He invented the light pen, the matching game "Simon" and the Magnavox Odyssey among other things and started up what some of us are involved with today or thinking about being involved with.

RIP Ralph Baer (3/8/1922-12/6/2014)

https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1673

Baer’s Odyssey: Meet the serial inventor who built the world’s first game console

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/12/i ... e-console/

Ralph Baer, father of home video game console, dies at 92

http://www.cnet.com/news/ralph-baer-fat ... ies-at-92/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_H._Baer

There is a lot of interesting history in here. The Magnavox Odyssey didn't have sound or use a CPU. It was analog. Ralph Baer wanted to add sound but they rejected that notion. He wanted to sell the Odyssey for $20 but Magnavox wanted to sell it for $100 so Atari got ahead. Magnavox sued companies over 20 years and got $100 million due to patent infringement. There are some really interesting stories here.