Simon Electronic Game, 1978
date: label: Date made
content: 1978
name: label: inventor
content: Baer, Ralph H.
label: manufacturer
content: Milton Bradley Company
notes: label: Description
content: The Father of the Video Game was also the inventor of Simon.
label: Description
content: Inventor Ralph Baer is best known for developing the<a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1301997"> first video game system</a>, but he accomplished far more. 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. Baer’s job was to develop electronic toys and games. The best-known result of this partnership was Simon.
label: Description
content: Named for the children’s game of “Simon Says,” the game was inspired by an Atari arcade game called <i>Touch Me</i>. Baer and Howard Morrison, a partner at Marvin Glass, first saw <i>Touch Me</i> at a trade show in 1976. 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. The two set about creating a handheld game around the same concept.
label: Description
content: Like <i>Touch Me</i>, Simon had four different colored buttons. Each button played a unique note. Players had to be able to repeat an increasingly long string of tones that Simon created. If you got the order wrong, you lost. Baer was aware that choosing Simon’s four tones was a critical decision. He and Morrison both felt that one of <i>Touch Me</i>’s main failings was that its sounds were unpleasant.
label: Description
content: But 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 <i>Compton's Encyclopedia</i>. He discovered that the bugle can only plays four notes. So, Simon would play those same four bugle notes.
label: Description
content: 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. An instance success, the game reached its peak during the 1980s and continued to sell for decades thereafter.
label: Description
content: Baer was very careful to document in his patent application that Simon was based on Atari’s <i>Touch Me</i>, given his past history with the company. Years earlier, Atari was sued for patent rights infringement. At the center of the controversy were the video game prototypes invented by Ralph Baer. With Simon, Baer found himself on the other side of the story. His patent was to protect his innovations, rather than an original game idea.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Computers
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content: Popular Entertainment
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content: Baer
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content: Family & Social Life
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content: Computers & Business Machines
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Baer, Ralph H.. Videogames: In The Beginning
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Ralph H. Baer
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2006.0102.09
label: catalog number
content: 2006.0102.09
label: accession number
content: 2006.0102
objectType: label: Object Name
content: microprocessor-control game
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: plastic (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 in x 10 1/2 in; 7.62 cm x 26.67 cm