very first video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, the first lightgun, a ping-pong game that would be the basis for Atari's Pong, and also the electronic game Simon. Rest in peace, Mr. Baer, and thanks for creating my favorite hobby. 
|
|
|
|
Post by TV Eye on Dec 7, 2014 16:23:38 GMT -5
Sounds like he lived a full life. I'd be interested to know how he felt about the legacy he left behind. In his age, video games were only played by the people who knew how to program and distribute them. Thanks to him, video games have become mainstream, though not without the occasional controversy (I love how people gave Jack Thompson shit for being ignorant about video games, but Sarkeesian doesn't face the same global scrutiny).
Anyways, I'm sure he'd be proud to have started something so influential.
|
|
|
|
Post by Nester the Lark on Dec 7, 2014 16:34:59 GMT -5
It took him a long time to get recognition for creating video games. He had a legendary rivalry with Atari's Nolan Bushnell who basically stole a lot of his ideas and got the credit for them. But still, Baer was an engineer, Bushnell was an entrepreneur and businessman. They both played important roles in the rise of the video game industry.
In the past decade, Baer has received a lot of recognition, including getting the Nation Medal of Technology from President George W. Bush in 2006 and being inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame in 2010.
At the same time, there are other people credited with creating video games before him, such as Steve Russell, who created Spacewar in 1962 for a mainframe computer. But Baer was a television engineer, and he was the first to make games that anyone could play on their home TV sets.
|
|
|
|
Post by nocturnal YL on Dec 7, 2014 17:58:12 GMT -5
|
|
