TV Game Unit #8, 1968
date: label: Date made
content: 1968
name: label: patent holder
content: Baer, Ralph H.
label: inventor
content: Baer, Ralph H.
notes: label: Description
content: What do you do after you invent the video game? Try to make it better!
label: Description
content: While preparing their video game system prototype, the <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1301997">“Brown Box”</a> to be presented to potential investors, Ralph Baer and his colleague Bill Harrison created TV Game Unit #8. They wanted to demonstrate a more advanced technology that would allow the user’s paddle to determine, in the direction and speed of the game ball, when the two would collide. This would allow for games such as baseball and more realistic hockey game play.
label: Description
content: This TV Game Unit #8 interfaced with the "Brown Box," but proved too expensive to pursue in these early stages. Since it was not going to be shown to investors just yet, it was never covered with brown wood grain self-adhesive vinyl to match the "Brown Box." A few years later, this technology was key when Baer and his colleagues started to design and build arcade games.
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
label: See more items in
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: 2006.0102.07
label: catalog number
content: 2006.0102.07
label: accession number
content: 2006.0102
objectType: label: Object Name
content: game chassis
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: aluminum (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 1/4 in x 12 1/4 in x 10 1/4 in; 8.255 cm x 31.115 cm x 26.035 cm