Preservation and Resurrection of Classic Handheld Electronic Games

Kids that grew up in the 1970s witnessed first-hand the birth of the digital revolution, and one of the first places that emerged was in our toy boxes.  While electronic toys had been around for a while (for example, Robots were probably among the first toys to require batteries, but perhaps one of the most prominent examples was the Milton-Bradley game known as "Operation" which emerged in the 1960s), electronic games sold to the masses really emerged during the 1970s.

Early electronic game iterations were, at best, pretty crude.  In the words of Peter Hirschberg, a prominent Silicon Valley personality who runs an initiative to preserve some of those early electronic games (mostly those from Mattel Electronics) on his website which he's dubbed (appropriately enough) "LEDHead" (see HERE), explains the reason for "preserving" these electronic toy relics in new formats:

"Why simulate these 20+ year old games that had, at best, only the crudest of graphics and sounds? Without an effort to preserve these memorable games, most or all of them would eventually fade into obscurity. Many already have. It is my endeavor to ensure these games are remembered into the future as the culturally significant icons I believe they represent."

Thanks at least in part to his efforts, in recent years, we've seen some of the classic Mattel handheld electronic game library that was sold from 1978 to 1980 being translated into various other operating system platforms.  For example, his own site offers free downloads for LEDhead on various iterations of Windows, PocketPC, and PalmOS handheld devices, iOS (iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad).  Indeed, his efforts to chronicle a part of toy history has inspired third-party developers to pursue the same thing, which seemed to be Mr. Hirschberg's intent all along, mainly to ensure these vestiges of the Gen X childhood didn't disappear completely.  So-called emulators exist for many early video games on PCs, but the handhelds didn't seem to hold as much appeal to developers, so Mr. Hirschberg's initiative seems to have hit an appropriate nerve.

Several nice ports of some of these early eletronic distractions we called games are already on the market, most notably from a San Diego-area (La Jolla, home to UCSD) firm called touchGrove, LLC which already markets a big part of the Mattel LED handheld games collection on iTunes, but has since ported the beststelling Football app over to Android.  The pricetags are decent, as I write this in September 2012, at just $0.99 on iTunes. although the Android version is priced at $1.99 and must be purchased from the Amazon.com App Store, not via the Google Play marketplace.  I wouldn't mind that if Amazon didn't also require the Amazon marketplace to remain on the phone in order to use the downloaded app; I consider that bloatware.  Although the port into Android is decent enough, it does require the device to be held sideways and does not automatically rotate with the device itself.

Mattel's Original Electronic Basketball

LEDHead's Mattel Electronic Basketball

Beyond Mattel Electronics' extensive collection, we must not forget its competitors.  At the time, Parker Brothers' (now part of Rhode Island-based toy conglomerate Hasbro) had a few electronic games, one of which was "Merlin: The Electronic Wizard".  Again, a full replication of that is now sold on iTunes from Tewti Development (see HERE).  Coleco was another player at the time (the company went out of business many years ago) which had a stable of electronic handheld games, but I haven't seen any preservations of those.

Finally, aside from these mobile phone ports, reproductions of the originals have since been reintroduced.  In 2009, for example, Mattel began selling lookalike versions of the originals dubbed "Mattel Classic Football/Basketball/Baseball Handheld".  That was also around the same time we saw versions of the Atari 2600 and Intellivision with about 30 games built-in marketed in small, plug-in devices for your TV.

For the record, Time magazine has dubbed the original Mattel Electronic Football as one of the greatest 100 toys (technically, #69, see HERE), writing: "Simplicity served Mattel well in this ancestor of the handheld games of today."

Some of Mattel's TV commercials for these games can be seen below, or by visiting https://goo.gl/Zpfzs4.



For the moment, these devices remain widely available in new formats, but the extent they are updated for new operating systems which have yet-to-emerge may ultimately depend on how accessible those platforms are for developers.  However, for Gen Xers wanting to return to the simple electronic handheld games of their childhoods, they remain widely available on something you're likely to be holding anyway: your smartphone.

For the record, be sure to visit Peter Hirschberg's site "LEDHead" at http://www.peterhirschberg.com/handheld/ledhead, there, you'll find some early ports of these old games as well as links to such sites as HandheldMuseum.com, both of which are worth visiting.  Keep in mind that new ports for Android may be sold via third-party marketplaces, such as the Amazon App Store, so just because you don't find it on the Google Play Market doesn't mean an app doesn't exist.

