Ralph Baer, the man behind the launch of a video game revolution, left for the heavenly abode at the age of 92.
The news of his death was confirmed by his family. He breathed his last at his home in Manchester, New Hampshire.
In 1966, Baer was employed with a defense contractor as an engineer. This was the time when he started thinking of playing games on a television.
Baer, who is considered as the inventor of the first video game, is credited for converting the home television sets into virtual consoles. His immense contribution has paved the way for various similar offerings from tech bigwigs including Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.
He was granted the copyright for his first video game patent in April 1973.
With over 150 American and foreign patents, Baer went creative with almost everything from talking doormats to greeting cards to submarine tracking systems.
He was honored with the National Medal of Technology by the then President George W. Bush inn 2006. Four years later in 2010, the veteran was admitted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
The twitteratis took to the micro blogging site Twitter to extend their grief to the father of video games. Here are some of the tweets:
So sad to hear of Ralph Baer’s passing. I had reached out to him via email to narrate our opening film at Game Awards last week 🙁
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) December 8, 2014
Dear Ralph H. Baer: Thank you for everything. #RIP http://t.co/5G4fYisFTE
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) December 7, 2014
Sad to hear about the passing of Ralph Baer he created one of the very first playable home consoles pic.twitter.com/F41ydpfPPV
— Matt Ng (@yingfo18) December 7, 2014
RIP Ralph Baer, father of console gaming. I’m so happy I got to work with him on a project recently. The definition of inventor.
— Mike Mika (@MikeJMika) December 7, 2014
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