411 on PONG handhelds?

[Shawn]

Hey All,

 

Was there ever a PONG or PONG clone handheld made? Anything from the size of a Coleco tabletop right down to the size of a Tiger Handheld or a Nintendo Game & Watch would be ideal I think. Anybody got the Pong 411?

 

Shawn

Edited July 26, 2006 by Shawn Sr.

[SteveW]

At the time that Pong units were popular, the technology to make a decent handheld really wasn't good enough to make a portable.

[Shawn]

At the time that Pong units were popular, the technology to make a decent handheld really wasn't good enough to make a portable.

 

 

I just thought maybe over the years it might have seen a handheld release of some sort. Weirder stuff has happened

 

Also Steve, You cheque arrived today, thanks!!

[BrianC]

There was a Pong keychain game from Tiger, if I remember correctly. I never played it, but their Joust keychain was pretty crappy and Millipede and Defender were only ok.

[Lord Helmet]

This is the closest I remember:

 

http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Tomy/Blip.htm

[SteveW]

Here's a picture that I found a couple days ago.

[Feralstorm]

That one appears to be an electro-mechanical device, as opposed to an electronic one.

 

Bet it makes a nice buzzing noise while it runs.

[BrianC]

That one appears to be an electro-mechanical device, as opposed to an electronic one.

 

Bet it makes a nice buzzing noise while it runs.

 

Yeah, it looks like both Blip and that Electromic Tennis are electro mechanical. I wouldn't be be surprised if they both made a buzzing noise.

[Shawn]

Here's a picture that I found a couple days ago.

 

 

That is EXACTLY what I'm looking for. Now I just gotta try and find one!!

 

EDIT: Can anyone make out the manifacture's name on the bottom left corner of the box? I think I'm gonna put some effort into tracking that exact model down, it looks damn cool to me.

Edited July 29, 2006 by Shawn Sr.

[SteveW]

It looks like it says Lincoln International.

 

Come to think of it, I saw something that looked like a mechanical Pong device, built inside what looked like a plastic TV set replica, that looked like a kid's toy. The 'screen' (just a piece of plastic the lights shone through) looked like it was around 13 inches, like a lot of TV sets at the time it came out. I saw this thing a couple of times at a flea market around a 3 hour drive away. It probably won't work, since both times I saw it the thing was left outside, exposed to the elements.

[Student Driver]

Oh hell, that Electronic Tennis looks sweet. Wait-- the unit *and* box say ElectroMic Tennis. Anyway. I have to wonder about its size-- the box picture makes it look like the little girl on the left is smaller than the unit, and the presumably adult-sized hand on the right is similarly dwarfed.

[Retro Rogue]

Yes Blip is EM and has "whirring" sounds, I have a whole box full of them (they're extremely common in the thrift stores here). Its a very good version (we ran a competition on one at the Midwest Gaming Classic a number of years ago). The EM nature actually makes it a bit more "realistic" in movement and less predictable, which is one of the reasons people tended to like it so much. The insides of Tomy's EM series of handhelds are frightfully ingenious and complicated inside if you ever manage to take one apart.

 

Most of the LED handhelds at the time used not very powerful microcontrollers that I believe would not have been able to handle any sort of physics needed to handle the ball motion without possibly making a pre-programmed table and risking having it become extremely predictable.