Ralph Baer, the engineer considered the father of the video game died on 6 December at age 92. He invented the “Brown Box” in 1966, a hardware-based prototype game system that plugged in to your television.
Baer received the IEEE Edison Medal this year, the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2006, was inducted into the U.S. National Inventors Halls of Fame in 2010 among other awards. Oddly enough, he was only elevated to the rank of IEEE Fellow in 2013.
For the whole story of Baer’s fascinating life and inventions see an obituary in our sister publication The Institute.
Samuel K. Moore is the senior editor at IEEE Spectrum in charge of semiconductors coverage. An IEEE member, he has a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from Brown University and a master's degree in journalism from New York University.
