Manchester NH Video Game Pioneer Honored With Statue

According to a story in the Concord Monitor, video game pioneer and New Hampshire native Ralph Baer will be honored a few years after his death with a statue in Manchester's Millyard.

The report says that Ralph worked as Chief Engineer for Sanders Associates, now BAE Systems in Nashua and his basement lab has been recreated at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington!  He was the inventor of the precursor to Pong, the very first video game for many and the creator of Simon, the memory game.

I am from Nashua and there were a LOT of kids that got an internship, then got jobs at Sanders Associates on Canal Street in Nashua when I was in high school.  It was one of the biggest employers of that time.  It never registered with me that such genius programs were coming out of that building.  That's the thing about Engineers -  they are usually quietly brilliant and have the ability to change the world.

Pong and Simon were two of my favorite games and I JUST BOUGHT a brand new Simon not long ago because I missed having one in my life.

Thanks for the memory work-out, Mr. Baer!