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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