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Ralph Baer - The Father of Videogames?
mcgeek writes "Lauren Gonzalez interviews Ralph Baer, co-creator of Odyssey over at the High Times website. Is he the 'father of videogames?' An interesting detailed interview, with comments on graphics versus game play, patents, Odyssey, the arcade business mafia, Ping-Pong, and the games of today." Mr. Baer seems to be all over the place lately.
I'm gonna go with Shigeru Miyamoto for having created Zelda, Mario, and Donkey Kong. Everything lept forward from there, the man was an innovator and an unparalleled genius when it came to designing simplistic, stripped-down games. I, easily and without question, classify him at the father of modern gaming.
schild
editor, f13.net
Same old interview as I read a few months ago. Yes, Baer can be considered the father of video games, *IF* you want to exclude Higgenbottom's contributions.
Regardless the man has officially reached the "crotchety" phase of his life. He comes off as rather bitter in this interview and previous ones.
Video games do not have a father. They can have a "father", in which case it means whatever you want it to mean. It could be RB, it could be the person who first played pong-on-a-scope, or it could be some obscure SF writer who did a short story about them in the thirties.
Asking the question in the title is completely meaningless.
Mod this as a troll if you like, but I have to say it again: Question marks do not belong in article titles. If it's ask slashdot, fine, but otherwise...
Let's try the slashdot treatment on the front page of CNN.com.
Bidding farewell to Reagan?
McDonald's gets low-carb Coke?
Kimmel show pulled for comments?
Florida drivers sue over records?
See what I mean? It just doesn't work.
Here, I'm posting with no karma bonus, so only two people have to mod me down to get to -1.
Father of gaming (producer/creator) - Shigeru Miyamoto.
Father of the gaming business - Hiroshi Yamauchi
Is that a new game site?
:)
DRUGS?! OH, CRAP! My company's evil-site-blocker has reported me to our IT security team! Now I'm in trouble!
Good thing I'm in charge of IT security.
Is it 4:20 yet? I'm jonesing for a binger.
The latest Slashdot meme.
While Miyamoto has created many great games, Baer is more fitting as the father of video games, as he had a hand in their actual, initial creation. While Miyamoto has made great contributions to video games, Baer was instrumental in creating the first 'interactive television game' back in the 60s. Without the first 'Pong', you might not have had your Donkey Kong.
...please post the text of the interview. For some reason our filtering software doesn't understand my business case for reading High Times.
128K, maybe. There's no way an Odyssey had 128 megs, is there?
GTRacer
- I have one (well, an O2) I can scuttle!
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
That was a much more interesting and enterataining interview than the GamerDad one from a couple months ago.
It depends on how we want to define videogame, because if any old thing on a screen will do, then the guys who made that game with the oscilliscope "invented" videogames.
If we want to make it digital, then that rules out Baer because as I understand it, the Odyssey was analog, not digital, so he isn't on those grounds either. The father of home videogames? Maybe. But again, if I am remembering correctly and the Odyssey was analog, then I think there is a difference there.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/sp acewar/readme.html
and:
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa090198 .htm
(with screenshot!)
comment from the time period:
http://www.wheels.org/spacewar/decuscope.html
I give him a ton of credit, but to say he's the father of video game is like saying Thomas Edison is the father of video game cause he invented the light bulb.
The father of video games has to be Nolan Bushnell. The founder of Atari. Atari was the first company to release a commercial video game, Computer Space (1972)! Then they released the video game that launched the video game industry, Pong.
Only Steve Russell, the creator of Space War in 1961, could be argued as the only other father of video games, IMO.
But I think Bushnell is more deserving of the title. Because he was the driving force behind making video games the phenomenon they are today.
Chew: You Nexus, huh? I design your eyes.
Roy: Chew, if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes.
HIGH TIMES: SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2004
"Video game pioneer Ralph H. Baer in his electronic dream factory."
RALPH BAER INTERVIEW:
The Father of Videogames
HT Entertainment Exclusive]
Interview by Lauren Gonzalez
In 1951, Ralph Baer, an engineer for the military electronics company Loral, came up with the idea for interactive TV-based entertainment, but was under directive to focus on other things, like computer components for Navy RADAR systems and other military-use technologies. Baer laughs when he says he "didn't use the word 'interactive' because back then," because no one would have understood what he meant. His idea surfaced again in the mid-sixties, while he was a division manager at Sanders Associates. "The math was simple," Baer says. "Forty million TV sets in the U.S. Multiply that by one percent. If I could plug something into 400,000 sets, hell, that's a business."
