With Simon, Baer found himself on the other side of the story. At the center of the controversy were the video game prototypes invented by Ralph Baer. Years earlier, Atari was sued for patent rights infringement. An instance success, the game reached its peak during the 1980s and continued to sell for decades thereafter.īaer was very careful to document in his patent application that Simon was based on Atari’s Touch Me, given his past history with the company. Simon was released by Milton Bradley in 1978 with much fanfare, including a midnight release party at Studio 54, the elite disco in New York City. So, Simon would play those same four bugle notes. He discovered that the bugle can only plays four notes. He and Morrison both felt that one of Touch Me’s main failings was that its sounds were unpleasant.īut how to choose four notes that could be played in any sequence and not hurt the ears? Baer found the answer while looking through his children’s Compton's Encyclopedia. Baer was aware that choosing Simon’s four tones was a critical decision. Players had to be able to repeat an increasingly long string of tones that Simon created. Like Touch Me, Simon had four different colored buttons. The two set about creating a handheld game around the same concept. Both agreed that while the execution of the arcade game was horrible, the game itself-trying to repeat a musical sequence the machine created-was worthy of exploration. Baer and Howard Morrison, a partner at Marvin Glass, first saw Touch Me at a trade show in 1976. Named for the children’s game of “Simon Says,” the game was inspired by an Atari arcade game called Touch Me. The best-known result of this partnership was Simon. Baer’s job was to develop electronic toys and games. In 1975, Baer started an independent consulting business and began to work in association with Marvin Glass & Associates in Chicago, the toy design firm responsible for some of the most successful American toys of the 20th century. Inventor Ralph Baer is best known for developing the first video game system, but he accomplished far more. The Father of the Video Game was also the inventor of Simon.
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