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What was your first red LED handheld (and other recollections)..


Keatah

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What was your first red LED handheld game? Mine was AutoRace from Mattel. I still have it! I clearly recall fighting over playing it in the car. I'd be in the back seat and one of my parents were would be driving. We had a big land yacht at the time so it was quite quiet except for when us kids were making noise in the back seats.

 

I remember I'd play it for like a few minutes and then my mom or gramma would get upset and try taking it away from me. A genuine cartoon-like fight always ensued multiple times per road trip. It was the power struggle where she'd try grabbing it from me, and I'd fight back and grab it from her. I'd turn around and "hide" it and she'd wrestle it back.

 

Give me! No! Give me! I'm taking it away from you! I'm not doing my homework any more. You're grounded.! Am not!! Am too!! Back and forth. Back and forth.The game typically traveled from the rear seat to the front seat about 7 or 10 times during an argument. Arms stretching back and forth just like in the cartoons. Mine! Mine!! Mine!!! And on and on. Twisting and punching and clawing. Then it was quiet for a few minutes till I started up again.

 

One time we pulled over to the side of the road and mom yanked it away from me got out and put it in the trunk. Never fear. I had plans to get it back. I sent my sister up front as a distraction while I undid the rear seat latch and made my way into the trunk. I made in an impromptu fort with a cardboard box and a blanket and started playing yet again! I'm sure I got whacked and into trouble for that. I didn't care.

 

Other times they did lame things like put it under the seat. That was easy I just reached under it from the back and pulled it out.

 

Today I'm surprised they never opened the window and tossed it out. Maybe it cost too much money back then. Electronics were expensive in the 70's.

 

---

 

AutoRace would not be my first red LED "toy", however, credit for that would go to a "Grand Prix" brand calculator from Olson Electronics at that funky intersection of 58 & 72. The building is still there today, but it has long since morphed back and forth between furniture shops and CompUSA and Tiger Electronics. I think its back to a furniture closeout shop again. That was sometime in 1974 IIRC.

 

The calculator was pretty cool. I don't think I have it anymore but I do have the battery. It was this strange triangular-shaped battery that popped out the back, and it had "built-in" prongs for plugging directly into the AC mains. Novel stuff like what would never be allowed today for safety issues.

 

 

 

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I can only think of 2 answers to this and only because I can not for the life of me remember if the garage sale find down the street used or something I was given as a gift when we were out in the car by my parents was the first. The couple dollar pickup was Mattel Electronics Hockey, and the other was the original green box/art colored Tiger Electronics Baseball. Both of these were had in the mid 80s. I know the Tiger game came out in 1987, but I can not be certain if it was first and I'm more positive it was likely Hockey just beating it out by anything from months to a year.

 

Not the originals, but I do own both of them again found just in the last few years locally. :)

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I had one of the original Mattel Football games in 1978. Played the heck out of that thing.

I wanted one of those so bad, and the they got me the coleco football for Christmas instead. I was so disapointed, All my friends had the Mattel and I wanted that to practice on to get good enough to beat my friends. Stupid parents!

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Bandai Missle Invader (http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Bandai/Missile.htm)

 

and

 

Football Electronic Game (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Football_Electronic_Game,_sold_by_Sears,_Model_003201,_LED,_Circa_1975_(LED_Handheld_Electronic_Game).jpg)

 

These were my first two but I dont remember the order in which I received them.

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I don't remember having a game with red leds... I remember we had a black and white plastic calculator with them... Radio Shack maybe? My future brother in law had a Mattel Football one, but that was before I knew him.

 

I had an alarm clock with red leds that I used for years... into the 2000s... I think it was made in the 80s at some point.

 

Edit: Remembered in the shower that the clock was made by Targus and had wood grain. Google searched it and couldn't find it. Also realised that lots of alarm clocks apparently still have red leds, so maybe it's not that interesting... oh well...

Edited by Eltigro
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Man it's hard to say.. as the memories of what I actually "owned" vs. what I got to play because a friend own it, start to blur when you hit 50ish. :lol:

 

I do know the first LED display I saw was my dad's gold watch that showed the time when you pressed the side buttons.. which we thought looked like the future.

 

I guess Tomy's "Blip" would be the first game with an LED I owned? But that's mechanical so I don't know if it counts. :) My most significant and favorite LED though as a kid was definitely Entex Space Invader.. loved that game.

