KevinNYC
12-08-2014, 04:15 AM
http://thedoteaters.com/tde/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/odyssey_set_feat.jpg
http://www.cnet.com/news/ralph-baer-father-of-home-video-game-console-dies-at-92/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/business/ralph-h-baer-dies-inventor-of-odyssey-first-system-for-home-video-games.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0
In March 1971, Mr. Baer and his employer, Sanders Associates in Nashua, N.H., filed for the first video game patent, which was granted in April 1973 as Patent No. 3,728,480. It made an extraordinarily large claim to a legal monopoly for any product that included a domestic television with circuits capable of producing and controlling dots on a screen.
Sanders Associates licensed its system to Magnavox, which began selling it as Odyssey in the summer of 1972 as the first home video game console. It sold 130,000 units the first year.
Odyssey consisted of a master control unit containing all the electronic gear, two player control units that directed players on the TV screen, and a set of electronic program cards, each of which supported a different game. Plastic overlays that clung to the screen to supply color were included. To supplement the electronic action, a deck of playing cards, poker chips and a pair of dice were included.
But the guts of the device were what mattered: 40 transistors and 40 diodes. That hardware ran everything. Odyssey, often called the first home computing device, had no software.
Several months after Odyssey hit the market, Atari came out with the first arcade video game, Pong. Though Pong became better known than Odyssey and was in some ways more agile, Sanders and Magnavox immediately saw it as an infringement on their patent.
They sued Atari in 1974 for usurping their rights. Atari settled with them by paying $700,000 to become Odyssey’s second licensee. Over the next 20 years, Magnavox went on to sue dozens more companies, winning more than $100 million. Mr. Baer often testified.
http://www.cnet.com/news/ralph-baer-father-of-home-video-game-console-dies-at-92/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/business/ralph-h-baer-dies-inventor-of-odyssey-first-system-for-home-video-games.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0
In March 1971, Mr. Baer and his employer, Sanders Associates in Nashua, N.H., filed for the first video game patent, which was granted in April 1973 as Patent No. 3,728,480. It made an extraordinarily large claim to a legal monopoly for any product that included a domestic television with circuits capable of producing and controlling dots on a screen.
Sanders Associates licensed its system to Magnavox, which began selling it as Odyssey in the summer of 1972 as the first home video game console. It sold 130,000 units the first year.
Odyssey consisted of a master control unit containing all the electronic gear, two player control units that directed players on the TV screen, and a set of electronic program cards, each of which supported a different game. Plastic overlays that clung to the screen to supply color were included. To supplement the electronic action, a deck of playing cards, poker chips and a pair of dice were included.
But the guts of the device were what mattered: 40 transistors and 40 diodes. That hardware ran everything. Odyssey, often called the first home computing device, had no software.
Several months after Odyssey hit the market, Atari came out with the first arcade video game, Pong. Though Pong became better known than Odyssey and was in some ways more agile, Sanders and Magnavox immediately saw it as an infringement on their patent.
They sued Atari in 1974 for usurping their rights. Atari settled with them by paying $700,000 to become Odyssey’s second licensee. Over the next 20 years, Magnavox went on to sue dozens more companies, winning more than $100 million. Mr. Baer often testified.