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Creator of the First Console Dead at 92

Posted: December 8th, 2014, 12:39 am
by N64Dude1
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/business/ralph-h-baer-dies-inventor-of-odyssey-first-system-for-home-video-games.html?_r=2

Rest in peace Mr. Baer, and thank you for starting a wonderful medium.

Creator of the First Console Dead at 92

Posted: December 10th, 2014, 2:02 pm
by scotland171
Thanks for posting this. While gaming is mainstream now, its history is still for hobbyists I guess as he did not make a list of notable deaths in the major paper I follow. When we talk about the history of video games, he should be included.

Glad he lived to see how the idea of playing games on a home tv really took off. He may not have profited much, but that is unfortunately pretty common thing.

Creator of the First Console Dead at 92

Posted: December 10th, 2014, 3:34 pm
by Atarifever1
Just noticed this. Very sad. 10 times the engineer or inventor of Nolan Bushnell, but gets 1/100th as much credit.  Still, he had a lot of success, a lot of interesting ideas, and gave incredible interviews and talks. I think the videogame media should declare this some kind of annual gamer holiday. 

Creator of the First Console Dead at 92

Posted: December 11th, 2014, 3:36 pm
by Sut1
Well it was Bushnell who got video games into the mainstream with drive and business acumen so I don't begrudge him the reverence he gets, without Bushnell there would probably be no video game market.

I do agree though that Ralph should at least get equal billing as after all he did invent the medium but sometimes it takes someone else to deliver the idea.

It's not unlike Wozniak and Jobs, Wozniak created the product but Jobs knew how to sell the product.

One can't live without the other.

So thank you Ralph what a great idea you had and I'm glad you saw it explode into popular culture.

Creator of the First Console Dead at 92

Posted: December 11th, 2014, 4:49 pm
by gleebergloben1
Baer certainly was a visionary, and it's too bad he didn't more credit for ushering in home video games. And N64Dude link to the article about Baer was an interesting read. Baer was a workhorse, and patented everything he made.

And without Baer, the Telstar game system by Coleco may have never seen the light of day. The guy deserves a lot of props.

As for Baer and Bushnell, since Atarifever and I have debated this over the years, I'll just send the links:

http://dmrozek.websitetoolbox.com/post/baer-vs-bushnell-4871213?highlight=baer&pid=1268661878#post1268661878

http://dmrozek.websitetoolbox.com/post/nolan-bushnell-rips-modern-games-2240670?highlight=baer&pid=21326073#post21326073

jeez, that one thread is over seven years old. where does the time go?

Creator of the First Console Dead at 92

Posted: December 11th, 2014, 10:47 pm
by scotland171
[QUOTE=gleebergloben]As for Baer and Bushnell, since Atarifever and I have debated this over the years, I'll just send the links [/QUOTE]

Those were fun reads. I did not know Bushnell was so polarizing, ormthat Atarifever held him in suchnlow regard.

The tennis for two exhibit is a footnote at best. It was a demo, for a few days, on an oscilloscope. Im sure lots of lab rats found ways to play on a scope. That is about as influential as Eilmer of Malmesbury is to aviation.

Taking nothing from Baer, but had he given up, it would have mattered little except timing. He was not an artist where contributions are truly unique, but an engineer. The MOS 6502 of 1975 made computing affordable to the masses. Thats a key part of the story to having computing running programs, not dedicated consoles that were dying off in the late 70s (the first crash)

By the early 80s computers were playing games on tvs to cut monitor costs. You needed ROM carts for speed, piracy issues, and simplicity, and then cut out peripherals for cost and simplicity. Isnt that even the history of the famicom? Maybe consoles and video arcades would have been delayed a bit is all.

As for Atari Pong, I thought Bushnell had Alcorn try to reproduce Baers game as a learning exercise, but Alcorn made significant improvements. At that point Bushnell has no money but something cool, so he just played his hand, and ignored any legal issues and moved ahead. Not honest, no.

He also found a way to successfully market it through Sears sporting goods, played a role in Breakout (and those breakout consoles are fun), played a role in designing Stella, and got Atari through the Pong crash. He also had a role in creating the phony competitor Kee games and Tank..Others also stole from him, given all the pong clones and even Colecos version of home tank. Bushnell seems to have ignored both sides of patent law, even when it was him being wronged.

Of course, remove Bushnell and maybe pinball would lasted longer is all. Electro mechanicals and pinball were expensive, and once there were cheaper microprocessors, someone was going to put them in the arcades. Once there were video arcades, the home experience was going to happen, and it was going to happen on the simplest cheapest vehicle...a console.

Creator of the First Console Dead at 92

Posted: December 13th, 2014, 8:22 pm
by Vexer1
Never knew Bushnell made those remarks until now, I definitely think he's dead wrong about modern games being "trash"(hopefully he's changed his position since he made those asinine comments).

Creator of the First Console Dead at 92

Posted: December 14th, 2014, 5:26 pm
by gleebergloben1
[QUOTE=Vexer]Never knew Bushnell made those remarks until now, I definitely think he's dead wrong about modern games being "trash"(hopefully he's changed his position since he made those asinine comments).[/QUOTE]

I would hardly call what Bushnell said back in 2007 asinine. I may not agree with his point, but Bushnell has always been against violence in video games. He was proud of the fact that during his time at Atari, game makers could not make games where people were blown up. Bushnell said you could blow up a tank or a flying saucer, but no people (source, Steve Kent, "Ultimate History of Video Games).

Bushnell may see games like Grand Theft Auto way over the top violent, and not good form.

Just sayin'.


Creator of the First Console Dead at 92

Posted: December 14th, 2014, 7:05 pm
by scotland171
[QUOTE=gleebergloben] ... but Bushnell has always been against violence in video games. He was proud of the fact that during his time at Atari, game makers could not make games where people were blown up. Bushnell said you could blow up a tank or a flying saucer, but no people (source, Steve Kent, "Ultimate History of Video Games).  [/QUOTE]

Interesting.  On one hand, 2600 games like Outlaw are one person shooting the other person with a gun.  There was an earlier arcade light gun shooter to from Atari's arcade division before the 2600 games of the same name. 

However, the graphics of the day mean everything is just representative.  Shooting an opponent in Outlaw seems as mildly violent as removing an opponents chess piece.  

So we just don't know if he would have authorized more demonstrably violent games in a higher res world.  If he could make a Hi-Def version of Outlaw, call it Nolan Bushnell's Gunfight at the OK Corral, would he, and if so, how different would that be from today's FPSers?  


Creator of the First Console Dead at 92

Posted: December 14th, 2014, 7:59 pm
by Vexer1
Being against violence in video games is fine, but that doesn't automatically mean that all modern games are "trash" like he nonsensically claimed, I find it difficult to take him seriously when he paints all modern games with the same broad strokes, it just makes come across as rather naive and ignorant.