Robin from 8-Bit Show-And-Tell has mentioned Loadstar, the magazine that I am trying to help preserve with the itch.io version of Loadstar Compleat. I say that just to mention anything that might even be slightly considered to be conflict of interest. There, done. All of this said, this post has nothing to do with any of that!
Before Tiger’s line of cheap handheld mechanical electonic games in the 80s and 90s, there were cheap handheld mechanical wide-up games in the 70s and 80s! These are basically forgotten by most people today, but kids of that age might vaguely remember them, made by companies like Tomy.
There used to be more websites dedicated to uncovering and preserving them. One that remains to this day is the Handheld Museum, which has an extensive listing of Tomy’s titles.
Another place you might be able to learn about them, with demonstrations, is Robin’s video on them. (29 minutes)
Robin shows off a variety of them, including a variety of electric (as opposed to electronic) games. Some weren’t even battery powered, instead having to be wound up via a dial on the back, but all but the last of the games in this video run on batteries. One had to be repaired on camera. The first game is the earliest, a solitaire version of poker, dating to 1971; for context, Pong, the first commercially successful video game, was made in 1972.
It just goes to show that personal gaming was something that existed even before video games. It was something in the air at the time, and even if Pong hadn’t happened (or the earlier Computer Space, or the Odyssey, or even prior games made at universities and laboratories), it seems evident that it would have happened shortly anyway. It was an idea that was bound to happen eventually, and probably sooner rather than later.
