023. The Gamer of Manchester

We take a seat along the banks of the Merrimack River in Manchester NH where we meet the Father of the ...

Transcript

Hello and welcome to another episode of the New England on a Pedestal podcast. I am your host, Doug Farquharson.  If you have returned after listening to previous episodes, thanks for sticking with us! We purposefully design each episode of our podcast to be a stand-alone chapter in the story of New England as told through its many and varied statues, sculptures, memorials, and monuments. And we hope that once you have heard one of our podcasts, you’ll be inspired to take a listen to our other episodes. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to us through your favorite podcast platform and consider leaving a review for us. It will go a long way in helping us reach more listeners and expanding our audience. Thank you!
The 117-mile-long Merrimack River begins where the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers meet and flows south into Massachusetts where it turns generally northeast and flows towards the Atlantic. Haha, if you shorten the three river names, they sound like three daughters of some old time farmer or something. They’d be Merri, Pemi ,and Winnie. Anyhow, it passes through various towns and cities along its journey to the sea. Many of them once used the energy of its flowing waters to power mills and factories. Most of those have long since shut down and many have been converted to other uses. There are also walking and bike paths along its banks and parks to enjoy. You can sometimes find someone taking a seat on a park bench and striking up a conversation with someone sitting nearby. Do this in Manchester’s Arms Park at 10 Arms Street along a heritage trail that passes the banks of the mighty Merrimack, and you may find yourself sharing a bench with Ralph Baer and his small handheld box. So who is Mr. Baer? Why does he have his own bench? Why’s he so quiet? And what’s up with that silly little box he’s holding on to? For those answers, we’re going to have to look back a whole bunch of years.
Baer was born in Germany in 1922. Due to Nazi persecution of Jews, his family moved to America in 1938 and settled in New York City. He later became a naturalized citizen of the United States. While taking the bus to his low wage factory job, he saw an ad for a school teaching courses in the budding electronics field. He graduated in 1940. World War II broke out and he was drafted in 1943. He wound up working in military intelligence in England and eventually returned to the States after the war in 1946. According to his entry on Wikipedia, “With his secondary education funded by the G.I. Bill, Baer graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Television Engineering, which was unique at the time, from the American Television Institute of Technology in Chicago in 1949.” Over the years, Baer worked as an engineer for various companies and worked on a variety of projects in the electro-medical realm and in power line communications equipment. He eventually found himself in New Hampshire working for a company that designed and manufactured electronic signaling equipment for military applications. Out of this work came the concepts for something he would become much more famous for and become known as the father of the… Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves yet. We’ll get to that.
As far back as the 1950s and well into the 60s, Baer had been interested in and exploring using televisions for uses other than watching the news and the latest made for TV movie. The military, who was a major customer of the firms he worked for was very interested in using TV screens combined with other technologies. As prices of the average television set came down drastically and they found their way into more and more homes, Baer worked on these ideas until he eventually came up with the idea of turning your living room boob tube into a gaming console. Initially, the idea was pooh-poohed and didn’t gain any traction. That all changed in 1972 when he and his team of two other engineers went to patent their brown box, so called because of the faux wood grain tape they used to hold the small box together. There’s a story that says that within fifteen minutes of showing off the box controlling a game on the tv in the patent examiner’s office, every single examiner on that floor was crammed into the small office to give this invention a try. It was granted a patent on April 17, 1973.  He had been seeking a buyer for this technology for some time. Magnavox was interested and bought in. The Odyssey was released and Pong, an early table tennis based video game quickly became popular. Thus the video game console was born. Today, it’s obviously a multi billion dollar industry. Baer also invented the color matching game, Simon and other hand held electronic games. He received over 150 patents during his lifetime. Of course, as with anything in life, others have challenged him as being the father of the game console, but most agree that Ralph Baer indeed created what would eventually morph into today’s various video came consoles and controllers. He was awarded many and varied honors from industry giants and has been recognized by private and public entities as well.
As for why New England on a Pedestal finds ourselves sitting on a bench with him in Manchester, NH? Well, in 2019, this statue was dedicated and opened to the public in the city he called home for many years. It is a park bench with a life sized rendition of Baer sitting at one end dressed as I imagine he did while working in a sleeveless sweater vest, shirt and tie with his sleeves rolled up. In his hands is the famous brown box and a pleasant smile lights up his face. You can almost hear him happily explaining how it came about while you sit next to him and watch the Merrimack flow past you. A Kickstarter campaign raised funds for the sculpture and Concept Realizations, a 3D design, 3D scanning, fabrication and consulting firm in California did the work creating this piece of public art. Rather than the more traditional process of making plaster versions of a statue and then turning those into wax molds and eventually casting a bronze final piece, a modern process utilizing 3D printing of various sections and then assembling them into a mold prior to casting the final piece was used resulting in a less expensive and quicker unveiling. All in all, a cool tribute to a little known pop culture inventor!
As we mentioned before, the concept behind New England on a Pedestal is rather simple. Travel around our six-state area, find some interesting statues, and discuss them. We have a growing database of statues, sculptures, monuments, and memorials that we will be covering over time, but we certainly do not know all of them. That is where you can assist us. Shoot us an email at newenglandonapedestal@farqie.com and tell us about a favorite or unique or odd statue that you know. If you have additional information or maybe a correction about something we have already shared, please send it our way and perhaps we will add an addendum to a later episode. Know a New England based sculptor with a story to tell? Have them reach out to us. 
We would love to hear from you. Let us know what you think. What are we doing right? What can we do better? We can be reached via email at newenglandonapedestal@farqie.com. That’s New England on a Pedestal all one word at F A R Q I E dot com.  Go to Facebook and like the New England on a Pedestal page. Follow us on Instagram. We post pictures and links on those social media platforms from time to time. 
As always, I want to thank Jake, Sam, Jason, and Bekka for their talents and help with this little adventure and especially you, the listener, for hanging with us. 
Join us again when we head to another New England town to dig into some local history there. Until next time, be safe, be well, be kind and keep discovering. Thanks for listening!