The Video Game Pioneer
THE
VIDEO CONSOLE, THE SPIROCHETE, THE
SAX PLAYER, AND PUGSLEY
In the
1950’s, the television was becoming a staple in the
American home.
Ralph Baer was visionary inventor who foresaw that watching was not simply a passive experience -people could interact with the television, and he invented the “
Brown Box”, the video console that led to today’s multibillion dollar gaming industry.
Willy Burgdorfer found the spirochete that caused
Lyme Disease and it was subsequently named after him, Borrelia burgdorfei.
Bobby Keys was a saxophonist best known for his work with the
Rolling Stones.
Ken Weatherwax played Pugsley on the classic sitcom,
The Addams Family (1964).
Ralph Henry Baer (born Rudolf
Heinrich Baer; March 8,
1922 –
December 6, 2014) was a German-born
American video game developer, inventor, and engineer, and was known as "
The Father of
Video Games" due to his many contributions to games and the video game industry in the latter half of the
20th century.[1]
Born in
Germany, he and his family fled to the
United States before the outbreak of
World War II, where he changed his name and later served the
American war effort.
Afterwards, he pursued work in electronics, and in the
1960s, came up with the idea of playing games on television screens. He would go on to develop and patent several hardware prototypes, including what would become the first home video game console, the
Magnavox Odyssey, and other consoles and consumer game units. In 2004, he was awarded the
National Medal of Technology for "his groundbreaking and pioneering creation, development and commercialization of interactive video games, which spawned related uses, applications, and mega-industries in both the entertainment and education realms".
Baer was considered to be the inventor of video games, specifically at the concept of the home video game console. In 1966, while an employee at Sanders, Baer started to explore the possibility of playing games on television screens. He first got the idea while working at
Loral in 1951, another electronics company, however, they wanted nothing to do with it at the time.[23] In a
2007 interview, Baer said that he recognized that the price reduction of owning a television set at the time had opened a large potential market for other applications, considering that various military groups had identified ways of using television for their purposes.[24] Upon coming up with the idea of creating a game using the television screen, he wrote a four page proposal with which he was able to convince one of his supervisors to allow him to proceed. He was given
US$2,
500 and the time of two other engineers,
Bill Harrison and
Bill Rusch. They developed the "Brown Box" console video game system, so named because of the brown tape in which they wrapped the units to simulate wood veneer.[12][17][25] Baer recounted that in an early meeting with a patent examiner and his attorney to patent one of the prototypes, he had set up the prototype on a television in the examiner's office and "within
15 minutes, every examiner on the floor of that building was in that office wanting to play the game".
Robert Henry "
Bobby" Keys (
December 18, 1943 –
December 2, 2014) was an American saxophone player who performed with other musicians as a member of several horn sections of the
1970s. He appears on albums by
The Rolling Stones,[1]
Lynyrd Skynyrd,
The Who,
Harry Nilsson,
Delaney & Bonnie & Friends,
George Harrison,
Eric Clapton,
Joe Cocker and other prominent musicians. Keys played on hundreds of recordings and was a touring musician from
1956 until his death in 2014.
Weatherwax, who was born in
1955 at
Los Angeles, California, played
Pugsley Addams on the original The Addams Family television series. After The Addams Family was canceled, Weatherwax found it difficult to get work in
Hollywood (a common occurrence for child actors) and was typecast as Pugsley well into his teens.
At 17, Weatherwax entered the
U.S. Army.[1]
Weatherwax worked behind the camera as a movie studio grip and set builder after his acting career ended. He also made appearances at
Addams Family-related events.
Wilhelm '
Willy' Burgdorfer (June 27, 1925 –
November 17, 2014) was an American scientist born and educated in
Basel, Switzerland, considered an international leader in the field of medical entomology. He discovered the bacterial pathogen that causes
Lyme disease, a spirochete named
Borrelia burgdorferi in his honor
- published: 23 Dec 2014
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