Brief History of Home Video Game Consoles

[KenR]

Here is a great photographic history of video game consoles.

The Magnavox Odyssey is the first home video game console, predating the Atari PONG home consoles by three years. The Odyssey was designed by Ralph Baer, who had a working prototype finished by 1968. This prototype is affectionately known as the "Brown Box" to classic video game hobbyists. Unlike most video game consoles, the Odyssey is analog rather than digital, which makes its invention all the more amazing in spite of its rather crude graphics and controller responsiveness. Also, unlike any conventional console today, this system was powered by batteries. The Odyssey and its variants also lack sound capability (hence a silent console), which was not uncommon in early PONG systems of that era...

http://www.thegameconsole.com/

from www.stumbleupon.com

[Lashiec]

Fairly interesting

[mouser]

And now you can see lots of historical television commercials where these videogames were released:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128295-page,1-c,gameconsoles/article.html

[Lashiec]

Good!

[Deozaan]

Hooray for the Intellivision! My family's first home console!