Interestingly, I just received an email from William Higinbotham's son yesterday. He wrote to tell me a couple things:
1. I spelled his Dad's name wrong in my interview with Ralph Baer (it's Higinbotham not Higginbotham)
2. To make sure that I knew that Refer to his Dad's game as something other than a "video game" Here is what he said:
"People refer my father's game as a video game. Video is a term used in association with TVs raster display and I get the feeling that Baer does not like the term to be used loosely"
Baer is an inventor and very much into patents. I'm sure the above was to protect his patent on Pong. If Higinbotham had created a "video game" then Baer's patent would be null because there would have been prior art. I guess Baer wanted to to be called a "scope game"?
Bill,
Interestingly, I just received an email from William Higinbotham's son yesterday. He wrote to tell me a couple things:
1. I spelled his Dad's name wrong in my interview with Ralph Baer (it's Higinbotham not Higginbotham)
2. To make sure that I knew that Refer to his Dad's game as something other than a "video game" Here is what he said:
"People refer my father's game as a video game. Video is a term used in association with TVs raster display and I get the feeling that Baer does not like the term to be used loosely"
Baer is an inventor and very much into patents. I'm sure the above was to protect his patent on Pong. If Higinbotham had created a "video game" then Baer's patent would be null because there would have been prior art. I guess Baer wanted to to be called a "scope game"?
-Steve