"Television engineer Ralph Baer conceived the idea of an interactive television while building a television set from scratch for Loral in 1951 in 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 60's and early 70's 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 colour graphics capabilities in favour of colour overlays in order to reduce manufacturing costs. It was released in May 1972 as the Magnavox Odyssey."
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Thus, video games were born. Here is the list of the many systems in the many generations of gaming.
First Gen
Magnavox Odyssey
Atari Pong
Coleco Telstar
APF TV Fun
Second Gen
Fairchild Channel F
RCA Studio II
1292 Advanced Programmable Video System (Radofin, a German company)
Color TV Game(Nintendo)
Atari 2600
Bally Astrocade
Magnavox Odyssey 2
APF Imagination Machine
Mattel Intellivision
Epoch Cassette Vision
Atari 5200
Milton Bradley Vectrex(
Emerson Arcadia 2001
ColecoVision(Coleco Industries)
Sega SG-1000
Handheld
Milton Bradley Microvision
Epoch Game Pocket Computer
Note: In 1979, Activision was created by disgruntled former Atari programmers. It was the first third-party developer of video games.
Third Gen, the 8-bit era
Nintendo Entertainment System/Nintendo Famicom
Sega Master System
Atari 7800
Amstrad GX4000
Commodore C64 Games System
Handhelds
Nintendo Game Boy, Play It Loud Game Boy(first with color casing)
Atari Lynx
Sega Game Gear
Fourth Gen, the 16-bit era
NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx 16(downloadable games for the Wii)
Sega Mega Drive/Genesis(Genesis also has downloadable games)
SNK Neo-Geo
Super Famicom / Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Handhelds
Virtual Boy(Nintendo)(32-bit)(First true 3-D capable system)
Game Boy Pocket(Nintendo)(First with true black and white)
Game Boy Light(Nintendo)(Backlight, only in Japan)
Note: I have never heard of Game Boys Light and Play It Loud until now, but they were major changes for Nintendo. Game Boy Light had a backlight much like an Indiglo watch, but Nintendo decided America would want color, not light. There was an option to turn off the light though. Why didn't they keep the idea for the GBC?
Fifth Gen, 32-/64-bit era
Commodore Amiga CD32
Pioneer LaserActive(compatible with other manufacturer's system's games, like the Wii[Nintendo=poser])
FM Towns Marty(Fujitsu)
3DO Interactive Multiplayer(Despite a highly-promoted launch and a host of cutting-edge technologies, the system's high price [$699.95 USD at release] and an over-saturated console market brought the 3DO to a speedy demise.)
Atari Jaguar
Sega 32x (add-on for the Genesis)
Sega Saturn(approximately 170,000 machines were sold the first day of the Japanese launch. 5,000 were sold in the weekend following the United Kingdom launch.
Sony PlayStation(I hate you)
PC FX (NEC)
Bandai Pippin
Nintendo 64(only one with cartridges)
Handhelds
Neo Geo Pocket(SNK)
Game.com(Tiger Electronics)(A touch Screen, man, Nintendo is a poser)
Wonderswan/Color(Bandai)
Game Boy Color(Nintendo)
Neo Geo Pocket Color(SNK)
Note: The more you read, the more Nintendo seems like a poser.
Sixth Gen, 128 bit-era. Hurrah, we lost all the minor companies.
Sega Dreamcast(Short-lived, I hate Sony)
Sony PlayStation 2
Nintendo GameCube
Microsoft Xbox
Handhelds, guess I was wrong about the minor companies
Nintendo Game Boy Advance
GP32(Game Park)(Rewritable disks)(Nintendo's a poser)
Nokia N-Gage(Pretty sweet, a mobile phone, music, radio)
Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP
Nokia N-Gage QD(smaller version of the N-Gage)
Game Boy Micro(Nintendo)
Note: Read last note
Seventh Gen
Xbox 360 (Microsoft)
Wii (Nintendo)
PlayStation 3 (Sony)
Handhelds
Nintendo DS(wow, two screens)
Sony PSP(wow, four light settings)
Nintendo DS Lite(Four light settings)(Poser)
Tiger Telematics Gizmondo(It had GPS, looked cool, but was discontinued)
GamePark Holdings GP2X(designed to support video, music, photos, and games in an open architecture, allowing any user to develop software for the device. Room for expansion with future upgrades has been made possible by upgradable flash memory firmware. The GP2X is able to emulate many different game systems, such as the NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Game Gear, Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis, Game Boy, PC Engine, Neo-Geo, and Neo Geo CD consoles, as well as various arcade systems)(How did it not sell as well as the DS???)
GamePark XGP(announced)
I hoped you learned something from reading this, because I definitly did learn a lot of things writing it. (It took an hour to write, so please look it through.)
