The Pump Unit, 1967
date: label: Date made
content: 1967
name: label: patent holder
content: Baer, Ralph H.
label: inventor
content: Baer, Ralph H.
notes: label: Description
content: The first video games were played on this machine.
label: Description
content: With the use of changing screen color and moving dots, TV Game Unit #2 allowed two players to compete against each other in seven different games. These games included a variety of chase games, a target-shooting game, and games that required the wooden handle attached to the unit’s lower right hand corner (see photograph). The handle was moved up and down, like a pump, in the course of certain games. In honor of this unusual game play, TV Game Unit #2 was rechristened “The Pump Unit.”
label: Description
content: Baer and his team demonstrated the "Pump Unit" to Sanders senior management on June 15, 1967. The presentation was successful and now the team had a new goal: to turn this technology into a commercially viable product. After a few years and numerous test and advancements, Baer and his team delivered the “Brown Box,”[hyperlink] a prototype for the first multiplayer, multiprogram video game system. It would be licensed to Magnavox, who released the system as the <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1302004">Magnavox Odyssey</a> in 1972.
label: Description
content: Like all the Ralph Baer prototypes, the "Pump Unit" was later used as evidence in many patent infringement cases. It still bears many of the court exhibit labels left over from these trials, as can be seen from the photograph.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Computers
label: See more items in
content: Popular Entertainment
label: See more items in
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: Ralph H. Baer
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2006.0102.03
label: accession number
content: 2006.0102
label: catalog number
content: 2006.0102.03
objectType: label: Object Name
content: game chassis
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: aluminum (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (handle material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 1/2 in x 19 in x 14 in; 16.51 cm x 48.26 cm x 35.56 cm