The first generation of video game consoles
began in 1972 with the Magnavox Odyssey (which
began development in 1968 by Ralph Baer under
the code name "The Brown Box"), until 1977,
when "pong"-style console manufacturers left
the market en masse due to the video game
crash of 1977 and when microprocessor-based
consoles were introduced.
In Japan, the generation continued until 1980
with the Color TV-Game series.Some defining
characteristics of first generation consoles
include:
Discrete transistor-based digital game logic.
Games were native components of consoles rather
than based on external or removable media.
Entire game playfield occupies only one screen.
Objects on screen consist of very basic dots,
lines or blocks.
Colours of graphics are basic (mostly black
and white or other dichromatic combination;
later games may display three or more colours).
Either single-channel or no audio.
Lacked features of second generation consoles,
such as microprocessor logic, ROM cartridges,
flip-screen playfields, sprite-based graphics,
and multi-color graphics.
== History ==
=== Interactive television ===
Television engineer Ralph Baer created "The
Brown Box" in 1966.
Baer conceived the idea of an interactive
television while building a television set
from scratch for Loral in 1951 in the Bronx,
New York.
He explored these ideas further in 1966 when
he was the Chief Engineer and manager of the
Equipment Design Division at Sanders Associates.
Baer created a simple two-player video game
that could be displayed on a standard television
set called Chase, where two dots chased each
other around the screen.
After a demonstration to the company's director
of R&D Herbert Campman, some funding was allotted
and the project was made official.
In 1967 Bill Harrison was brought on board,
and a light gun was constructed from a toy
rifle that was aimed at a target moved by
another player.
Bill Rusch joined the project to speed up
development and soon a third machine-controlled
dot was used to create a ping-pong game.
With more funding additional games were created,
and Baer had the idea of selling the product
to cable TV companies, who could transmit
static images as game backgrounds.
A prototype was demonstrated in February 1968
to TelePrompTer Vice President Hubert Schlafly,
who signed an agreement with Sanders.
The Cable TV industry was in a slump during
the late '60s and early '70s and a lack of
funding meant other avenues had to be pursued.
Development continued on the hardware and
games resulting in the final "Brown Box" prototype,
which had two controllers, a light gun and
sixteen switches on the console that selected
the game to be played.
Baer approached various U.S. Television manufacturers
and an agreement was eventually signed with
Magnavox in late 1969.
Magnavox's main alterations to the Brown Box
were to use plug-in circuits to change the
games, and to remove the color graphics capabilities
in favor of color overlays in order to reduce
manufacturing costs.
It was released in 1972 as the Magnavox Odyssey.
=== Digital electronics ===
Like other game consoles Odyssey is a digital
console.
However, like all video game consoles up until
the sixth generation, it uses analog circuitry
for the output to match the televisions of
its era, which were analog; also, like all
later consoles from the Nintendo 64 onwards,
it features analog game controllers.
Due to these two facts, many collectors have
mistakenly considered the Odyssey to be an
analog console, with the misunderstanding
becoming so widespread that Baer was eventually
led to clarify that the Odyssey is indeed
a digital console: all of the electronic signals
exchanged between the various parts responsible
for gameplay (ball and players generators,
sync generators, diode matrix, etc.) are binary.
The type of digital components used feature
DTL, a common pre-TTL digital design component
using discrete transistors and diodes.
This was also the first involvement of Nintendo
in video games.
According to Martin Picard in the International
Journal of Computer Game Research: "in 1971,
Nintendo had -- even before the marketing
of the first home console in the United States
-- an alliance with the American pioneer Magnavox
to develop and produce optoelectronic guns
for the Odyssey (released in 1972), since
it was similar to what Nintendo was able to
offer in the Japanese toy market in 1970s".The
Odyssey was not very successful, although
other companies with similar products (including
Atari) had to pay a licensing fee for some
time.
For a time it was Sanders' most profitable
line, even though many in the company had
been unsupportive of game development.
Early mainframe games in the United States
were developed by individual users who programmed
them in their spare time.
In 1962, a group of students at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology programmed a game
called Spacewar! on a DEC PDP-1.
In 1970 Nolan Bushnell saw Spacewar! for the
first time at the University of Utah.
Deciding there was commercial potential in
an arcade version, he hand-wired a custom
computer capable of playing it on a black
and white television.
The resulting game, Computer Space, did not
fare well commercially and Bushnell started
looking for new ideas.
In early 1972 he saw a demonstration of the
Magnavox Odyssey, and hired Al Alcorn to produce
an arcade version of the Odyssey's ping-pong
game (using Transistor-transistor logic),
called Pong.
On September 12, 1975, Epoch released Japan's
first console, the TV Tennis Electrotennis,
a home version of Pong, several months before
the release of Home Pong in North America.
A unique feature of the TV Tennis Electrotennis
is that the console is wireless, functioning
through a UHF antenna.Home video games achieved
widespread popularity with the release of
a home version of Pong in the Christmas of
1975.
Its success sparked hundreds of clones, including
the Coleco Telstar, which went on to be a
success in its own right, with over a dozen
models and the Binatone TV Master by British
company Binatone.
Japan's most successful console of the first
generation was Nintendo's Color TV-Game, released
in 1977.
The Color TV Game sold 3 million units, the
highest for a first generation console.
The first generation of video games did not
feature a microprocessor, and were based on
custom codeless state machine computers consisting
of discrete logic circuits comprising each
element of the game itself.
Later consoles of this generation moved the
bulk of the circuitry to custom "pong on a
chip" IC's such as Atari's custom Pong chips
and General Instruments' AY-3-8500 series.
== Home systems ==
=== Comparison ===
* = Does not include the separately-listed
Magnavox Odyssey and the second-generation
Magnavox Odyssey 2.
=== Pong on a chip ===
The table lists only the most known consoles
and relative used chip.
(1) Colors could be obtained adding the AY-3-8515
chip
(2) Colors could be obtained adding the AY-3-8615
chip
(3) PAL version code is 7601
(4) Advanced chip compared to classic Pong-in-a-chip:
include a microcontroller and a little RAM.
== See also ==
Home computer
History of computing hardware (1960s–present)
== References ==
== Further reading ==
How Video Games Invaded the Home TV Set by
Ralph Baer
"A History of Home Video Game Consoles".
Archived from the original on December 26,
2007. by Michael Miller
== 
External links ==
The Dot Eaters: Bits From the Primordial Ooze
ClassicGaming Expo 2000: Baer Describes the
Birth of Videogames
Video Games Turn 40 (1UP.com)
