Bush to Baer: be my Valentine?

by Christopher Grant { Feb 13th 2006 at 10:30PM }

The White House announced the 2004 National Medal of Technology and Science recipients back in November... 2005. Alright, they're a little late. The awards were scheduled to be given out tomorrow morning, Valentine's Day; however, it appears they've decided to make up for their earlier tardiness, because the ceremony took place this morning at the White House.

The medal of technology was established by Congress in 1980, with 166 medals being awarded to date. Ralph Baer was recognized "for his work in developing and commercializing interactive video games, which spawned related uses and mega-industries in both the entertainment and education fields." Baer was responsible for the Magnavox Odyssey video game console, for popularizing the ping-pong game mechanic, and for the popular color-tiled memory menace, Simon.

Baer has also been one of the relatively unsung heroes of the video game revolution, living in the culturally expansive shadows of Nolan Bushnell, Atari, and Pong. Congratulations, Mr. Baer!

Image is from the White House's slideshow. Also see their press release.

Tags: Magnavnox Odyssey, MagnavnoxOdyssey

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Slap Happy @ Feb 14th 2006 12:25AM

Bout time the father was recognized.

Our father, who art in video games, Baer be thy name...

Probot @ Feb 14th 2006 12:40AM

"popularizing the ping-pong game mechanic"

Can you really give him credit for that? Even if Atari's Pong ripped off a prototype of the Odyssey's Ping-Pong, it was Atari's Pong that popularized the mechanic.

I think he definitely deserves the award though. He pretty much started the console indusry, regardless of whether his games were good or not.

Guy @ Feb 14th 2006 5:15PM

I thought Bush hated pong. Wasn't he and Hillary Clinton trying to get it banned because they think it's too violent?
I think Jack Thompson drew a connection between Pong and the dramatic rise in abortions in the 70s too.

The Jeremy @ Feb 14th 2006 5:27PM

WTF? M.I.T.'s "Space War" predates Ralph Baer's work, so why give the medal to him? And Baer's work did not popularize videogaming, Atari's (meaning Nolan Bushnell+Ted Dabney+Al Alcorn) "Pong" brought videogaming to the world and CREATED our favorite industry.

Well, at least none of Bush's critics can claim croneyism with this selection...since Nolan Bushnell was known to have allowed George Bush Sr. to fly on his private jet once or twice while he was Vice President.

Sheesh. Maybe Bushnell should seek out dual citizenship status in the U.K. so he could qualify to be knighted. Anyways, give the medal the next time to Bushnell and Alcorn at the very least.

ps. Baer deserves the medal more for creating other popular electronic games like "Simon Says" (and others) than for video gaming.

The Jeremy @ Feb 14th 2006 5:47PM

Strike my comment about Baer deserving it for Milton Bradley's "Simon" since Atari's "Touch Me" predated it and Baer discovered the "Touch Me" at a trade show before designing "Simon". For him to criticize Bushnell for having seen the Odyssey at a tradeshow and then introducing Atari's "Pong" thereafter and be guilty of the same thing is rather hypocritical. Too bad Atari didn't sue Milton Bradley for all the tea in China back in 1976, which they certainly could have since that was the year that Warner Communications bought Atari and solved all their funding issues that plagued the development of the Atari 2600 VCS as well as the very reason why Bushnell had to turn down the Jobs/Wozniak offer for Atari to fund their little startup better known as Apple Computer, Inc.

Probot @ Feb 14th 2006 8:41PM

First of all, Baer had the idea for making a video game 1951 when he worked for the Lorel TV company. Nothing materialized, but it is documented, so no one can claim he ripped off the idea from someone else.
(Source: http://www.ralphbaer.com/how_video_games.htm)

Second, Space War is actually the 3rd or 4th video game ever made. The first game-playing, computerized application was patented in 1948. (Known as a Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device, since the term video game didn't exist.)
(Source: http://www.pong-story.com/2455992.pdf )

Lastly, and most importantly, Baer is not credited with making the first video game, he's credited with starting the industry, and that's exactly what he did.

