Ralph Baer: The Magnavox Odyssey
March 10th, 2010The Magnavox Odyssey retailed for $100 in May of 1972 and is considered the first video game console for home use. The Odyssey was the brainchild of Ralph Baer.
In 1966 Ralph Baer, an engineer at Sanders Associates at the time, started working on an idea for a game system that could be played using a television. He began working with some colleagues and after two years of development ended up with a prototype video game system and 12 games. They called the system the “Brown Box” after it’s housing and sought out licensing.
Baer took his Brown Box system to various Cable TV system operators and TV manufacturers around the United States. There was moderate interest but a licensing agreement was not reached at the time. It wasn’t until July 17th of 1968 that Gerry Martin, the VP of marketing for Magnavox, saw an opportunity in Baer’s creation. In 1971 Magnavox and Sanders Associates signed an agreement that left Magnavox with all the data and design specifications to create what would become known as the Magnavox Odyssey. By the fall of 1971 Magnavox and a group of engineers led by George Kent had a final design, an “OK” from the FCC, and the Odyssey went into production.
Magnavox, despite very poor marketing efforts, went on to sell 130,000 units of the Odyssey in 1972. Over the next two and a half years Magnavox sold a total of 330,00+ units of the original system before replacing it with an updated model named the Odyssey 100. In addition to the original console and games, a rifle pack could be purchased for around $25 that added more functionality for four “shooting gallery” games. The rifle pack sold around 80,000 units in total.
Baer’s Odyssey was not extremely complex, but was more of a unique idea. The console worked by using “discrete transistors and diodes” – 40 of each to be exact – that functioned as the brain of the machine. His setup was similar to the IBM 1401’s Diode-transistor logic circuits. Each game was in a cartridge form, but was simply a “series of jumpers between pins of the card connector.” The games themselves contained no other components, rather as the games were inserted into the console, the jumpers connected to the logic board and dictated the game play and output. The inputs were two hand-held controllers and the output consisted of a simple rf connector that sent information to a television for display.
The Odyssey was capable of outputting a series of simple white dots on a black screen. Depending on the game, and what was happening in the game, the dots would turn on or off. To supplement the simple graphics, Magnavox shipped the system with a series of screen overlays. The screen overlays were printed in color and came in two different “small” or “large” sizes – a screen overlay for each of the 12 games.
Baer’s creation was an important pioneer in the video game industry. Before Baer, digital or “video” games were restricted to computers – which were not always accessible for that purpose. The idea of taking a smaller, simpler version of the computer and using it for game play in conjunction with a television was a novel idea that started a whole industry.
On May the 24th of 1972 Nolan Bushnell attended a demonstration of the console put on by Magnavox. Mr. Bushnell then proceeded to found Atari on June 27 of the same year. He then went on the produce a prototype and final version of their first arcade game “Pong” which he put into a local bar. Pong began the Arcade game industry, as we know it now. In 1974 Magnavox filed a lawsuit against Atari, which resulted in Atari’s licensing of the table tennis game that originally shipped with the Odyssey. Since then countless other videogames and game systems have spun off of, or been directly influenced by Baer’s Odyssey gaming system.
A couple interesting notes: The Odyssey did not have any “memory” thus it did not keep track of scores. The system did respond to the user’s interaction and was made to be played by two people, but the original device did not have the capability to save any information. As I mentioned earlier, Magnavox fumbled in their marketing of the Odyssey. The original marketing made it sound as if the Odyssey would only work on Magnavox televisions, which, in addition to the high price-tag at the time, turned off a good number of potential consumers.
Of the final Magnavox version of the Odyssey, Baer is quoted as saying “We were happy with Magnavox’s design. The only thing we didn’t like was the price. It was that high partly because they spent a lot of money on plastic.” Baer has since been recognized with a Legend award by G4 at their video game award show G-Phoria. In 2006 Baer received a National Medal of Technology, presented by President G.W. Bush, in honor of his “groundbreaking and pioneering creation, development and commercialization of interactive video games.” Baer has received numerous other awards over the years and is widely considered the “father of videogames.”
Works Cited
Slater, Derek, and Joe Sullivan “Good Idea, Bad Timing” CIO 15 Aug. 2001: 129-130
Wikipedia contributors. “Magnavox Odyssey.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 8 Jan. 2010. Web. 11 Jan. 2010.
Wikipedia contributors. “Ralph H. Baer.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 10 Jan. 2010. Web. 11 Jan. 2010.
Winter, David. “Magnavox Odyssey.” Magnavox Odyssey. 3 July 2009. Web. 11 Jan. 2010. <http:// magnavox-odyssey.com>.
Winter, David. “Pong-Story:Magnavox Odyssey, the first video game system” Pong-Story. 2010. Web. 11 Jan 2010. <http://www.pong-story.com/odyssey.htm>.
“Remembering the Magnavox Odyssey.” The News & Record (Piedmont Triad, NC) (Sept 29, 1997): D1. InfoTrac Newspapers. Gale. Lewisville Public Library System. 11 Jan. 2010 http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=SPN.SP00&userGroupName=txshrpub100226.
“The Untold Story of the History of Interactive Entertainment, From Mainframes to Mainstream.” Computer Gaming World 200 (2001): 59. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web. 11 Jan. 2010.
“Video Game Odyssey.” Technology Review 105.2 (2002): 96. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web. 11 Jan. 2010.