 

 

 

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These were before my time. I had Tiger LCD handhelds like Batman, Baseball, Karate King, and Street Fighter II instead. I even had the R-Zone (for shame, I know!). I had older cousins that had a Bandai Missile Invader that I saw once at a family Christmas or something when I was a kid, but I don't recall actually playing it. The first time I think I actually played one was my brother-in-law's Mattel Football and Football 2, back when my wife and I were still in high school (no, we weren't married at the time).

 

We've collected quite a few in the years since, though. :)

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I'm curious would something like this little gem count? (Wildfire Pinball)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdKhHXQht0Y

 

This came out in 1979 and is both surprisingly solid given the limitation to do pinball but also solidly built. A few years ago locally I picked this up for $10 at a flea market like new in the box and it's one of the rare few I still pull out and play, even can take an ac adapter if you can find a match.

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I also missed out on the "red LED" era by a few years, but I do remember playing with all the cool games my older cousins had. One of them had a bunch of the Coleco arcade games, including Donkey Kong and Galaxian.

 

I had a bunch of the Tiger LCD games, like Double Dragon, X-Men, Castlevania II, and others. I also had a Ninja Gaiden watch, which RULED.

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Auto Race from Mattel. Then Football I and II, Baseball, Hockey, Armor Battle. And Merlin.

 

I actually just took mine all out the past few weeks for the first time in several years. I was quite bummed that Auto Race wouldn't work though. But I eventually managed to get it open and fix it. Such a simple little game but I still find it fun to play today.

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I think that the first such game I had was the electro-mechanical tennis game Blip. Shortly thereafter, I had some Sears-brand racing game, and then a really fun single player baseball game.

 

Some of my classmates had (and loved) Mattel football, but I was never that interested in sports games.

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I think that the first such game I had was the electro-mechanical tennis game Blip. Shortly thereafter, I had some Sears-brand racing game, and then a really fun single player baseball game.

 

Some of my classmates had (and loved) Mattel football, but I was never that interested in sports games.

Wait, are you saying baseball isn't a sports game? :P

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I'm pretty sure my first one was a baseball game. Kids at school were getting Mattel Football and other LED games. It was something of a status symbol to have one of the LED sports games of the era (late 70s). I didn't like football, but I did like baseball at the time. I think I chose a Caprice Pro-Action Baseball, or something similar. The design of that one looks most familar to me. I recall it being important to me that it have a flip cover for the pitcher controls, and I distinctly remember a sort of stadium design to the unit.




I didn't really enjoy it much. I only really begged for it in a misguided attempt to fit in with the other kids. I probably went through the battery and never messed with it again.


The only other LED game I ever owned that I can recall was an Entex Space Invader. It was given to me as an unprompted gift. I can't recall if it was a christmas or birthday present. I loved this one and played it a lot.




I have a specific memory of playing it one night while the animated Hanna_Barbera Charlotte's Web was on TV for the umpteenth time. That night is when something finally clicked for me and I beat the game. I think I rolled the score a few times before I stopped.


One day my poor little Space Invader game didn't boot up properly and changing the batteries didn't help. By that point I had Atari, so it wasn't a great loss. But it was like saying goodbye to an old friend, one I had outgrown, but which I'd had good times with.


I always wanted the Coleco tabletops, particularly Pac-Man and Galaxian. At one point I sorely wanted the Mattel Missle Attack game (for some unfathomable reason).

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I'm pretty sure my first one was a baseball game. Kids at school were getting Mattel Football and other LED games. It was something of a status symbol to have one of the LED sports games of the era (late 70s). I didn't like football, but I did like baseball at the time. I think I chose a Caprice Pro-Action Baseball, or something similar. The design of that one looks most familar to me. I recall it being important to me that it have a flip cover for the pitcher controls, and I distinctly remember a sort of stadium design to the unit.

Funny, it's the same for me. I remember owning baseball game as possibly my first electronic handheld, and it was fun. but I can't for the life of me remember which one I owned! Entex perhaps? Yet I remember all the Mattel handhelds I had.

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My one and only was a 7-1 Sports from Sears. All my others were Tiger, Acclaim and Nintendo G&W LCDs.

 

Sears-7in1Sports.jpg

 

My friend had a game with the same shell, only played baseball with LCD graphics and it DID have a play by play announcer, that from my memory, was as good as the "Sports Talk" games by Sega in the early 90's.

Edited by Torr
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