Author P.S., March 18, 2018: There was news today that Internet Archive will be offering  a new series of emulators for handheld toys and games which are designed to mimic some of gaming's more obscure artifacts — the handheld games, such as those sold by Mattel Electronics, Parker Brothers, Coleco, Tiger Electronics and others (including Texas Instruments' Speak & Spell highlighted in the film "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial") of the sort that were highlighted in this post.  It attempts to make portable, digital versions of the LCD, VFD and LED-based machines that were sold, often cheaply, at toy stores and booths over the decades.  Aside from the archival and nostalgia value provided by the emulators themselves, this effort also documents some relevant computer coding and manufacturing detail, as well as instruction booklets that frequently accompanied the original handheld games which have long since become artifacts of history.  This is consistent with Peter Hirschberg's objective to try and preserve these relics of the past.  The collection at Internet Archive can be found at https://archive.org/details/handheldhistory.

Atari Celebrates 40th Anniversary!?!

The end of June 2012 was the 40th anniversary of Atari Corp., a company that brought home video gaming to the masses back in the late 1970s, and arguably ruled the space until competition emerged in the 1980s.  In fact, I upgraded to a Colecovision at one point, but the point is not lost that Atari really brought that stuff into people's homes.  They were really the company to do it.

$#!t.

Forty f'ing years.

I can remember the elation of opening the Atari Video Computer System or VCS (which later became known as the Atari 2600) one Christmas morning.  That was, by my recollection, perhaps the coolest Christmas gift I remember. That was MY Red Ryder BB Gun (that reference comes from the 80s holiday classic "A Christmas Story", which I actually saw in my local theater back in the day)!!

Sure, we probably got better gifts along the way, including a VCR (what's that? well, in the analog broadcasting days, it was a recording device that let you record TV shows for the first time ... ever ... although they became better known for enabling people to rent movies and watch those from their living rooms). Today, DVRs do the same basic thing, but remember, in those days, you pretty much had to plan your TV viewing schedule around broadcasters' schedules, or you missed out. The VCR changed that paradigm. The big downside of the VCR is that early versions practically required a PhD degree to program recordings!  Still, by my recollection, the Atari was a much cooler gift!

My memories of Atari 2600 are still quite fond, although now that 40 years have gone by, it seems very rudimentary by comparison. Even my original Sony Playstation, which blows anything the 2600 could do away, is a dinosaur. And home PCs enable all that, and more. However, I expect that trend of planned obsolescence of home video games will continue. Today's Wii or PS3 or XBox whatever iteration will be history before too long, too.

Although a home version of Pacman was the epitome of geeky coolness back in the day (in fact, my readers may note that I even include Pacman and his ghosts into the design of this blog), even if Atari did a lousy job with it ... the company redeemed itself somewhat with Ms. Pacman which was much better (although nowadays, any smartphone has the original Pacman and/or Ms. Pacman available, complete with intermissions), and newer video game systems enable live competition with real competitors located across the country via the internet, but the notion of the time-sucking home video games was revolutionary back in those days.

You may note that I have a link in the right margin under "Links I Like" Called "[Atari] 2600 Online" (see http://www.2600online.com/ for that), where you can pretty much play most Atari 2600 emulator games online, including those from third-party developers like Activision. There's another cool site called Atari Museum [http://www.atarimuseum.com/] which has lots of background info. people with an interest might like to check out. Atari Age [http://www.atariage.com/] which actually was a loyalty program/magazine sponsored by Atari back in the day, also has even more stuff you can check out, including the original game owners manuals!

Although Activision's Pitfall! was IMHO the best game ever made for Atari, that company (Activision) still closely guards even the original and has since launched newer versions of that classic game.

Anyway, in recognition of the original time-sucker known as Atari 2600, I dedicate today's post!

Author P.S., January 21, 2013: The Associated Press reported that Atari's U.S. operations filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in an effort to separate from it's French parent company.  France's Infogrames Entertainment first took a stake in Atari in 2000, but it acquired the remaining stake in 2008 and changed the whole company's name to Atari.  Atari SA said it filed for bankruptcy protection in Paris and New York after it failed to find a successor to main shareholder and sole lender BlueBay as it wrestled with tough market conditions.

Having said that, in recent years, Atari's U.S. operations have shifted to focus on digital games and licensing, including developing mobile games, and it had become a growth engine for the parent company, to the point of being much better-performing than the rest of the company. In fiscal 2012, digital and licensing revenue both grew significantly and contributed 70% of revenue, while sales in bricks-and-mortar stores declined.  In a statement, Atari said the move was necessary to secure investments it needs to continue growing in mobile and digital gaming.