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Father of Pong Honored At White House
Gamasutra reports that Ralph Baer, the man whose work inspired the game Pong, will be honored in a White House ceremony on February 14th. He is to receive the 2004 National Medal of Technology. From the article: "The award, which is America's highest honor for science and technology, goes to those who 'have helped commercialize new technologies, create jobs, improve American productivity, and stimulate the Nation's economic growth and development', and was established by Congress in 1980."
...improve American productivity...
Sounds like they may have been playing a little too much pong.
http://bash.org/?9322
. . | . . .
<tag> Ouroboros: lets play Pong
<Ouroboros> Ok.
<tag> |
<Ouroboros>
<tag> |
<Ouroboros> . |
<tag> |
<Ouroboros> |
<Ouroboros> Whoops
Is that a typo or is the government really that slow now?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Pong is not exactly a great technological accomplishment. Actually something of an accident. If I remember the story correctly, Atari was working on implementation of spacewar that could run on reasonably priced hardware. They built Pong just to test a particular circuit. Then they discovered how addictive it was....
Shameless self promotion: Download a Pong clone today!
Among all his battles in Texas and Alabama, his
battles with the Pong were his most fearsome.
He was missing in action in Alabama shortly after the
Battle of the Pong began...and was discharged a year later
after the charge of the pong brigade.
"Paddle to the left, Paddle to the right, bright ball streaking across the black
field of glory"
Bushie is just amused by the semblance to "bong"...
That's our Pres!
-- AC
The circles are the radius on which the paddles could swing around."
God spoke to me.
Because it was the only game that A) He could figure out how to play & B) Didn't give him nightmares
See http://www.g4tv.com/icons/episodes/4174/Ralph_Baer .html.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
i'm not completely sure this invention is deserving of a 'national medal of technology,' but i know one thing - the first time i played pong is a very fond memory i'll never forget. in the 70's, my dad worked part-time in a bowling alley. i was about 10, and sometimes helped him out in exchange for quarters to play pinball.
one night the vending company delivered the game 'pong,' and my dad and i were the 1st ones to try it out. even though it seems like a simple game compared to today's standards, i distinctly remember us standing there for what seemed like hours while we feverishly battled back and forth, back and forth, until one of us scored, laughing heartily the whole time. it may sound cheesy, but we both remember that moment vividly, and joke about it often. it was worth every bit of the $0.25 we spent.
When you recognize love in another and realize how precious it is, everything else seems so insignificant.
http://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/videogame.html Pretty interesting bit of history. In fact it's really interesting as to how close the United States actually came close to owning the patent on video games.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
So not only did he create Pong, but many other groundbreaking things that helped make what the game industry is today.
Ralph Baer is to the game industry as what Nikola Tesla is to electromagnetics/electricity/electronics. They are the people that created what we use everyday, and no one hardly knows or cares . Sad, very sad.
I create pongs on a daily basis. Ain't nobody honouring me... :(
..... George Walker (Jonny Walker) Bush went AWOL from the Texas Air Guard
in the '71 - '73 period. He was in an arcade in Mobile, Alabama, slamm'in
back Jack Daniels and pump'n Pong like there was no tomorrow.
Toodles!
Ralph Baer, father of the Magnavox Odyssey home videogame system, is not exactly the "father of Pong." It is true that the Odyssey, which predates Nolan Bushnell's Pong, featured a "Tennis" game whose gameplay is pretty close to indistinguishable from Pong's, and that there is an historical debate over whether or not Bushnell saw the game before he built Pong. But then again, neither Pong nor Baer's Tennis game are all that different from Willy Higginbotham's 1958 "Tennis for Two."
It would be more accurate to call Baer the "father of the videogame" than the "father of Pong," since he unquestionably did create the first multi-game home videogame system.
They weren't all run by drug dealers, my childhood stomping ground was actually a front for illegal gambling.
What many folks don't know is that Baer was working on a military project when he invented Pong. My Dad was working at Sanders (now part of Lock..., er BAE) and got to see the prototype before it became the game. At the time, my Dad didn't know what he was looking at. Later though, he bought us an Odyssey.
For me, it is ironic that I was born the same year. Now, I am a 39 year old video game junkie. Coincidence? I don't think so.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
I'm glad that he got the recogition while he is still alive.