Free Videogames: In The Beginning Curated By Ralph H. Baer Viewable As Text

would give this book one star out of five if it didn't provide at least SOME interesting historical information about the advent of videogames in thes ands.
Unfortunately, Ralph Baer seems to be the most megalomaniacal person in the history of the industry, as most of this entire book consists of him insisting ad nauseum that he is indeed the "father of videogames," raising the question of who else is really laying claim to that title in the first place besides Nolan Bushnell of course, who Ralph Baer obviously hates and wants to murder judging by his childish comments about Bushnell in the manuscript.


The book started out innocuous enough, but the bone that Baer has to pick with those who would deny him his crown of "most amazing person ever" makes itself clear all too quickly.
As the book goes on, it seems as if he gets even more selfobsessed and selfcongratulatory, as if he's beginning to lose himself in delusions of grandeur.
Granted, he IS the person who is most likely the rightful inventor of what we consider to be the modern videogame, but the story is clearly more complicated than what Baer makes it out to be.
And nevermind that sometimes "first" doesn't equal "best, " And also nevermind that while other people were taking the concept of videogames and running with it to produce more and more interesting pieces of programming, Baer was too busy hounding Magnavox to sue everyone on the planet for violating his first videogame patent the "pioneer patent of the videogame industry" according to a judge, as Baer will remind you fifteen thousand times over the course of his story.


I was ready to

give this a liberal three and call it a day until I got to the appendices, . . That's where Baer's selfobsession really begins to manifest itself, Multiple longwinded side notes about nothing in particular, including footnotes and bibliographical references to personal notekeeping that none of us have any access to and therefore are unable to follow up on, are included here, evidently in some bizarre attempt to establish more credibility "No, see guys, I did invent videogames! My notes from thes prove it!".
Even more laughable is the appendix detailing Ralph Baer's "firsts," which starts off with the "pioneer patent of the videogame industry" which is all well and good, but then devolves into his claiming that almost every conceivable contraption he had a hand in creating from that point on should also rightfully be considered a first.
He even claims that he was the first person to create "a line of talking children's toys shaped like tools," as if that's perhaps going to be some huge industry someday that no one has had the real foresight to cash in on yet.
It's around this point that everything becomes absolutely absurd and you realize that for the past few days you've been reading the rantings of an insane old man who is clinging desperately to his one great accomplishment in an attempt to remain culturally relevant and leave a lasting impact on the world.


I'm certainly glad that Ralph Baer came up with the concept of videogames when he did, or else we may not have the videogames that we have today, not in this form at least.
But I remain confident that somebody would have picked up on the idea eventually in fact, multiple people had stumbled onto some form of the concept of their own accord in thes, although Baer is quick to dismiss all of them as pretenders to the throne of invention that only he could possibly occupy.
So I guess what I mean to say is that I'm glad that videogames were invented and it's fortunate that the timing worked out like it did.
Probably the only unfortunate part is that Baer makes his admittedly impressive achievements into nothing but a silly joke by writing the kind of childish opinionated drivel seen in this autobiography.
Worth reading for the laughs, and also for the factual data that's sandwiched in between the author's unfortunate ravings, You don't often think about it, but Autobiographies are the perfect example of unreliable narrators in literature, The author's memories of the occasions are often colored by their perceptions and views, and the end result will be skewed in their favor, I noticed it quite a bit in this autobiography of Ralph Baer, the 'true' father of home console gaming, The book is very dry, focusing on technical details and a business internal politics, with gaming being more of a setting than a focus, There's also a fair bit of recrimination and negativity around people who 'failed' because they didn't buy into Baer's vision, To be fair, he was definitely a visionary and did develop a large number of patents and innovations that drove the video game industry, but there's also a fair bit of sour grapes in here that didn't paint him in the best light.
And I have to admit, I gave up in Appendix E or so, just too dryly technical for me to focus on, It's interesting if you really care about the nuts and bolts of the original video game systems, but if you have only a casual interest in gaming, this is not for you.
This book goes into a lot of technical detail which is probably very interesting to engineers but rendered some passages unintelligible to me,

A bigger problem is that the author obviously feels aggrieved that Nolan Bushnell is generally credited with inventing videogames, and repeatedly shows that this is wrong by listing all the evidence that proves his case.
A single explanation of this would have sufficed, and the endless repetition left me feeling very unsympathetic toward him, magnavox suxs, atari rulez!!! A fascinating insight into the beginnings of video game technology by the man who helped invent the technology in the first place.
A bit jabbing at Nolan Bushnell, but that's not entirely surprising, Loved the detail and diagrams, and the fight about who came up with the first video games, THE REAL STORY BEHIND VIDEOGAMES Long before there was a Sony Playstation, Microsoft Xbox or Nintendo Gamecube, there was the Magnavox Odyssey, the worlds first home videogame console.
But the story of videogames predates the Odyssey by six years, It begins inwhen a television engineer named Ralph H, Baer sat down at a New York bus station and entered history, Videogames: In The Beginning is Ralph H, Baers account of how todaysbillion per year videogame industry began, A meticulous note keeper, Baer presents in his own words the real story of what led to the Odyssey and beyond, But he doesnt end there, In this book Baer also examines other products that he has worked on such as Simon, the most popular electronic toy ever created, He also discusses his pioneering work into early forms of CDROMs and digital imagery, Whether you are a student of videogame design, a game player, or a fan of inventions and history, you are sure to find Baers history fascinating and informative.
Included in this book are: The actual fourpage treatise that Baer presented to his employers Original schematics and photos of the first videogame prototypes Original top secret internal notes and memos Original United States patents.