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Thread: Inventor of home video game console died at age 92

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Inventor of home video game console died at age 92

    http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/7/73...mes-dies-at-92

    His name was Ralph Baer. He created the Odyssey, released in 1972. He actually created one called "The Box" in the late 1960s, which was essentially the same machine as the Odyssey, but it wasn't widely released until he licensed it out to Magnavox in 1972 and the name was changed.

    The Odyssey 2 came out in the late '70s, and was a competitor to Atari for awhile.

    One of my friends in the '70s had an Odyssey 2, and we played it all the time, especially before my parents bought me an Atari.

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    Platinum herbertstemple's Avatar
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    Saw a documentary on this guy years ago. He was an engineer helping to design TV's. They were having some kind of problem. Part of the picture kept bouncing back and forth. This was where he came up with the idea for Pong. He took the idea of a game on the TV to the manufacturer(Magnavox?), they told him to worry about the TV.

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    Diamond mulva's Avatar
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    rip richard brodie
    Quote Originally Posted by bottomset_69 View Post
    Johnny Manziel will be the 1st pick in the draft. I truly believe not only will Johnny Manziel be rookie of the year, quite possibly he will be MVP as his style will shock defensive coordinators. Manziel may only be 6 feet tall, but he has size 15 feet. And he has HUGE hands. I know some NFL scouts so I know what I am talking about.



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    PFA Emeritus Crowe Diddly's Avatar
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    I wasn't really familiar with the Odyssey or Odyssey 2, so I was checking out a video of a bunch of old games, pretty much to see how good/bad the graphics were. I lol'd when they showed K.C.'s Munchkin. I'd never seen it before, and it's so clearly Pac Man in some odd/bootleg-ish form, I had to look it up. I'm sure a bunch of you know this story, as it's apparently important in copyright law cases or something, but I'd never heard of it before.


    "K.C. Munchkin! is possibly the most famous Odyssey² game of them all, but not always for good reasons. Philips released the game to cash in on the Pac-Man craze, but tried to change the gameplay enough to avoid legal action. Atari, who owned the home rights to Pac-Man, did not oblige, and sued Philips for copyright infringement. By the end of the months-long trial, two out of three circuit judges ruled against Philips, ordering that K.C. Munchkin! could no longer be sold after stores cleared out whatever inventory was already on their shelves.¹ K.C. sold quite strongly before the legal challenge, so today copies are easy to find despite the ruling. The verdict of Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp., 672 F.2d 607 (7th Cir. 1982), became an important precedent in software copyright law; unfortunately, it cost Odyssey² its best-selling game."
    http://www.the-nextlevel.com/odyssey....php?gameid=24

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchkin_(video_game)
    http://ultimateconsoledatabase.com/r...unchkin_O2.htm

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Never got to play KC Munchkin. But wow, what a ripoff.

    Can't believe they thought they would get away with that.

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    Plutonium lol wow's Avatar
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    this guy was probably druffs slightly younger brother

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