Spend an evening with “Father of Video Games,” Ralph H. Baer, April 12, at Daniel Webster College

 

Nashua — When the moniker “Father of Video Games” is conferred upon you, much is expected in ways of talent, experience, perspective, and entrepreneurship.

And so it goes with Ralph Baer, 85, whose list of patents, ideas, inventions and products touch toddlers playing with Tonka Toys’ Talkin’ Tools, to teens that can’t get enough of the electronic pattern-matching game Simon, to adults who purchase the recordable, talking picture frame “Time Frame,” and remember when they played the first home video game, Odyssey, in 1972.

Daniel Webster College is proud to bring Ralph Baer to the Collings Auditorium at its Nashua campus on Thursday, April 12, at 7:30 pm as part of its MBA Lecture Series. Doors open at 7:00 pm and seats are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. For information call 603-577-6625.

A 2006 recipient of the National Medal of Technology, it was Baer who invented the home console for video games which in turn launched a multi-billion dollar industry. In 2005 he received a “Legend Award” at G4’s video game award show for his work in the development of video games. (G4, for those not part of the video game lifestyle, is an American cable and satellite television show launched in 2002 that focuses on video games; in fact, an episode of G4’s TV series Icons is dedicated to Baer.)                               

Baer is perhaps best known for that home console, which started out with the inauspicious name of “The Brown Box” and was later licensed to Magnavox and introduced as Odyssey in 1972. Baer developed the product while working for Sanders Associates, Nashua, NH (now part of BAE Systems).

The Brown Box and other early video game components have exhibited at the Smithsonian (2005), the Japan National Science Museum (2004), the Heinz Nixdorf Museum (2004), the American Computer Museum, the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, NY (2006) and elsewhere.

Baer's other inventions include the first light gun and game for home television use, Shooting Gallery, as well as a perpetual favorite more than 25 years since its 1978 introduction, Simon, a hand-held, single chip microprocessor game licensed to Milton Bradley.

Other ventures include recordable talking books, the Video Buddy Interactive Video Play Station, and Talkin’ Tools under the Tonka brand.

Partnered with Bob Pelovitz of MicroPROS Technology Solutions, Baer and Pelovitz have been inventing and marketing toy and game ideas since1983. In addition to developing original product concepts, they help their licensees/clients locate and interface with overseas production engineering and manufacturing facilities, and have also focused on the development and protection of intellectual property rights primarily for consumer and commercial electronics, computer-based devices, videogame systems and software.

Baer’s honors are too numerous to include them all; a sampling: 1969 – Elected Senior Member of the IEEE; 1973 – “Father of Video Game” award, Gametronics Conference; 1975 – Elected Engineering Fellow, Sanders/Lockheed; 1979 – “Inventor of the Year,” NY Patent Law Association; 1979 – Distinguished Technical Achievement Award, Sanders Associates; 1980 – “Inventor of the Year” award, State of New Hampshire; 1980 – Proclamation of “R H Baer Inventor Day,” City of New York; Certificate of Technical Recognition in “Who’s Who in Engineering”; 2002 – Induction into the American Computer Museum.

Most recently, he published Videogames: In the Beginning. According to PSE2 Magazine, "Video Games: In the Beginning is a remarkable document. Anyone who gives a damn about videogame history must own a copy.”

Ralph Baer was born in Germany, escaping from his homeland two months before November, 1938’s Kristallnacht, a pogrom against Jews that saw 30,000 Jewish men taken to concentration camps and 1,668 synagogues ransacked or set on fire.  

In America he graduated from the National Radio Institute. He was drafted in 1943 to fight in World War II and assigned to Military Intelligence at the US Army headquarters in London. Baer graduated with a bachelor of science degree in Television Engineering from Chicago’s American Television Institute of Technology, after which he worked for several electronics firms, started his own company, and then joined Sanders in 1958, where he remained until he retired from Sanders/Lockheed in 1987. He has been and still is actively designing electronic toys and games, as well as novel videogame controller devices, working both in his Manchester, NH, and Florida labs.

The Daniel Webster College MBA Management Lecture Series annually brings speakers of note to enhance the intellectual diversity of Daniel Webster undergraduate and graduate students and the community. Previous speakers have included Tim Brier, co-founder of Priceline.com and Dave Silk, consultant and member of the gold-winning US Olympic Hockey Team of 1980.

Daniel Webster College provides educational programs for professional entry and advanced studies through undergraduate and graduate programs designed for both traditional and non-traditional students.

The College offers innovative programs in business and management, aviation,  computer science and information technology (gaming, simulation and robotics), aeronautical and mechanical engineering, sport management, and the social and behavioral sciences.

To learn more about Ralph Baer, visit www.ralphbaer.com; to learn more about Daniel Webster College, visit www.dwc.edu.