Ralph H. Baer, the father of video games, has died at age 92 at his home in New Hampshire (USA). The German engineer was responsible for the first video game in history, known as Brown Box machine that would later be marketed as Magnavox Odyssey to the early 70
There was nothing to assume that Baer was going to devote to game industry. Jewish, fled with his family from Nazi Germany in 1938 and, after a brief stay in the Netherlands, made landfall in the United States, where he graduated as a radio technician at the National Radio Institute in Washington DC In 1957 he became part of Sanders Associates, a company dedicated to military electronics which handled basically to conceive antisubmarine and electronic anti-radar systems. Baer was then on the eve of what would be his great invention: a device that would revolutionize the entertainment of millions.
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On 10 August 1972 saw the light the Brown Box, the first prototype console that was sold two years later by Magnavox with Odyssey name. The console allowed the illusion of duck in the TV through points of light. But it was not until the second prototype that appeared first game itself: Chase Game, where a player must hunt the other, who died in a collision. However, it was with his legendary game of Ping Pong with which reach stardom.
In addition, Ralph Baer was a pioneer in the development of peripherals with its light gun for said console. As inventor also worked in the world of toys and who designed one of the most popular products of the twentieth century: the famous Simon, manufactured by Milton Bradley Company.
Throughout his life Baer registered 50 patents in the US and over one hundred worldwide. In 2006 he decided to donate their prototypes and documentation of cultural inventions Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
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