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 60's and early 70's 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 colour graphics capabilities in favour of colour overlays in order to reduce manufacturing costs. It was released in May 1972 as the Magnavox Odyssey."
----------------------------------------------------------
Thus, video games were born. Here is the list of the many systems in the many generations of gaming.
First Gen
Magnavox Odyssey
Atari Pong
Coleco Telstar
APF TV Fun
Second Gen
Fairchild Channel F
RCA Studio II
1292 Advanced Programmable Video System (Radofin, a German company)
Color TV Game(Nintendo)
Atari 2600
Bally Astrocade
Magnavox Odyssey 2
APF Imagination Machine
Mattel Intellivision
Epoch Cassette Vision
Atari 5200
Milton Bradley Vectrex(
Emerson Arcadia 2001
ColecoVision(Coleco Industries)
Sega SG-1000
Handheld
Milton Bradley Microvision
Epoch Game Pocket Computer
Note: In 1979, Activision was created by disgruntled former Atari programmers. It was the first third-party developer of video games.
Third Gen, the 8-bit era
Nintendo Entertainment System/Nintendo Famicom
Sega Master System
Atari 7800
Amstrad GX4000
Commodore C64 Games System
Handhelds
Nintendo Game Boy, Play It Loud Game Boy(first with color casing)
Atari Lynx
Sega Game Gear
Fourth Gen, the 16-bit era
NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx 16(downloadable games for the Wii)
Sega Mega Drive/Genesis(Genesis also has downloadable games)
SNK Neo-Geo
Super Famicom / Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Handhelds
Virtual Boy(Nintendo)(32-bit)(First true 3-D capable system)
Game Boy Pocket(Nintendo)(First with true black and white)
Game Boy Light(Nintendo)(Backlight, only in Japan)
Note: I have never heard of Game Boys Light and Play It Loud until now, but they were major changes for Nintendo. Game Boy Light had a backlight much like an Indiglo watch, but Nintendo decided America would want color, not light. There was an option to turn off the light though. Why didn't they keep the idea for the GBC?
Fifth Gen, 32-/64-bit era
Commodore Amiga CD32
Pioneer LaserActive(compatible with other manufacturer's system's games, like the Wii[Nintendo=poser])
FM Towns Marty(Fujitsu)
3DO Interactive Multiplayer(Despite a highly-promoted launch and a host of cutting-edge technologies, the system's high price [$699.95 USD at release] and an over-saturated console market brought the 3DO to a speedy demise.)
Atari Jaguar
Sega 32x (add-on for the Genesis)
Sega Saturn(approximately 170,000 machines were sold the first day of the Japanese launch. 5,000 were sold in the weekend following the United Kingdom launch.
Sony PlayStation(I hate you)
PC FX (NEC)
Bandai Pippin
Nintendo 64(only one with cartridges)
Handhelds
Neo Geo Pocket(SNK)
Game.com(Tiger Electronics)(A touch Screen, man, Nintendo is a poser)
Wonderswan/Color(Bandai)
Game Boy Color(Nintendo)
Neo Geo Pocket Color(SNK)
Note: The more you read, the more Nintendo seems like a poser.
Sixth Gen, 128 bit-era. Hurrah, we lost all the minor companies.
Sega Dreamcast(Short-lived, I hate Sony)
Sony PlayStation 2
Nintendo GameCube
Microsoft Xbox
Handhelds, guess I was wrong about the minor companies
Nintendo Game Boy Advance
GP32(Game Park)(Rewritable disks)(Nintendo's a poser)
Nokia N-Gage(Pretty sweet, a mobile phone, music, radio)
Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP
Nokia N-Gage QD(smaller version of the N-Gage)
Game Boy Micro(Nintendo)
Note: Read last note
Seventh Gen
Xbox 360 (Microsoft)
Wii (Nintendo)
PlayStation 3 (Sony)
Handhelds
Nintendo DS(wow, two screens)
Sony PSP(wow, four light settings)
Nintendo DS Lite(Four light settings)(Poser)
Tiger Telematics Gizmondo(It had GPS, looked cool, but was discontinued)
GamePark Holdings GP2X(designed to support video, music, photos, and games in an open architecture, allowing any user to develop software for the device. Room for expansion with future upgrades has been made possible by upgradable flash memory firmware. The GP2X is able to emulate many different game systems, such as the NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Game Gear, Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis, Game Boy, PC Engine, Neo-Geo, and Neo Geo CD consoles, as well as various arcade systems)(How did it not sell as well as the DS???)
GamePark XGP(announced)
I hoped you learned something from reading this, because I definitly did learn a lot of things writing it. (It took an hour to write, so please look it through.)