Everyone has used a handheld electronic game at some point. Even if you've never bought a Nintendo DS or a PSP, today's mobile phones come packed with colorful, addictive games. But the ancestor of these devices is already over 40 years old: it's the “Merlín”, also known as “The Electronic Wizard”, which was marketed by Parker Brothers from 1978 through the late 1980s. Let's take a look!
Many of Neoteo's readers grew up in a world where electronic games are common items. That wasn't always the case. The advances in electronics that made possible the first personal computers in the late 1970s also enabled the creation of dedicated entertainment machines. Until then, children played with more or less the same toys their predecessors had used for a hundred or two hundred years. But the arrival of small, fast, and cheap electronic components revolutionized the entertainment industry. One of the first handheld electronic games to become a commercial success was the “Merlín”, also known as “The Electronic Wizard”, marketed by Parker Brothers starting in 1978.
Merlín, “The Electronic Wizard”
This toy, whose appearance recalls an old telephone about 20 centimeters long, has four buttons at its lower section for selecting games and performing related tasks. In the central part of the Merlín is the “playing area”, composed of 11 luminous buttons — somewhat similar to those of Simon Says — with which the player controls the game. At the top of the rigid and not particularly attractive casing is a speaker, through which the device informs the user that some special situation included in each game has occurred.
Merlín, which requires 6 AA batteries to operate, was one of the most popular games of its time: more than five million units were sold in the first years, and several million more until it slowly disappeared from the market in the late 1980s. Merlín was designed by Bob Doyle, a professional inventor who, in addition to holding a doctorate from Harvard, had worked at NASA from 1971 to 1973 as coordinator for missions related to Skylab.
From an electronic standpoint, the insides of the Merlín are astonishingly simple. It contains only one integrated circuit (the Texas Instruments TMS 1100 microprocessor), a handful of resistors, some diodes, the LEDs, and a transparent sheet that houses the contacts of the buttons. A speaker completes the sparse circuit. Today, any student or hobbyist (anyone up for it?) could take on the design of a game like this without problems.
Six different games
Merlín can play six different games. The first is an electronic version of the popular Tic-Tac-Toe. The second is called “Music Machine”, which turns the device into a musical instrument. In this mode, each key produces a different musical note, and the sequences of notes created by the user can be saved and played back later. This makes Merlín one of the first electronic sequencers. The third game is called “Eco”, with mechanics similar to the aforementioned “Simon Says”. The fourth on the list is called “Blackjack 13”, and the fifth is the “Magic Square”, a game similar to “Lights Out”, but played on a 3x3 matrix instead of the classic 5x5. Finally, the sixth game is called “Mindbender”, similar to the well-known Mastermind.
If we compare Merlin with any current handheld game—like a PSP or Nintendo DS—or even with the entertainment options included in any mobile phone, obviously the old game seems unattractive. However, we were surprised that once we started playing with it, it was hard to put down. Despite its simplicity, the included games are addictive enough to burn through the first 6 batteries in a day. It's worth noting that Merlin has a connector to attach an external power supply, essential if we don't have AA batteries and want to use the device frequently.
Despite how popular it was over 40 years ago, it's hard to find information about it online today. There are only a handful of websites that mention it. It doesn't seem like a fair treat for a device that entertained millions of people for hundreds of hours, don't you think?
The Electronic Wizard
