See game console history unfurled on this interactive timeline

Game industry history buffs, take note: The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers has published a neat interactive timeline of video game consoles through the years.

This is notable because it seeks to raise popular awareness of video game history, which is becoming increasingly important to preserve and disseminate as the industry grows older, new blood enters and old hands leave.

Organizations like The Strong Museum of Play and the Videogame History Museum have, of course, long been doing doing important work in this field, and it's good to see the IEEE making an effort to raise awareness about the history of game consoles.

Though there's a bit of a commercial tie-in -- the IEEE is running a contest tied to the virtual exhibit's interactive trivia component -- you don't have to participate in that to enjoy scrolling through the timeline, which spans everything from "father of video games" (and IEEE award winner) Ralph Baer's Magnavox Odyssey in 1972 up through the launch of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles in 2013.