Baer's idea was to make games playable on standard Television sets, something Magnavox accomplished before any other company.

I think you could make the argument that Simon ripped off Atari's Touch Me, but Simon drastically improved upon the original (made it portable and added sound), whereas Atari's Pong was almost exactly the same as Baer's Ping-Pong but with simpler controls.

If Atari had taken Milton Bradley to court over Touch Me, they would have lost. The original Touch Me was an arcade machine with no sound. The color-matching game mechanic was not invented by Atari, so they would have to show strong evidence that Milton Bradley stole the technology Atari used, which they didn't. You can't patent ideas, only technology.

The Jeremy @ Feb 15th 2006 11:58AM

Yet to use your argument against you, Probot, Atari's "Pong" was an arcade machine. That's the version that Philips/Magnavox sued Atari over based upon Baer's patents. Baer's machine was a home console of dubious playability. So that's apples and oranges. Just as you stated that "Touch Me" was originally an arcade machine versus "Simon" being a home machine. Futhermore, its rather dubious to claim that patents can only be issued for tech versus ideas since it is obvious that Atari did not reverse engineer Baer's machine.

Had business models been able to have been patented back then, Magnavox would not have had much of a claim.

I'd also speculate that Baer was not the first to think up the videogame concept. After all, the television set was invented by a 13 year old back-in-the-day. Its probably just that nobody else has brought a court claim because they weren't litiguous (sic) enough.

And the industry STARTED with Atari. To argue otherwise is like claiming MIPS did more for personal computing than Apple, which is also a ridiculous claim. Bushnell and Alcorn should get the medal especially considering the justification of the medal was for "popularizing" the technology when Magnavox didn't. People got hooked to videogames in 1972 when the arcade game "Pong" became the craze. And Atari was behind that.

Probot @ Feb 15th 2006 8:47PM

That is a good point about Pong being an arcade machine; however, it's important to remember that Magnavox won the lawsuit, not because they showed that Pong was exactly like Ping-Pong (which it was) but because Magnavox could prove that Bushnell saw Ping-Pong before he had the idea for Pong and most importantly, Baer's patents were so open-ended. He basically patented any electronic device that played a game on a television screen. That is why he won every lawsuit in the 1970s and 80s, and it's why almost every company that made a video game had to pay Baer a licensing fee.

Simon was a different game than Touch Me. Like I said, the gameplay mechanic of matching colors in sequence was not created by Atari, so they could not sue them for that. They could only sue if they had a patent that Milton Bradley infringed upon, and apparently they didn't. So they didn't sue, and Simon became a big success while Touch Me, and even the handheld version, failed.

I never claimed Baer was the first to come up with the idea. My example of his early documents was just to prove that he didn't steal the idea from anyone that made a game before he did. Baer�s first actual prototype was made in 1966, and there were already a few video games made by then. But the fact that he has written proof from 1951 that he had the idea shows that he didn�t steal the ideas from others.

My mention of ideas versus technology was based on this quote from the US Patent Office website:
"A patent cannot be obtained upon a mere idea or suggestion. The patent is granted upon the new machine, manufacture, etc., as has been said, and not upon the idea or suggestion of the new machine."
(Source: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/index.html#whatpat)

This is how both Nintendo and Immersion can have different technology for force feedback in controllers. And because Sony�s and Microsoft used the technology that Immersion patented, they were both sued.
(Source: http://www.gamespot.com/news/2847302.html)

The idea behind Pong and Ping-Pong is the same, but because of the wording in Baer's patent, the technology is the same in both as well.

As far as the US Government is concerned, Baer has the patent for the first video game, therefore, he created them. That's why he got the medal. You're welcome to believe any way you want. I personally think Bushnell should also get a medal, for the exact reason you said. Pong was the success that Ping-Pong could never be.