Simon

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.