The gaming industry is in mourning this week following the news that one of its founding fathers, Ralph H Baer, has passed away at the age of 92.

Baer was a true pioneer of the medium, responsible for starting the home console movement with the invention of the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972 and creating the first ever light gun along with it.

The world's first home console has roots stretching back to 1951, when Baer first envisioned the concept of interactive television experiences, only to be told the idea was unlikely to take off.



It took another 15 years for the influential engineer to pursue the ambitious project again, but this time his efforts were more fruitful.

Teaming up with Bill Rush and Bill Harrison - two of his colleagues at military electronics firm Sanders Associates, where he plied his trade - Baer put together a prototype model of the first games console in history.

This prototype system was dubbed the 'Brown Box' due to the amount of adhesive tape holding it together, but its crude design didn't stop it from causing a stir among the major television manufacturers of the late 1960s.

Magnavox snapped up the license for the technology after General Electric and Motorola passed up the opportunity and the Odyssey was born in 1972, arriving in stores that very year.

The Magnavox Odyssey featured an unconventional design that resembled a model spaceship, and its controllers were equally oddball, clunky paddles with twisty dials on either side.

The system was incapable of sound output and it was barely able to produce graphics, its games consisting of two bars of light that players moved around the screen using the controller's dials.

Magnavox



Games came on removable printed circuit boards and relied on TV overlays to add visual detail and colour.

Depending on which overlay was plastered over the screen, the Odyssey could transform a television display into a tennis court, American football field, a haunted house, shooting gallery, a casino and more.

However, a lot of imagination was required and players had to manually do things that gamers now take for granted, like keep score and even set their own rules in some instances.

The console was battery-powered and came bundled with dice, scoresheets, poker chips and game boards, as these were required to supplement its software due to the lack of visual capabilities.

Baer is rumoured to have proposed the idea of developing 'active cartridges' with sound effects and more advanced graphical components, but was unable to get the project off the ground.

He did, however, develop the world's first light gun peripheral for release alongside the console.

Magnavox



The Odyssey's light gun was called Shooting Gallery and it sported a design that manufacturers could never get away with today, having more in common with an actual rifle than the kid-friendly accessories that followed it to market in the ensuing years.

Some might deem this design choice bad taste, while others would call it badass, but Shooting Gallery wasn't around for long enough to cause a stir either way.

Harmed by false reports that it was only compatible with Magnavox TVs, the accessory sold 20,000 or so units during its lifespan and received just four compatible games.

The console itself was more of a success, shifting 100,000 games within its first year and moving around 350,000 units by the time its successor, the cartridge-based Magnavox Odyssey 2, arrived in 1974.

Patent disputes are part and parcel of the gaming hardware industry, and it was no different at the dawn of the console age, as Magnavox came after Atari when it launched Pong in late 1972, pointing out the uncanny resemblance to the Odyssey's tennis game.

Magnavox later became entangled in similar lawsuits with Coleco, Mattel, Seeburg, and Activision, either wining or settling in every case.

Magnavox

Magnavox





Magnavox

Magnavox



In 1985, Nintendo disputed the claim that Baer created the world's first commercial video game, arguing that William Higinbotham's Tennis for Two title of 1958 pre-dated any of Magnavox's patents.

However, Nintendo was also sent packing as the presiding judge ruled that Tennis for Two did not qualify as a video game since it did not use video signals.

By modern standards, the Odyssey itself scarcely qualifies as a video gaming system, but the role this humble console played in shaping the industry as we know it cannot be overstated.

Anyone who has ever enjoyed a game of Mario Kart, completed a mission in Call of Duty or beaten a friend at FIFA owes Baer a debt of gratitude for birthing this wonderful medium.

The grandfather of video games may not be with us any longer, but his legacy will remain while Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft continue to harvest the fruits of his labour.

Do you have any fond memories of the Magnavox Odyssey? Post a comment below!

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io