Slowing making my way to #1, but with a stop-off on the high-tech wonder of the 70s: the first cartridge-based handheld system: the Milton-Bradley Microvision. This was the one toy that was coveted by all: brothers, sisters, friends. I’m not sure who actually got this, though (at the time, there were three sisters and at least a couple of brothers in the house), but we all wanted to play with it.
The Microvision was the evolution of all the really crappy hand-held video games that had you either moving blinking dots around via a little thumb-pad or steering a plastic car overlay on three moving tracks that would break after an hour. For one, you could play multiple games on the same hardware, which was pretty damn cool. The display was small (16×16) but easy enough to use and the paddle on the unit was pretty solid. We all racked up high scores on Block Buster, the game that came with it. I think we also had Bowling, but my memory might be a little off. I think we had Pinball, too.
But the game I wanted (and eventually got), was Star Trek Phaser Strike. The “ships” didn’t look at all like anything from Star Trek (in fact, they were just long strings of honking big pixels) and the game itself didn’t really seem very Trekkerish, but I wanted it, nay, coveted it. After a few years of Star Trek reruns, I had become a big Trek fan, and in 1979, I bought everything I could related to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And after mastering the game in about a week, I put it away. As Spock would say “You may find that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. This is not logical, but it is often true.”
The problem with the Microvision was that there were never enough games for it. Also, with the 16×16 screen, there wasn’t much detail you could give to, say, a Klingon battlecruiser (though, at the time, 16×16 resolution was pretty cool). Plus, the LCD screen was sensitive to touch, and eventually it sorta got distorted. I think someone left it in the sun too long.
Other fun Microvision resources:
- Manuals for all the Microvision games
- Handheld Museum’s Microvision FAQ
- The Top Ten Handhelds that Never Made It
- More on the Microvision
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 10th, 2006 at 10:37 pm and is filed under Toys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
The URI to TrackBack this entry is:
http://spandexjustice.com/2006/01/10/62/trackback
Responses to “Toys I Wish I Still Had #8: Microvision”
Coincidentally, I’m bidding on one of these on eBay right now. Sure the screen barely works, but it comes with all but 1 game. Worth it just for the games. Eventually I’ll find a system with a working screen. :-)
January 17th, 2006 at 12:32 am |