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Handheld Game PCBs That were Sold in the 80's

 
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kevtris
Coleco Pac Man


Joined: 07 Feb 2015
Last Visit: 13 Oct 2015
Posts: 34
Location: Indianapolis, IN

PostPosted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 2:10 pm    Post subject: Handheld Game PCBs That were Sold in the 80's Reply with quote

Here's a few things that have been bothering me for a very long time Smile

#1:

Back in the early 80's (say, 1981-5 era) , the company "Chaney Electronics" (which is now Electronic Goldmine) had a HUGE 2 page spread in their catalog selling handheld game bare PCBs.

They had a lot of Entex games (I remember Pac-Man 2 specifically) and probably 20-30 different boards total at least. They were selling the PCBs at firesale prices- I kind of remember Pac-Man 2 being around $2-3 a board.

Does anyone remember this? I no longer have the catalogs of course. I wanted sooo bad to buy some of these things but on my $.50 a week allowance I could never afford it.


#2:

Here's another puzzle. Back in the same time period, Radio Shack (Tandy in other countries) had this "special purchase" item for sale, which is what might've been an unreleased handheld/tabletop game.

It was a square PCB with a 2 digit LED display in the middle (dual 7 segments), and the board itself looked very similar to Maniac. Four corner spring brass buttons, the 2 digit display, but it had 8 LEDs in a circle too.

There was a piezo feeper attached to the board that made beeps when you pressed certain buttons, and the LEDs in the circle lit up in a pattern where every other LED was on, then it'd toggle so every other LED was on, back and forth.

Anyone know what game that might've been? I've been through most of the games on this site now and haven't found much that matched.

It eventually quit working so I took it apart long ago. Interestingly I still have the 7-seg display from it.


#3:

(bonus section!)

Back in 1990 or 1991, All Electronics was selling a handheld game gut, for the scrabble game. I bought four or five of them to play around with and ended up using them for parts. I believe I can find an ad for this one.

This is what the game looks like:

http://www.electronicplastic.com/game/?company=&id=740

Is this game on the museum? I didn't see it listed.
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Rik
Site Admin


Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 25 Mar 2024
Posts: 1932
Location: California

PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 4:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

#1- I'd love to see this.. Gonna have to look for those old catalogs now. Smile Never heard of them back in the day that I can remember though.

#2- Was this pictured on their catalogs? (If not, how would one find out about it back then?) You can browse all their catalogs at:
www.radioshackcatalogs.com
I'd be curious to see what this looks like. I spent a LOT of time hanging around RS as a kid, so it's very likely I've seen this, but just can't remember off the top of my head.

#3- That was made by Selchow & Righter, they also did a Reader's Digest game:
http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Misc/SelchowReadersDigest.htm
I don't seem to have the Scrabble one listed though, not sure why I never added that. Smile

On a similar note, there's a surplus electronics store near me that had a huge box full of Simon PCBs... They appeared to be the official MB Simon game ones too, and this was only about 10 years ago. I think MB made Simon pretty much the same way for decades, so maybe that's why there were surplus boards so recently. I think when the two-sided 'Simon2' came out they finally stopped making the original, or redesigned it for the small keychains and such.
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kevtris
Coleco Pac Man


Joined: 07 Feb 2015
Last Visit: 13 Oct 2015
Posts: 34
Location: Indianapolis, IN

PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 8:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rik wrote:
#1- I'd love to see this.. Gonna have to look for those old catalogs now. Smile Never heard of them back in the day that I can remember though.



Yeah I found a couple catalogs on ebay so I had to buy them. 1983 and 1984. I am not sure if 83 is soon enough but we'll find out.

Quote:


#2- Was this pictured on their catalogs? (If not, how would one find out about it back then?) You can browse all their catalogs at:
www.radioshackcatalogs.com
I'd be curious to see what this looks like. I spent a LOT of time hanging around RS as a kid, so it's very likely I've seen this, but just can't remember off the top of my head.



Nope. It was a "special purchase" (read: we bought some, packaged them up and sent 'em to stores) and not a catalog item. It was advertised in the flyer that came with the paper from what I recall. Unfortunately never in the catalog. I looked around some but there's no search terms that would ever find anything in the mountain of stuff on google.

Quote:


On a similar note, there's a surplus electronics store near me that had a huge box full of Simon PCBs... They appeared to be the official MB Simon game ones too, and this was only about 10 years ago. I think MB made Simon pretty much the same way for decades, so maybe that's why there were surplus boards so recently. I think when the two-sided 'Simon2' came out they finally stopped making the original, or redesigned it for the small keychains and such.


Yeah, Chaney electronics sold bad simon boards back in 1982-5 timeframe, too. I know because I had bought one. the PCB was cracked on it and I tried to fix it but didn't have much luck. I used it for parts.

Also at the time I remember buying another "mystery board' from them for $1. I know now that it was comp IV. It was advertised as a board with some LEDs and a chip on it. And that's exactly what it was. I think I ended up pulling the LEDs off and using them for something.

A friend found some weird boards at a surplus place in canada about 12 years ago and brought them over when he visited; he wanted the LED displays off of them. Turns out it was a Marx 300 Electronic Bowling game board. This thing was a fairly large bowling game. I found a little info about it on google and a crummy 25 second video. So I naturally dumped the TMS1100 on it and reverse engineered the PCB. I think that got in MESS too but I am not sure if it's very playable.
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