Baer, a huge figure in the world of computer games, who came to America from Germany in 1938 at the age of 16, after he was forced to leave school by Nazi anti-Semitism. The mind behind this not-so-simple Simon belongs to Ralph H. By the time I fell back, vanquished, shellacked, Simonized, there yawned between us a generation gap through which you could drive a Tonka truck. Not far into that first game, I realized that my son-his mind unclouded by worries about mortgages or marital missteps-could easily outplay his desperately competitive dad. As the sequences increase in length, one's memory is pushed harder. On it, a player presses buttons to repeat a sequence of colored lights and tones. I remember, with a twinge, sitting with my young son, on opposite sides of a blinking, beeping Simon, a chip-driven version of the old kindergarten favorite, Simon Says. How could a saucer-shaped plastic toy with four colored buttons and four musical notes drive a wedge between the generations? Simon, along with all the successive computer games it ushered in-Pac Mans, Dooms and Quakes-provided irrefutable proof that the young could do certain things far better than their elders. There, just after midnight, the Milton Bradley Company, in a quirky promotional stunt, introduced an electronic game called Simon. Some of us, however, believe that the great divide can be traced to May 15, 1978, and Studio 54, a once notable New York City nightclub. Others consider it a byproduct of the Beatles song "When I'm Sixty-Four"-the milestone Sir Paul himself reached this past June. ![]() ![]() Many who study tipping points in social history contend that the oft-noted generation gap spontaneously erupted in the mid-1960s, when Jack Weinberg, a 24-year-old leader of the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, California, told followers not to trust anybody over 30.
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