Simple and no cords attached

Building on the simple blips and dashes of Pong, game systems became mobile with handheld units during the late 70's. The Electronic Quarterback was the bigger brother of an Electronic Football game and showed a simple field, that allowed you to move a small dash across the screen in hopes of scoring a touch down. The game allowed you to run, kick, and pass your way to simple glory, the pass feature was an addition the little brother did not have.

The next game we loved to play was Merlin, with the simple blinking red LED lights, that allowed you to play games like Tic Tac Toe, Music Machine, Echo, Blackjack 13, Magic Square, and Mindbender. It also had a Music Machine game function that turned the handheld game into a musical instrument.

The last of these early handheld games was the Microvision and one of the first to feature removable game cartridges. Still very simple in function and with basic black & white and shades of grey graphics. You still enjoyed playing games like Block Buster, Bowling, Mindbuster, and Star Trek: Phaser Strike to name a few.

We still played a lot of PONG at the TV, but we liked taking these games around with us on trips, passing time in the car, or even out to the school yard during brakes. Little did we know, but the world of color gaming was about to explode on the TV sets and take off running.