Simon (game)
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| Type | Electronic game |
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| Inventor | Ralph H. Baer and Howard J. Morrison |
| Company | Milton Bradley |
| Country | United States |
| Availability | 1978–Present |
| Slogan | Simon's a computer, Simon has a brain, you either do what Simon says or else go down the drain |
| Official website | |
Simon is an electronic game of memory skill invented by Ralph H. Baer and Howard J. Morrison, with software programming by Lenny Cope, The device creates a series of tones and lights and requires a user to repeat the series. If the user succeeds the series becomes progressively longer and more complex. Once the user fails, the game is over. The original version was manufactured and distributed by Milton Bradley but after they went out of business, the product was taken over by Hasbro. Much of the assembly language was written by Dr. Charles Kapps, who taught computer science at Temple University and also wrote one of the first books on the theory of computer programming. Simon was launched in 1978 at Studio 54 in New York City and was an immediate success, becoming a pop culture symbol of the 1970s and 1980s.
Ralph H. Baer and Howard J. Morrison were first introduced to Atari's game Touch Me at the Music Operators of America (MOA) trade show in 1976. Baer said of the product, "Nice gameplay. Terrible execution. Visually boring. Miserable, rasping sounds." The original prototype, built by Baer, included the Texas Instruments TMS 1000 microprocessor chip, which was low cost and used by many games of the 1970s. Lenny Cope, who was one of Ralph H. Baer's partners, worked on the programming code for the core of the game, titled Follow Me at the time. Baer developed the tones of the game, inspired by the notes of a bugle. It was when they pitched the demo, an 8-inch-by-8-inch console, to the Milton Bradley Company that the name of the game was changed to Simon. Simon debuted in 1978 at the cost of $24.95 (equivalent to $92 in 2016) and became one of the top selling toys that Christmas. The corresponding U.S. patent, No. 4,207,087: "Microcomputer controlled game", was obtained in 1980. Milton Bradley soon capitalized on the original with both the smaller sized Pocket Simon and the expanded, eight-button Super Simon.
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