The first generation of video game consoles
began in 1972 with the Magnavox Odyssey, 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.
Some defining characteristics of first generation
consoles include:
Discrete transistor-based digital game logic.
Entire game playfield occupies only one screen.
Players and objects consist of very basic
lines, dots or blocks.
Black and white graphics.
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 1968.
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 May 1972 as the Magnavox
Odyssey.
Digital electronics
The Magnavox Odyssey is a digital console,
the same as all other game consoles.
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 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, since it was similar to what
Nintendo was able to offer in the Japanese
toy market in 1970s".
The Odyssey was not a large success due to
restrictive marketing, although other companies
with similar products 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.
Many of the earliest games utilizing digital
electronics ran on university mainframe computers
in the United States, 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 1971 he saw a demonstration of the Magnavox
Odyssey, and hired Al Alcorn to produce an
arcade version of the Odyssey's ping-pong
game, 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.
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
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
First video game
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 2007-12-26. 
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
