The Magnavox Odyssey is the first commercial home video game console. It consists of a white, black, and brown box that connects to a television set, and two controllers attached by wires. It can display three square dots and one line on the screen in monochrome black and white; players place plastic overlays on the screen to display additional visual elements. Ralph H. Baer conceived the console in August 1966 and his team at Sanders Associates developed it. Magnavox agreed to produce it in January 1971 and released it in September 1972, selling 69,000 units in its first calendar year and 350,000 by its discontinuation in 1975. A series of lawsuits spanning 20 years, based on patents for the system and its games by Baer and the other developers, earned Sanders and Magnavox over US$100 million. Its release marked the beginning of the first generation of video game consoles and spawned the Odyssey series, which includes a set of dedicated consoles and the 1978 Magnavox Odyssey 2. (Full article...)