Baer, Sanders and Magnavox produced the first home console system in 1972, the Odyssey, the marketing name for Baer's "Brown Box," which has been at the Smithsonian Museum for years. While most people refer to Baer as the "Father of Video Games," you don't have to search too long to find someone who will argue that Nolan Bushnell, Atari's founder, started the whole shebang.
Joe Santulli, the editor of Digital Press, finds the question of who fathered the video game a tough one. "I look at Ralph Baer as the father of the video game--the home game system, the video game that you play on your TV set," he explains. "I look at Bushnell as the father of the video game industry. He really kind of got everything going in the arcades and got a business started out of it first." Baer, who takes us back to the roots and forward to the future here, tells his side of the story in a book Rolenta Press will publish in Summer 2004.
High Times: How do you like the title, "Father of Video Games?"
Ralph Baer: Well, if somebody wants to give me credit for that, I'll take it.
HT: A lot of people give you credit for that.
RB: I hope so, but you know about that long battle with you-know-who from California. He had a knack for getting his face on the cameras back in the '70s.
HT: Nolan Bushnell.
RB: Yeah. He can't remember from one year to another what he says, but I like the guy; he's a nice guy. But he's also a promoter.
HT:: Anyone who understands the developer and publisher dynamic knows that you were the creator of the technology that made the industry, and he was the one who brought the industry to the public.
RB: I still wonder how much of what he did back in '68 and '69 actually made it. When he finished building Computer Space in his daughter's bedroom, he handed the schematic to Alan Alcorn [Atari programmer] and told him to build a Ping Pong game. Alan Alcorn took one look at his schematics and said, 'I think this is crap' and threw them away.
HT: What was Bushnell doing then?
RB: I don't know what the heck he was doing, and he would never let on. I don't know how good an engineer he was. Let's say he was a terrific engineer. So what? He's one amongst many - myself included. It's what you do with it that counts.
HT: Let's talk about you. You came up with the idea of interactive TV entertainment--playing games on the TV set. How did that start?
RB: I had that idea way back when, when I built the [complete black and white] TV set receiver in 1951. I didn't use the word "interactive" because back then; nobody used that word [laughs]. It was just a vacuum tube then. But I wanted to do something with a TV set other than turn it on and off. I think it was by the fact that we used test equipment and connected two television sets and put a pad on it so you could straighten out the
Without the first 'Pong', you might not have had your Donkey Kong.
Thats like saying without wright brother we wouldn't have aeroplanes. More then likely we would. They might look idfferent btu they'd still fly. He invented pong. It took off. I'm sure someone else would have inveted other games eventually as computers progressed. He was just first.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
"Now I can do what I want. I can walk into meetings and tell them they're full of crap, tell them the bullshit they're putting on the board is just that. How do you pay for that? What is that worth?" - Ralph Baer
Got that from a game magazine ages ago. Can't remember which one, but it's a great quote IMNSHO.
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
Thats like saying without wright brother we wouldn't have aeroplanes
Thats fine, but the Wright Brothers are the 'Fathers of Fight'? Aren't they?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Fathers of Flight, I meant... sorry, haven't had my cocoa yet.
...
The point being, it was an appropriate analogy to make.
Anyway, all I know is that Pong still rocks it. You can still play Pong with your girlfriend. And thats saying something
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
... is it just me, or does it feel like maybe that entire High Times interview was recorded in an afternoon at Dampkring?
...
Baer seems like a really grumpy old grandfather type, taking liberties with his age and hipness, and Gonzalez seems like a total stoner having a chat with his favourite god of all times, shooting shit about Simon, both of them with blunts of their own choosing
(I printed to PDF, no way I'm not reading this one again some day...)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Thats fine, but the Wright Brothers are the 'Fathers of Fight'? Aren't they?
They invented a powered glider that bears little to no resemblance structurally to modern airplanes or even airplanes of the first world war. They were merely first and even this is arguable. Dozens of other people were working on anogous systems and many of them contributed to the creation of the airplane. Same with Pong. If not Richard Baer then someone else would have. It's completely anologous. His machine was a one off analog device that bares no resemblance to future generations just like the wright brothers. It's success may have inspired other people to try but it's highly highly likly that Video games woudl have been invented eventually by someone else if he hadn't.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Miyamoto could be considered the first video game auteur, but he's definitely not the "father" of videogames. I don't even think Miyamoto knows how to code: he's an artist, but the ground was laid for him earlier. Baer was early enough that he had to do everything, soup to nuts.
A kind of a hazy recollection from a local Nintendo mag: I seem to remember some comment from around the release of Super Mario Bros 3 (regarding SMB1, I think?) regarding how the NES assembly code kept spinning in his head all the time through the development. Of course, I can't remember the source, the game, and I'm not even half sure of the developer in question. =) But yes, still, Miyamoto is more of a design god.