Milestones:Interactive Video Games, 1966
- Date Dedicated
- 2015/09/21
- Dedication #
- 158
- Location
- Nashua, NH, USA
- IEEE Regions
- 1
- IEEE sections
- New Hampshire
- Achievement date range
- 1966
Title
Interactive Video Games, 1966
Citation
The "Brown Box" console, developed at Sanders Associates - later BAE Systems - between 1966 and 1968, was the first interactive video game system to use an ordinary home television set. This groundbreaking device and the production-engineered version Magnavox Odyssey game system (1972) spawned the commercialization of interactive console video games, which became a multi-billion dollar industry.
Street address(es) and GPS coordinates of the Milestone Plaque Sites
95 Canal St., Nashua, New Hampshire 03064, 42.7640789, -71.4581544
Details of the physical location of the plaque
The milestone plaque will be mounted on the left pillar (outside) that leads into the front employee/visitor lobby of BAE Systems.
How the plaque site is protected/secured
The site is accessible from the visitor parking area. Visitors will not have to go through BAE Systems Security to visit the plaque.
Historical significance of the work
Baer started development of the "Brown Box" console video game system and several other prototypes in 1966 for the defense-electronics company Sanders Associates in Nashua, New Hampshire (now part of BAE Systems). In 1971, it was licensed to Magnavox, and after being renamed Magnavox Odyssey, the console was released to the public in 1972. For a time it was Sanders' most profitable line. Baer's groundbreaking and pioneering work spawned the commercialization of interactive video games.
Features that set this work apart from similar achievements
The Brown Box prototype/Magnavox Odyssey was the first home video game console.
Significant references
Videogames: In the Beginning by Ralph H. Baer (2005)
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=www.google.com/patents/US3659285.pdf
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=www.google.com/patents/US3728480.pdf
http://invention.smithsonian.org/resources/fa_baer_index.aspx
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1690/the_right_to_baer_games__an_.php
Television Games: Their past, Present and Future, Gametronics Proceedings, January 1977, pp. 7-30
IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, November 1977, p. 496
The Golden Age of Video Games: The Birth of a Multi-billion Dollar Industry by Roberto Dillon (2011)
Supporting materials
Images can be found at http://www.ralphbaer.com/. Copyright held by Ralph H. Baer.
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