RIP Ralph Baer “The Father of Video Games”

Ralph Henry Baer known as “The Father of Video Games” has passed away late last night and was confirmed by his family this morning.

Barer was born in Germany in 1922 and left his homeland in 1938 to escape the Nazis. He left Germany and came to the States where started pursuing his work in electronics.  While in America he was self taught and worked in a factory. After some time he left the factory and went to school and graduated from the National Radio Institute  as a radio service technician. Then in 1943 he was drafted to fight in WWII and was assigned to military intelligence at the US army headquarters in London.

With the G.I. Bill in effect Baer went back to school and acquired his BS degree in Television Engineering from the American Television Institute of Technology in Chicago in 1949. After school he became a chief engineer for a small electronic medical equipment firm known as Wappler Inc. He stayed with the company till 1951 when he left Wappler and became a senior engineer for Loral Electronics in the Bronx. While working with Loral Electronics  Baer designed power line carrier signaling equipment for IBM. Then in 1952 to 1956 he went to another job at Transitron Inc in New York City.

From there he left the company in 1956 and founded his own company and he stayed there until 1987.

Ralph Baer created the very first video game console known as the Brown Box. The title was soon changed to the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972 creating the birth of home video game consoles and the industry. The originally design is being displayed in  the Smithsonian. In 2006 he was awarded the Medal of Technology by George W. Bush 2006 for his work in the field.

If we didn’t have Baer we would not be where we are in the world of home gaming Thank Baer and may you rest in peace, I tip my controller to thee.