Ralph Baer, the creator of the first home video game console system called “the father of video games,” died at 92, according to multiple published reports.
The Associated Press confirmed Baer’s passing with Goodwin Funeral Home in Manchester, N.H., where Baer was a longtime resident.
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 could twist to move horizontally or vertically.
Born in Germany in 1922, Baer and his family fled to the U.S. in his teens. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Baer landed at the American Television Institute of Technology in Chicago, according to a biography on his website.
While working as an engineer for New Hampshire-based company Sanders Associates, Baer created the technology that would power the Odyssey.
In 2006, Baer was presented with a National Medal for Science and Technology by President George W. Bush.
Baer continued to create well into his 90s, as documented in the PBS Digital Studios series Inventors. “It’s like I’m basically an artist,” said Baer in a PBS interview. “I’m no different from a painter who sits there and loves what he does. Would you ask who’s been painting all his life, ‘why do you keep painting? Why don’t you retire?’ Retire to what? Stop painting? This is insane. Why would you want to do that?”
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