Ralph Baer is a name synonymous with gaming lore, credited with the invention of the Magnavox Odyssey and thinking that digital table tennis was a good idea long before Pong proved him right.

Baer is credited with launching the video game console business, creating the first home device, the Magnavox Odyssey. The battery-powered console included a controller with two knobs players ...

I confess it is tempting to believe that interactive video games, as a concept, would have still existed had it not been for Baer and his Magnavox Odyssey, which shipped in 1972.

Baer's first video game console, dubbed The Brown Box, made its debut in 1972, and was later licensed by Magnavox as the Odyssey game system. It included the game Table Tennis, a forerunner to ...

Seven years before Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs invented the personal computer and decades before we were interacting with Playstation, Wii and Xbox 360, Ralph Baer was playing ping-pong on ...

Sanders licensed the system to Magnavox. In 1972, Magnavox released the design as the Magnavox Odyssey, paving the way for all video game systems that followed. Ralph Baer donated his video game test ...

Ralph and Mark were wondering if the Smithsonian was interested in preserving some of Ralph's objects and papers. Magnavox Odyssey Video Game Unit, 1972. Odyssey was a home video game system based on ...

The first home video game system had a lot of the right ideas, just not at the right time Drew Robarge The Magnavox Odyssey with its cover box, controllers, and carts. (2006.0102.08) NMAH In ...

The Magnavox Odyssey — derived from Ralph Baer's "Brown Box" invention — was sold as the first home video game system in 1972. Image: Rich Strauss/National Museum of American History ...