Inventor, Developer and Engineer. He was known as "The Father of Video Games," due to his many contributions to games and the video game industry. The German native, whose Jewish family moved to the United States before World War II, was an engineer with a defense contractor in 1966 when he began toying with the concept of a "game box" that would let people play board, action, sports and other games on a television set. A boss at his job gave him $2,500 and two staffers to pursue the idea and in 1971, Baer would file for the first video-game patent. His "Brown Box" would go on to become the Magnavox Odyssey, the first commercially available home gaming system. While his console launched what would become a multi-billion-dollar industry, his single most popular product was "Simon", the memory game that was released in 1978. He would go on to hold more than 150 patents and in 2006, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology from then-President George W. Bush, the same year he donated all of his prototypes and related documents to the Smithsonian Institute.
Inventor, Developer and Engineer. He was known as "The Father of Video Games," due to his many contributions to games and the video game industry. The German native, whose Jewish family moved to the United States before World War II, was an engineer with a defense contractor in 1966 when he began toying with the concept of a "game box" that would let people play board, action, sports and other games on a television set. A boss at his job gave him $2,500 and two staffers to pursue the idea and in 1971, Baer would file for the first video-game patent. His "Brown Box" would go on to become the Magnavox Odyssey, the first commercially available home gaming system. While his console launched what would become a multi-billion-dollar industry, his single most popular product was "Simon", the memory game that was released in 1978. He would go on to hold more than 150 patents and in 2006, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology from then-President George W. Bush, the same year he donated all of his prototypes and related documents to the Smithsonian Institute.
Bio by: Louis du Mort
Family Members
Spouse
Advertisement
See more Baer memorials in:
Explore more
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
