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The 'Magnavox Odyssey' is the world's first video game console. It was first demonstrated in May 1972 and released that fall, predating the Atari Pong home consoles by several years. The Odyssey was designed by Ralph Baer, who had a working prototype finished by 1968. This prototype known as the "Brown Box"^[1] is now at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.

Contents

Design

History

List of games

References

See also

External links

Design

While many collectors consider the Odyssey analog rather than digital (because of the addition of analog circuitry for the output, game control, and the use of discrete components), Baer has said he considers the console to be digital. The electronic signals exchanged between the various parts (ball and players generators, sync generators, diode matrix, etc.) are binary.^[2] The games and logic itself are implemented in DTL, a common pre-TTL digital design component using discrete transistors and diodes. Unlike any conventional console today, the system was powered by batteries. The Odyssey lacks sound capability, something that was corrected with the "Pong systems" of several years later, including Magnavox's own Odyssey-labeled Pong consoles. Ralph Baer proposed a sound extension to Magnavox in 1973, but the idea was rejected.
The Odyssey uses a type of removable circuit card that inserts into a slot similar to a cartridge slot; these do not contain any components but have a series of jumpers between pins of the card connector. These jumpers interconnect different logic and signal generators to produce the desired game logic and screen output components respectively. The system was sold with translucent plastic overlays that gamers could put on their TV screen to simulate color graphics, though only two TV sizes were supported. Some of these overlays could even be used with the same cartridges, though with different rules for playing. It was also sold with plastic game tokens and score sheets to help keep score, much like a traditional board game. Ralph Baer also proposed the concept of "active cartridges" containing additional electronic components allowing adding more game features such as sound effects, variable net position, variable ball speed, etc. Unfortunately the idea did not catch any interest. In retrospect, all ROM-based cartridges would have paid a royalty to Sanders Associates should Ralph Baer have filed a patent for his "active cartridges".
The Odyssey was also designed to support an add-on peripheral, the first-ever commercial video "light gun" called the Shooting Gallery. This detected light from the TV screen, however pointing the gun at a nearby light bulb also registered as a "hit".
Ralph Baer also designed a Golf Putting game which used a golf ball fixed on the top of a joystick. The player would hit the ball using a putter. This smart idea interested Magnavox, which took the prototype for testing. It was initially planed to be released as an add-on like the electronic rifle, but for some reasons Magnavox never released Golf Putting.
Recently, Ralph Baer replicated his active cards and Golf Putting game. They can be seen in the Museum of the Moving Image in New-York.

History

The Odyssey was released in autumn 1972. Sales of the console were hurt by poor marketing by Magnavox retail stores. A few months later, many consumers were led to believe that the Odyssey would work only on Magnavox televisions. For that reason, most later "Pong" games had an explanation on their box saying "Works on any television set, black and white or color". Magnavox settled a court case against Nolan Bushnell for patent infringement in Bushnell's design of ''Pong'', as it resembled the tennis game for the Odyssey. Over the next decade, Magnavox sued other big companies such as Coleco, Mattel, Seeburg, Activision and either won or settled every suit.^[3][4]
In 1985, Nintendo sued Magnavox and tried to invalidate Baer's patents by saying that the first video game was Higginbotham's ''Tennis For Two'' game built in 1958. The court ruled that this game did not use video signals and could not qualify as a video game, and as a result Nintendo lost and continued paying royalties to Sanders Associates.
Ralph Baer went on to invent the classic electronic game ''Simon'' for Mattel in 1978. Magnavox later released several other scaled down ''Pong''-like consoles based under the Odyssey name (which did not use cartridges or game cards), and at one point a truly programmable, cartridge based console, the Odyssey², in 1978.
Nintendo's first venture in the electronic gaming world was the distribution of the Magnavox Odyssey in Japan in 1975, before the company introduced its own consoles.

List of games

★ ''Analogic''

★ ''Baseball''

★ ''Basketball''

★ ''Brain Wave''

★ ''Cat & Mouse''

★ ''Dogfight''

★ ''Football''

★ ''Fun Zoo''

★ ''Handball''

★ ''Haunted House''

★ ''Hockey''

★ ''Invasion''

★ ''Interplanetary Voyage''

★ ''Percepts''

★ ''Prehistoric Safari''

★ ''Roulette''

★ ''Shooting Gallery''

★ ''Shootout''

★ ''Simon Says''

★ ''Ski''

★ ''Soccer''

★ ''States''

★ ''Submarine''

★ ''Table Tennis''

★ ''Tennis''

★ ''Volleyball''

★ ''Win''

★ ''Wipeout''

References

1. Console Portraits: A 40-Year Pictorial History of Gaming Greg Orlando
2. The Original GamerDad: Ralph Baer
3. Magnavox Patent
4. Magnavox Settles Its Mattel Suit


★ The story of the Magnavox Odyssey

★ Magnavox Odyssey FAQ

See also

★ First video game

★ The Shooting Gallery Light Gun

External links

★ Magnavox Odyssey The online Odyssey museum

★ Ralph Baer's story of the development of the ''Odyssey''

★ The Dot Eaters entry on the history of the Odyssey