Magnavox
Magnavox ( Latin loud voice ) is an electronics manufacturer founded in 1917 and part of Philips since 1974 . Magnavox became particularly famous for the development of the first video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey . Most recently, the company has been engaged in the sale of home theater systems, flat screen televisions, smart TVs as well as Blu-ray and DVD players under the brand name Magnavox , with the production of the products being taken over by the Japanese company Funai Electric .
founding
Magnavox was founded in 1917 by Edwin Pridham and Peter L. Jensen . In 1915, Pridham and Jensen jointly developed a voice coil loudspeaker , hence the name Magnavox.
Entry into the video game market
In the mid-1960s, Ralph Baer and a small staff technician developed the first video game console. They simply called the system Home TV Games . In 1968 they got the first video game patent for it. The console included some games, including a. Ping pong, football and volleyball.
Bill Benders saw the system at a home TV game demonstration and was thrilled. When Benders became Vice President of Magnavox in 1970, he enforced the licensing of the console, which was then released in 1972 under the name Odyssey .
The graphical representation of the system was very simple: only points could be represented. However, there were plenty of extras, such as B. stencils that have been glued to the screen to represent the playing field, or a pad to note the score.
According to Baer, around 360,000 devices were sold. For Magnavox, this was a rather disappointing result, as the device had been launched on the market with a large advertising campaign (including with Frank Sinatra ).
Odyssey II
In 1978 the Odyssey II appeared. Even when it was released, the device was not up to date and the paragraphs left a lot to be desired. Only in Europe ( marketed there as the Philips Videopac G7000 ) did the Odyssey II have great success. A total of around 1,000,000 devices were sold. Magnavox was far behind Atari , which sold around 30 million units with its Atari 2600. Then the Odyssey III was developed, but it was never published.
Magnavox withdrew from the video game market and focused again on developing home theater systems. Since Magnavox also owned the patent for video game devices with the Odyssey console, many lawsuits were later brought against various companies, all of which were won. Among other things, Magnavox received $ 700,000 from Atari.
Innovations
- 1958 : high fidelity stereo headphones
- 1961 : Videomatic, an "electronic eye" that reacts to the brightness of the room and automatically adjusts the television picture
- 1983 : Introduction of the CD on the US market
- 1986 : Universal remote control for televisions and video recorders
- 1992 : Smart Sound, also known as "Automatic Volume Control"
- 1993 : Remote Locator: When the TV is switched on, the remote control beeps to make it easier to find it.
