Welcome to part 3 of my SepTandy Spectacular 2. In the last post I went over the Radio Shack Tandyvision, and in this post were going to take a look at some of the handheld games.
From 1981 to 1992, Radio Shack made little handheld games and sold them in their stores. At the time, the idea of having a video game on the go was still a novel idea. People liked the idea of being able to take a game with them to play wherever and whenever they wanted. It was also great for those on a budget, You could get these kind of store they were great for gifts, each contained their own games, and only required a few batteries to get them going.
Like many of their products, Tandy Radio Shack didn't manufacture the majority of their handhelds, most of them were actually licensed version of other companies. They also came in different form factors and with different screen as the times changed which ill be documenting as we go along.
Now this isn't going to cover all of these handhelds, but I will go over some of the more notable or interesting ones. Also due to the difficulty of emulating these, some of these will be demonstrated by other people, but I should be able to due a few as well, so without further ado, lets get into it!
The first game here looking at is Electronic Repeat. This is possibly one of the first handhelds as far as I can tell as it may predate our 1981 starting date, coming from 1980 or earlier. But either way was first listed in 1981, for $19.95. This was licensed from Tiger Electronics (Yes THAT Tiger Electronics!), who sold their own version known as Copycat.
The game is a simple clone of Simon. It creates a series of tones and lights up the 4 LED lights near each button and the goal is to repeat a sequence. If you succeed, the sequence becomes progressively longer and more complex, but if you fail or the time limit runs out, the game is over.
Its not very original, but it works. There was also a smaller version called Copycat Jr, which was also sold by Radio Shack as Pocket Repeat.
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The next game is 2 Player Baseball released in 1982 for $24.95. it was a licensed version of Super Baseball by Bandai Electronics.
What makes this system noteworthy is that it has a unique control setup. Rather than just have two sets of controls, there's actually a removable controller that can just pop out. sadly there is no gameplay video that I can show, so I have no idea what this looks like. Maybe in the future i can edit this in, but other than that, moving on.
The next game here looking at is Caveman released in 1983 for $39.95. it was a licensed version of Caveman by Tomy. which was also sold in the U.K. under the Grandstand name.
The game is quite different as it's not a handheld but rather a tabletop. There are essentially a handheld game in a bigger case designed to be played on a flat surface, a table if you will! these typically mimic the arcade cabinets of the day, and is the first on our list that uses a VFD (Or Vacuum Fluorescent Display) this type of display is similar to a CRT TV in that it operates using a phosphor-coated carbon anode with each segment beamed with electrons from a cathode filament. This type of display was commonly on different appliances like VCRs, microwaves, car stereos.
You play as a caveman trying to steal eggs from a dinosaur. To do this you throw a primitive hammer at the dinosaur to prevent him from biting you, If he bites you, you die. collect all 9 eggs and you move to the next level. As the game progresses you also have to deal with a pterodactyl that will swoop to steal your eggs and fatal molten rock that will occasionally spill from a volcano in the background. Its quite a fun game and can get quite addictive.
Next is Zackman Released in 1984 for $34.95. this was another handheld licensed game by Bandai Electronics, who also sold it as Zackman.
The game is anther tabletop game using a VFD display. Despite what you may think from the title, its not a Pacman clone, but rather a Dig Dug clone. there are two differences though, 1). You can't attack enemies up and down, only left and right and 2). The overall object is to grab the prize at the bottom of the screen, and then get back to your ship that dropped you off at the top of the screen. If you shoot all the bad guys, a new one will just randomly appear somewhere else. Despite these differences, Its still a fun game.
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This concludes Part 3 of my second Septandy Spectacular, join me next time as we fast forward to 1992 and take a look at the last Radio shack console The VIS.
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