11-16-2006, 10:05 AM
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| Moderator Staff
Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Hot Springs Arkansas
Posts: 20,802
Tokenz: 12,135 |  A history of video game industry
Quote:
It’s a $27.5 billion industry, but the modern video game industry had a humble beginning.
In 1966, a New Hampshire engineer named Ralph Baer who worked for a defense contractor making electronics for the military came up with the breakthrough that got video games out of the lab and into the living room.
The answer was right in front of him -- right in front of everybody.
Looking at his TV, he began wondering what you could do with a TV besides watch "My Three Sons?"
"And I scribbled some notes,” said Baer, “and wrote a four-page paper. That was the Magna Carta of the whole video game business. It's all there."
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By the 1970s, improvements in computing made widespread development of video games possible. But no one at Atari was prepared for the game that would put the new company on the map.
It all started when computer scientist turned entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell hired a young engineer named Al Alcorn and gave him an exercise to get his feet wet in game design.
"The idea was to build a video game that was the simplest possible thing you could think of," said Alcorn. “So I just went to Walgreen's Drug Store and bought a $75 black-and-white TV."
| CNBC Special: A history of video game industry - CNBC TV - MSNBC.com |
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