I was already in a lousy mood yesterday, but waking up to the news that Ralph Baer died pretty much kept me inside for the bulk of the day ruminating. I was eight years old when the Magnavox Odyssey launched, but my family didn’t buy one because we had assorted hobbies that kept us occupied. In fact, although I’d been to the arcade down at Coney Island back when I was six or seven, I was more impressed with the pinball machines I played (or tried to play). However, finding out a cousin had an Odyssey in his closet AND a color TV in his living room got me curious enough to see what was in that big box (a lot of stuff!) and what happened when it was all wired up to that big TV set…

About a half-hour to 45 minutes or so later, I was hooked although I didn’t know what I was doing at all for the most part. Fast forward a few decades and I’m not even thinking about stopping. Thanks, Ralph. Oh, and if you’re not into console videogames but are old enough to remember playing with that addictive matching sound and light game called Simon, you’ll want to thank Ralph Baer (and Howard Morrison) for that one. Plus the 150 patents to his name for all sorts of things we all take for granted these days. 92 years is a long time and the man certainly packed his life full of work that brought happiness to the masses.

Anyway, rather than read some this not so well-written tribute to the man, I say go do some reading. Start here and end here for now. Oh, and don’t forget to buy a copy of PHOENIX: The Fall & Rise of Videogames while you’re at it. Leonard Herman works like a demon getting each volume update out, so show the man some love, I say.