Ralph Baer interviewed by High Times

[Mr.FoodMonster]

Dont kill the messanger

http://www.hightimes.com/mainsite/Style/co...p?bid=908&aid=2

[Great Hierophant]

One thing I don;t see much of in the article is Baer's history post-Odyssey. I mean, what contributions to the industry did he make after the Odyssey? Was he involved in the Odyssey^2 to a significant degree? I know his face recognition software was used in an arcade game, but what else has he done after the Odyssey?

 

Nolan Bushnell was not particularly original. Computer Space was a port of Space War, Pong a port of the Odyssey's Tennis game. As Baer says in the interview Bushnell likes to market himself and his products. Of course, perhaps this is why it was Bushnell who took Baer's Magnavox-centered Odyssey, slimmed it down and marketed it for all TVs as a pong game. The Odyssey sold in decent numbers, considering nothing like it had ever been seen before, but it was the Atari led pong units that took off and implanted the first seeds of video games into the buying public.

 

Baer and Magnavox did not really develop the Odyssey product beyond the original machine. After the original Odyssey, which could play a number of different games, it was replaced with a simpler single-chip product that could pretty much play pong variations. Atari, under Bushnell, was innovating. They were making games outside of Pong like Tank, Gran Trak, Breakout, Night Driver, Indy etc. Bushnell also oversaw the defining moment of video games, the development and release of the Atari VCS, which would create an industry. Of course, he was ousted from Atari soon after because of disagreements with Warner. Then his contributions to the industry also dwindled.

[Brad2600]

I enjoyed reading about Ralph's observations and I have a lot of respect for him and Nolan Bushnell and other early pioneers. They were part of a big thing back then. If it weren't for any of them, we might not have the video games we have today.

[bjk7382]

Great interview.