Simon: How Ralph Baer Turned an Atari Flop Into a Toy Sensation

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

In 1978 Milton Bradley launched a beeping plastic saucer at Studio 54, the most exclusive nightclub in New York. The toy was Simon, and its origin lay in someone else's failure. At a 1976 trade show, inventors Ralph H. Baer and Howard J. Morrison of Marvin Glass and Associates saw Touch Me, an Atari arcade memory game with four identical black buttons and harsh, rasping sounds. Baer liked the gameplay and hated everything else about it.

This episode explains how they rebuilt the idea around a friendlier interface. Their prototype, first called Follow Me, ran on the Texas Instruments TMS 1000, one of the first computers on a chip, with software by Lenny Cope. Baer tuned the four tones to the notes of a bugle, so any random sequence would sound like music instead of punishment. Priced at $24.95, Simon sold 1.5 million units by 1979 and has kept changing its interface ever since.

• The game tests working memory, which psychologists have long described as holding about seven items, plus or minus two, before a sequence collapses.
• The classic model plays an A major triad in second inversion: E, C sharp, A, and a second E. Some early 1978 units used a B flat minor triad that collectors now seek out.
• Clones followed quickly, including Nintendo's Flagman and Castle Toy's Einstein. In 2001 the same memory mechanic even appeared in a Harry Potter wand that players tilted on command.
• In 1978 Atari released a handheld Touch Me with colored buttons, musical tones, and Simon's circular layout, with the colors flipped. The originator had become the imitator.
• Later versions track changing interfaces: eight buttons on Super Simon in 1979, touch surfaces on Simon Swipe in 2014, motion sensing on Simon Air in 2016, and a wearable headset, Simon Optix, in 2017.