Comments on: VC&G Interview: Bill Harrison, The First Video Game Hardware Guru

Comment on VC&G Interview: Bill Harrison, The First Video Game Hardware Guru by: Laurie

Sat, 25 Sep 2010 01:42:46 +0000

Dear Benj ~
Thanks for your kind remarks.
After I posted my comments, I had the pleasure of reading your article entitled Video Games Turn 40, in which you did offer much more detail about my father's contributions to Odyssey.
I tried to delete my comment about Mr. Harrison not remembering for sure if my father invented the ping-pong game, but wasn't able to. So, I wrote that subsequent remark saying it was a long time ago. Since Mr. Harrison worked on other projects through the years, unless he has a photographic memory it would be hard to remember every detail about the Odyssey project.
Thanks for calling my brother Jim a brilliant inventor, but you meant to credit my father William. As you know, though, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
As Mr. Harrison said, my father was a colorful character. He could be difficult, but could also be kind: playing the flute at a senior center for Christmas, bringing a paraplegic boy in a wheelchair to the beach with us often, and giving a little girl at the bank he didn't know some money to put in her savings account.
His nonconformist attitude to life led him to do things like ski down the main street of our hometown to church in a blizzard and put a motor on a bicycle, so he could ride quite a distance from our home to Nashua for work, sans pedaling. He lived life on his own terms. Laurie P.S. You write well. My father would have liked that, as he was a strict grammarian!

Comment on VC&G Interview: Bill Harrison, The First Video Game Hardware Guru by: Benj Edwards

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 12:25:03 +0000

It's good to hear from you, Laurie. I still agree that your father doesn't get enough credit. I would have loved to include more information on his contributions to the project, but since he is sadly no longer with us, I had to go with information from the only two living men who were involved in video game design at Sanders: Baer and Harrison. As you mentioned, I also spoke with you and your brother for background. In my article on 1UP from 2007, I do give your father ample credit for his amazing designs. I'll quote a passage that mentions his creation of Ping-Pong:

In October, Rusch hit upon a brilliant idea: He added a third, machine-controlled spot to the games. This simple addition proved to be a pivotal contribution to the development of video games, one for which he later received an important patent. Rusch then took this idea one step further and treated the third spot as a "ball" that could be used in games like soccer, hockey, and Ping-Pong. The first two player-controlled spots would then function as "paddles" that could manipulate the movement of the ball. Ping-Pong was born -- a game that would later start a national craze in the form of Atari's Pong. Rusch scribbled down the design of Ping-Pong, complete with illustrations of the game field and play mechanics, on October 18, 1967.

There is also a sidebar on page three that compares "Rusch's Ping-Pong" to "Higinbotham's Tennis for Two." As for Mr. Harrison's recollections -- 40 years is a long time, and before I interviewed him here, he had never been interviewed about his work on video games and had not reflected much about those events since the 1970s, so his memories were obviously fuzzy (I am still very grateful for his participation). Jim Rusch was a brilliant inventor, and yes, he was the designer of the first Ping Pong video game. I had planned a separate article about him back in 2007, but it got lost in the shuffle at the time. Perhaps it's time to revisit that idea.

Comment on VC&G Interview: Bill Harrison, The First Video Game Hardware Guru by: Laurie

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 06:48:53 +0000

As Odyssey was invented so long ago, perhaps Mr. Harrison forgot exactly what contributions my father made. Mr. Edwards, if you had researched your article more thoroughly, you would have found an enormous amount of information about my father on-line, including an article that deems his patents on the ping-pong game to be among the 10 most important patents of all time.

Comment on VC&G Interview: Bill Harrison, The First Video Game Hardware Guru by: Laurie

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 06:27:53 +0000

P.S. I spoke with the author, Benj Edwards, before he wrote this story. He also spoke to my brother. Mr. Edwards told me he thought my father hadn't received enough credit for his contribution to Odyssey. However; in his article I think the author focused almost exclusively on Baer and Harrison. I didn't appreciate that in introducing my father in the article he said he was known to be difficult to work with. I am putting this nicely. As my Dad often said, "Don't talk about me when I'm gone." Mr. Edwards, my father was a witty, extraordinary person. Your article didn't do him justice.

Comment on VC&G Interview: Bill Harrison, The First Video Game Hardware Guru by: Laurie

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 06:14:50 +0000

I was Bill Rusch's daughter. I can tell everyone unequivocally it was my father who invented the ping-pong game, which is widely considered the important launching point for the video game era. Baer and Harrison were at a standstill until my brilliant father joined their team. He had several patents for Odyssey in his name. His handwritten notes for this and an amplifier invention are in the Smithsonian Museum. It's sad that Bill Harrison, whom my father thought of as a friend, says he guesses my father was responsible for the ping-pong game. I also think it's unfortunate that my father, who died in 1993, seems to get little credit for his tremendous contribution to the Odyssey game. As the article says, he was a little different, but one of the smartest, most talented people I have ever known. He is featured in Time/Life Book of Geniuses.

Comment on VC&G Interview: Bill Harrison, The First Video Game Hardware Guru by: Adam White

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 05:53:46 +0000

Yea i am the Great nephew of Bill and Danny is my cousin. and Uncle Bill never told me that he is the reason i don't have a life. he never even talked about it. it was my mom that told me. after reading this, i want to talk to him about it. and as Dan said, Uncle Bill is a humble man.

Comment on VC&G Interview: Bill Harrison, The First Video Game Hardware Guru by: Daniel C. Harrison

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:31:33 +0000

As Bill Harrison's second son, I can tell KitsuneDarkStalker that his guess is "on the money". My Dad has always been a very humble person and more interested in people than things.

Comment on VC&G Interview: Bill Harrison, The First Video Game Hardware Guru by: Jason Scott

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 13:50:17 +0000

An absolutely excellent and complete interview. Why did you watermark 40+ year old photographs?

Comment on VC&G Interview: Bill Harrison, The First Video Game Hardware Guru by: lucas2600b

Wed, 23 May 2007 00:58:48 +0000

What a great interview! It's great to hear that Ralph Baer was such a great person, and such an impact in Bill's life. the short of it, it's good to know that the forefather of video games wasn't an ass .
It's very common in the early video game industry that the most inventive, and greatest game creators/developers were not so into video games as a hobby. The important thing is that Ralph and Bill were there to make these games, and create a very enjoyable hobby that has flourished through the years.

Comment on VC&G Interview: Bill Harrison, The First Video Game Hardware Guru by: KitsuneDarkStalker

Thu, 17 May 2007 02:34:51 +0000

I think that half of his "not caring" was modesty, and the other half is just not realizing how much of an impact he has had on the gaming industry.

Can't fault him for it though, he's interesting to learn about.

Great interview as always, Benj!