more have ever been built.
Computer Space, while more successful than Galaxy Game, proved a disappointment financially. The failure of both games to revolutionize leisure-time habits is attributed both to the time required to learn how to play and the mental capability needed to play well.
The score in the TV game evolution was one successful idea and one failure.
The paddle game would survive and prosper. In 1972, Magnavox made history with its announcement of Odyssey and in 1973, Universal Research, a manufacturer of coin-operated arcade games also introduced a paddle-principle home video game.
Nolan Bushnell went on to build Atari into a major factor in the electronic games industry. Besides producing coin-operated machines, he moved Atari into the home video game business in 1975, marketing Pong through Sears and Roebuck stores. He received one of the two 1977 awards at Gametronics for pioneering efforts in the electronics industry.
The other award was given to Ralph Baer, currently manager of consumer electronics development at Sanders Associates.
Baer first began working on a prototype for a TV game in late 1966 although the idea had crossed his mind many years before. He had an unusual background which particularly qualified him for the accomplishments he was to later achieve. Several years earlier in his career, Baer had been given the assignment by a New York military systems company, eyeing the consumer marketplace, to design the world's best television set, sparing no expense.
But when the design was complete, Baer's employer decided that the necessary selling price was too great an obstacle to hurl. The prototype was the only unit to be built; the project was abandoned.
However, Baer had acquired incredible knowledge of possible, as well as actual, performance obtainable from a television receiver.
By 1966 Baer had advanced to the position of division manager for the equipment design division of Sanders Associates, Manchester, New Hampshire, supervising a staff of up to 500 engineers and technicians. More important, he was now in a position to authorize work on TV games.
In early 1967, Baer hired engineer Bill Harrison to begin full-time TV game development. Shortly after that, he also added engineer Bill Rusch to the project.
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