It was like holding the future in your little 10 year old hands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattel_Auto_Race
Mattel Electronics Auto Race was released in 1976 by Mattel Electronics as the first handheld electronic game to use only solid-state electronics; it has no mechanical elements except the controls and on/off switch. Using hardware designed for calculators and powered by a nine-volt battery, the cars are represented by red LEDs on a playfield which covers only a small portion of the case. The audio consists of beeps. George J. Klose based the game on 1970s racing arcade video games and designed the hardware, with some hardware features added by Mark Lesser who also wrote the 512 bytes of program code.
No, wait, I also had the Tomy Digital Derby Auto Raceway. It’s funny bc the only visible “digital” part of it was the light that lit up when you crashed, the rest of it is all mechanical. It was pretty fun tho, and looked cool.
Ohhhh, actual pictures of cars! So much better!!
😀
I was just thinking of this one when I saw the post. Everyone who was a kid back then either had this, or knew someone who had it.