AUTO RACE MATTEL ELECTRONICS 1976 HANDHELD
AUTO RACE MATTEL ELECTRONICS 1976 HANDHELD
Mattel Auto Race is the first in the line of many Mattel Electronics games, and is credited with being the first handheld game that was entirely digital, only with solid-state electronics and without mechanical components, even predating the Milton Bradley Company's Microvision, having no moving mechanisms except the controls and on/off switch. Finding one of these systems in working condition is rare.
It was copied in the USSR
History
Mattel pioneered the category of handheld computer games when it released Mattel Auto Race in 1976 [3][4] and is sometimes overlooked because of the much more successful Mattel Football that was released a year later. The visuals were represented by red LED lights and the sound consisted of simple beeps. The game itself used about 512 bytes in memory (half a kilobyte, or 1/2048 of a megabyte).
Sales of Mattel Auto Race exceeded expectations. Mattel in the 1970s, known mostly for Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels, was at first skeptical of products based on electronics, especially at what was considered expensive at the time ($24.99 retail) The success of Auto Race convinced Mattel to proceed with the development of Mattel Football which was often sold out and in short supply and this led to the creation of a new Mattel Electronics Division in 1978, which for a time was extremely profitable.
Gameplay
The player's car is represented by a bright blip (a vertical dash sign) on the bottom of the screen. The player must make it to the top of the screen 4 times (4 laps) to win, but, while making it towards the top, the player must swerve past other cars using the switch at the bottom of the system to toggle between three lanes. If hit by a car, the player's vehicle keeps moving back towards the bottom of the screen until it gets out of the other car's way. The goal is to beat the game before the 99 seconds (as high as the two-digit timer can show) given are up, and to get the shortest time possible. The player's car has four "gears" and the faster the gear, the faster the other cars come at it.
ENDAST ENHET
