Memories of the '80s: Handheld Video Games

The first real arcade quality handheld video game was the Nintendo Game Boy which was not released in North America until the 1990s. The Game Boy was the first to have an actual working ( although primitive ) monitor for game graphics to be reproduced on. The fact that no actual miniature monitor existed in the 1980s did not stop toy companies from claiming they were releasing hand held video games.

The first handheld games came out in the '70s, beginning with 1976's Mattel Auto Race where a small light represents your car while other flashing lights represented oncoming cars. The object was to drive up to the top of the screen four times without hitting oncoming cars. A year later Mattel released Electronic Football which again had a small light representing your player while a number of flashing lights represented players from the opposing team which you had to run past four times. Mattel released many other sports games which were made up of small lights representing players. In 1978 Milton Bradley released Simon which was actually quite large, about the size ( and shape ) of a Frisbee. Simon had four panels that lit up and made a buzzing noise. The object was to watch the sequence the panels lit up in and to press them in the same sequence. There were four variations of the game, one which allowed a group of people to play at the same time. Simon was followed by a true handheld device called Merlin which was pretty much the same game. Merlin had eleven buttons which each lit up when touched and allowed for such game as Tic-Tac-Toe.

Toy companies realized that there was a future in handheld computer games. For them it did not matter what the game did as long as it included a computer. Coleco's first handheld game was 1979's Quiz Wiz, which was basically a flat palm sized computer that you attached a quiz booklet to. The quiz book gave you multiple choice questions which you answered by pressing the A, B, C or D buttons. The computer told you if you got the answer right or wrong while it was up to you to keep track of the score. Once you finished the quiz book you could purchase additional quiz books that also attached to the Quiz Wiz. A year later Coleco released a series of handhelds called Head to Head that were identical to the Mattel sports games with the only difference being that it allowed two players to compete against each other.

The idea of graphics on a handheld was never considered. Merlin and Simon had buttons that lit up and electronic tones to denote mistakes made by the player. The Quiz Wiz only had two lights, one for correct answers and another for wrong answers. The Mattel and Head to Head games had tiny lights which flashed in sequence to simulate movement much the way flashing lights on a theater marquee simulate movement. Toy companies were able to get away with games like this because they were not attempting to copy arcade games. But with the explosion in popularity of the arcade in the early '80s and competition from the Atari 2600 and Intellivision game platforms toy companies would have no choice but to go beyond a few flashing lights. Ironically the first company to simulate arcade style games was Tomy which they did without using a computer. The first called Blip was released in 1978, their version of Pong. A lit dot would bounce back and fourth on the screen and it was up to the player to press the button the dot was bouncing towards. Press the right button and the dot bounces back to the other side. Press the wrong button and a point was awarded to your opponent. The dot was actually a small light bulb that ran back and fourth due to some small gears inside the game. This happened beneath a dark tinted sheet of plastic that concealed the gears. Blip was a best seller and Tomy followed it up with Digital Derby Auto Raceway, a version of the arcade racing game that was also done with gears moving white images beneath a tinted screen that concealed the gears. Hit and Missile also had gears and simulated a Space Invaders style game.

But it was a company called Entex who in 1980 really brought Space Invaders to handheld games. Actually, the game was called Space Invader, singular despite more than one alien attacking, a name change due to Entex not having the rights to reproduce the original arcade game. But despite being a knockoff it came closer to Once again their handheld was nothing more than flashing lights, but Entex figured out how to achieve graphics by placing overlays above the lights. There was a row of six lights on the bottom each with a space ship overlay. Above were two lights near the center with bunker overlays, followed by five rows of six lights above that with alien overlays above, and at the top another row of six lights with a satellite overlay above. Much like the Mattel sports games when one light went out and the light next to it went on it suggested movement, this time with the overlay giving the appearance of the rocket ship moving left or right along the bottom of the screen. Much like Space Invaders the aliens moved back and forth dropping one level at a time. To simulate laser fire from the rocket and bombs from the aliens the same lights with the alien overlays were used, effective since the weapon graphics were only on screen for a split second.

Aside from Space Invader Entex produced other handheld arcade games including other knockoffs such as Blast It ( Breakout ), and official released of Defender and Crazy Climber, each a reasonable adaption of the arcade version considering the limitations of using light bulbs with overlays. They also made many sports games much like the Mattel line with small lights instead of graphics. But what Entex is best remembered for is it's attempts to make handheld cartridge systems. The first handheld cartridge system was the Microvision released by Milton Bradley in late 1979. Using a liquid display screen made from small squares it was able to play very simple games like Breakout. A combination of the system only capable of playing Pong quality games and the liquid display screen breaking easily lead to the systems ultimate failure. Entex attempted to make their own version of the Microvision called Select-A-Vision released in 1981. The Select-A-Vision used lights instead of liquid display, and each game came with a plastic overlay which was put over the screen turning the lights into detailed graphics. By then arcade games had become so complicated that it was impossible for the Select-A-Vision to replicate theme. Entex decided to abandon the system after only releasing six cartridges and instead released a more advanced handheld cartridge system, the now legendary AdventureVision. The AdventureVision was bulky box sized platform shaped like an arcade cabinet. Inside was a motor that spun a mirror which was used to transform a string of LED lights into a full screen which allowed graphics the quality of the Intellivision. Only for cartridges were made for the system, Defender, Super Cobra, Turtles and Space Force. Inevitably the motor kept breaking down making the system unusable and inevitably Entex decided to abandon it. It would be another seven years before the Game Boy was released with the first practical liquid display monitor allowing a proper cartridge system.

By 1982 handhelds were losing out to the Atari and ColecoVision platforms and Entex became one of the casualties. They had tried to compete with their own cartridge systems but the technology just was not reliable. Other companies tried to compete by releasing tabletop arcade games. The same size as the AdventureVision these bulky handhelds were designed to resemble arcade cabinets. Coleco released a memorable line of tabletops that had the same exact decals as the arcade cabinets, although the game graphics were limited to what using lights with overlays could do. These limitations meant that the Donkey Kong table top only had a single level. Otherwise the games were more reasonable translations of the arcade games than the Atari 2600 was releasing. Other games in the Coleco Tabletop series included Donkey Kong Jr., Frogger, Galaxian, Pac Man, Mrs Pac Man and Zaxxon. But the best of all the tabletop games was a knockoff released by a British company called Grandstand. The game was called Astro Wars and was very similar to Galaxian with the edition of a final level where you docked the space ship to a mother ship.

Handhelds made a return after the video game crash of 1983 that put the Atari 2600, 5200, Intellivision, ColecoVision and other game platforms out of business. Revived by Nintendo as the Game & Watch series they used the less expensive liquid display screens. The Game & Watch series actually began in 1980 but got little attention until it's competition from other electronic games disappeared. Eventually other handhelds using liquid display screens flooded the market. Since the technology was cheap developers were able to sell the games for less than $10, basically making them stocking stuffers. The liquid display games were nowhere as good as the light games, thanks to the screens being so compact. But that would all change with the release of Game Boy changing forever what handheld games were.