Electronic Plastic
Oh wow, this takes me right back to my childhood: Electronic Plastic, a museum of portable, old-school electronic toys. We didn’t have a gaming system in my house growing up — I had to settle going over to my friend Steve’s house for Atari 2600 and my big city cousins’ Intellivision — but we did have a couple of these handheld games. Specifically: Baseball (upper right), Football 2 (lower left), and Q*bert (lower right). The football game was my favorite. I played it for hours and hours — so many touchdowns. (And look at these Soviet handhelds!)
Friends at school had other games: I particularly remember the watches, some of the mini arcade cabinets from Coleco, and these pre-Game Boy Nintendo handhelds. The teachers hated them…I think they probably got banned at some point.
I know that my dad still has these games stashed somewhere in the house I grew up in…I’d love to play Football 2 again. 🤖🏈 (via present and correct)
Discussion 13 comments
We had that baseball game, too, and it was definitely still working (as long as it got a new battery) the last time I saw it in the 90s. I don't have the same faith our Switch will still work in 10 years.
Right? I was thinking this too: I want to find these games at my dad's house because I know they'll probably work if I put new batteries in them. I bought an old radio from the 50s at an antique shop several years ago, plopped some AAs in there, and it worked right away.
This being the internet, all the links in this post probably won't work in ten years, but that radio and these old games will.
One thing they should add to the collection is the Coleco Zodiac Astrology Computer. A neighbor of mine had one, it was the most boring I could imagine at the time.
Oh man, I loved Football as a kid and just went on a hunt for an actual game (under $100) or an iOS version (which they used to have but it's no longer available) and can't find either.
Now I'm just sad. Oh, want to play that again. Those things were every long car ride.
I have good reason to believe nostalgia can be a ruinous thing.
But.
Buy that old Football game.
I've spent the past few years thinking about a long-lost digital watch I had in the 1980s, but I wasn't able to figure out the maker and model. Once I really thought it through, though, I finally found it recently. It cost $200, far more than I'd like to pay for a watch, but I made peace with that and I'm glad it's arriving in the mail today.
I'm going to enjoy having it (again).
Bob Dylan: "Nostalgia is death."
OMG I played soooo much Helmet https://www.electronicplastic.com/game/?company=nintendo&id=426&skip=&filter=&search=
I had an uncle who traveled to China when I was a kid, and he brought us back a couple of the Nintendo handhelds. They were our first video games in the house (we played Atari and Intellivision at our friends' houses, but we were console free until high school) and the first games I ever fully completed. Donkey Kong 2 and Lifeboat (not on Electronic Plastic yet) remain high among my favorite video game accomplishments, along with Uninvited on the OG Mac (which I still have the printable certificate of completion for!) and Super Mario Bros. (I am terrible at jumpy side scrollers, so this was a feat for me).
Oh, and when this new Zelda Game & Watch came out a couple years ago, did I preorder it without even blinking? Yes, I absolutely did.
I had all of these as a kid but those are one gone. I started collecting them again in the USENET days (these was a handheld group). I've got all the Mattel (including the invisible alien neutralizer, and the horse race analyzer- ha!) Most are good for a few memories, but the Coleco Electronic Football is still very fun to play. They all take 9 volts, and if you look around, you can find a 9 volt ac adapter. Might save you games from the dreaded battery corrosion.
Oh wow, I had Coleco's Frogger and Pacman games when I was 8, as well as a few of Coleco's excellent Quiz Whiz trivia cartridges. Loved those.
Football 2 ruled. We’d play it on the bus and put our coats over our heads so we could see the little red lights.
No love yet for the flavor of these we had in my family from Tiger. We had several of them, but Baseball got the most play. There was nothing more satisfying than hitting a home run right up the middle. Similar to others, these were road trip musts - my brother and I would pass them back and forth endlessly.
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Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!