Overview
In the late 1960s, a German immigrant to the USA named Ralph Baer came up with the idea of the first video game. After presenting it to several companies, Magnavox licensed it from him and made him develop it into the first video games console. This machine is what began the industry we have today.

It featured removable games cartridges, although these were not ROMs by any means. Instead, they re-routed the electrical signals in the machine to adjust how the machine worked. It was only capable of drawing a few objects - a ball, paddles, and a dividing line - but somehow using just these, and some coloured overlays which fitted over the TV screen, (not to mention some additional pieces such as poker chips which the player used in addition to their controls), 12 games were made. There was even a light rifle available!

Models
The original Odyssey came in two models, coded BLAK and BK12. Only very minor differences seperate them. However, following the creation of the "Pong" arcade game by Atari, the system's creator (Baer) decided to improve his system. He added scoring, sound, colour (which had been removed from the prototype Odyssey due to the expense) and more graphical features, such as additional players in the American Football game. These improved models were the Odyssey 200, 400 and 500. Additional models, the 300, 2000, 3000, and 4000 were based around an entirely different General Instruments chip.

Technical Specifications
Because the microprocessor had only been developed by Intel the year before, it would have been ludicrously expensive to use them in the Odyssey. Instead, simple modules were used, which were reprogrammed by the game cards (really big jumpers to you and me). These modules were:
Spot generators (for creating a rectangle for each player's character, the central line, and the background)
Sync generators and RF modules (for generating some parts of the TV signal)
Flip-flops (for toggling the ball direction, and the way the english effect works)
Gate matrix (collision detection and results)

The system was incapable of scoring or sound, both of which were features added in the later 200, 400 and 500 models.

Accessories
The system was also the first with a seperate light gun accessory, a rifle which was compatible with two games. It looked rather swish.