The button was used to reset certain display elements during play, while the knobs were used to control the movement of said elements. The arcane device bore with it two similarly-garbed controllers, each of these being slightly bigger than a Band-Aid box and bearing one button and three knobs. It connected to one’s television by way of a switchbox, presenting itself to the TV as a channel. While to modern eyes it may look more like something you’d see controlling a kitchen appliance or a sewing machine, this was a fully-functional electronic device! The Odyssey could be powered by an AC adapter or six C-cell batteries, at the owner’s option. Hands were shaken, paperwork was drafted, and the Age of the Console had begun to rise and shine its first rays over a quiet horizon.Ĭlockwise from upper left: The original Odyssey suite and packaging the physical paraphernalia for various games two pieces of promo/ad copy, one of which details the core game library, the other advertising the Shooting Gallery accessory (the first light gun for a home console).Ī simple, unassuming white-and-black plastic box also featuring that ever-stylish 1970s wood-paneling texture in a few places, the original commercially-available Odyssey was a wondrous machine to the consumers of 1972’s America. The California-based consumer electronics company (whose name means “great voice” in Latin) saw merit in the idea of a home arcade that a family could hook up to their own television set. It was this seventh design, dubbed “The Brown Box,” that the trio successfully pitched to Magnavox in 1971. For three years, he and two associates Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch, developed a series of seven prototypes for the device. By 1956, Baer was working at a New Hampshire defense contractor called Sanders Associates, where he oversaw a crew of some 500 engineers who developed electronics systems for military use.Īs a side project, Baer began working on the idea of an electronic home game system in 1966. GI Bill money enabled him to pursue his Bachelors degree upon returning home to America, which he received in 1949 from the American Television Institute of Technology in Chicago. He went on to be drafted in 1943, assigned to military intelligence in England. Starting his American dream in a factory at age 12, Ralph eventually graduated from the National Radio Institute in 1940. A family of Jewish origin, the Baers feared persecution in Germany and sought a new life in New York. Baer emigrated with his family to the United States just two months prior to Kristallnacht in 1938. Ralph Baer, seen here with his “Brown Box” prototype version of the Odyssey.īorn in 1922 in the southwest German town of Rodalben, Ralph H.
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