Giving Tron a transparent case and putting theatrically designed extra traces on the board to represent the "World of Tron" inside the device was pretty clever.
As soon as I saw the Lupin one I was like "oh I bet it's based on the anime, I wonder if he's aware of it"...and then the answer turned out to be so much more interesting than I could have possibly imagined.
I had Scramble when I was a kid and I loved it. After the batteries died on in I tried a neat trick where you can supply voltage to the battery terminals directly and skip the batteries altogether. I was 7 (or maybe 8?) when I learned that volts are NOT volts. 110V from the wall straight to it's little 6V circuits. That was the exact moment I learned to fear/respect electricity. Never told my parents.
I wonder if anyone has managed to dump the ROMs of these games. This is an under-preserved part of gaming history and while this old hardware is pretty durable it won't last forever.
I had Caveman and Scramble! No blocky pixels with these lol! I always thought the gameplay was actually pretty good for what they were. Better than most lcd game watches. Going to see what emulation options are available…
I'm amazed at the vibrant colours and how the designers cleverly made the display segments work so well for the graphics - VFDs were such an under-rated display tech, at a time when LCD and LED were so bland by comparison. My first CD changer and home cinema amp in the mid-90s both had VFD displays, with an option to turn it off that was intended to improve sound quality (presumably VFDs are electrically noisy?) but I loved the bright turquoise/blue they put out.
"The ROM code is actually included in the microprocessor." Oh wow, so these would be some of the very first systems-on-a-chip (SOCs), huh? Interesting!
AFAIK It was actually factory-preprogrammed(the actual chip's silicon-wafer had fixed memory contents by design). The original Intel 8051 microprocessor(the AVR's grandpa) had the same kind of memory built-in, however it also had an external memory bus which allowed to store the program in a seperate EPROM chip or such.
I had Tron as a kid, thanks for bringing back old memories. Kids these days will never know how much imagination was necessary for handheld gaming back in the days.
Tomy was infamous for its reliance on interchangeable parts with its physical toys and electromechanical games like hit and missile, atomic arcade pinball and digital derby. Given the mold costs, there is a lot of clever cost-cutting in these games.
@@eekee6034 Most people think of the bad aspects of cost-cutting, where shortcuts make the thing inferior. But when it's done right, it makes it better and cheaper. Tomy mostly did it right.
As someone who has spent his life in the plastic molding business it is insane how much some of the mold costs just to make a plastic cap, a company could easily go out of business if something happened to one of its higher dollar molds and were lost/stolen with the cavities in them in transport.
I use to develop assembly code for National Semiconductor's COPS 4-bit microprocessors in the early 80's. We used them in TV cable converter boxes. I was sent to a training seminar once and everyone else there was pretty evenly split between toy companies (mostly from Mattel) and car manufacturers.
Very cool! I've never heard from anyone who worked with them. I'd love to hear about the tools and process you used; did you have special development boards? I assume you did the programming on a fairly powerful desktop computer (or maybe a mini?) and then did you have to burn ROMs to test the code, or was there some serial link? What did you use for your display while testing, before the production VFDs (or LCDs or whatever) were made? That kind of thing. Sorry for the nerdy questions, I'm just very curious :)
@@8_BitProgram development was much lower tech than you might imagine. We were using standard seven-segment led displays, so no cool VFD screens. You prototyped with a ROM-less version of your target micro-controller. The development system, supplied by National, used a single 8-inch floppy to store all your source and assembled files. It was connected to a terminal, printer, and PROM programmer. You used an O-scope for all your circuit/code debugging. We were generally only dealing with 1k of memory. But, it was amazing how much you could shoehorn into it.
I've always loved these VFD games. My friend Paul had a Scramble he got for his birthday. I remember how jealous I was of it! I currently have "Frisky Tom" and "Puck Man" which are both games I played in the 80's. Great stuff.
My parents bought Scramble for me for Christmas of 1982. My friend somehow got it in his head that my parents would buy him a Scramble game too. He was very upset when they didn't buy it for him. He should've known they wouldn't buy it for him.
I never expected those VDFs to be so detailed. The Tron one shows such a great usage of the technology with the re-using and the different colors, I've never seen this before.
CPU has 8x12 GPIO lines which can drive matrix. Also 4 lines are bit accessed and I guess they are for keyboard scan mostly. Rest of the screen must come from Patterns that Robin mentioned when walking through PDFs. But I agree that authors were very creative on colors and clever segment reuse.
Omg, i'm once have that Scramble when i was i kid. When i see your video i suddenly recall that opening melody. So wonder it still stuck on my head this long. Can't remember what happen to it.
One other fun thing is that there was an unlicensed quasi-crossover with Sherlock Holmes in the form of a character called Herlock Sholmès, who also kind of crops up in the Ace Attorney games!
The Lupin novels had Sherlock Holmes in French but the author was sued so the English version have Herlock Sholmes or Homeock Shears, depending on the translation.
The funny thing is Doyle's brother in law created a character who was inspired by Lupin as a counterpoint to Sherlock Holmes. :) He had nothing like the same name, he was Raffles the amateur cracksman.
Fantastic memories. For my birthday I got the frogger game, that I played to death My cousin had the double players pac man game and I really was jealous at it. 20 years later I asked him if he could give me and he did. On a flea market I found caveman (boxed). And I also have the DK game. Thanks for bringing back memories of a fantastic and unique era, with extremely creative people behind these vfd's (clever segments reuse)
I wasn't aware that 4 bit processors were used for things like this after 8 bit ones were available. But it makes sense that 4 bit chips would be repurposed for handhelds when 8 bit chips were still relatively new and expensive.
The 8-bit processors of the time couldn't drive high-voltage VFD's and tended to require external support chips (memory, ROM, timers, transistors for the VFD drive and so on). So it wasn't just the processor, the support circuits could easily cost as much as the cpu itself. In comparison the 4-bit calculator chip used had all that integrated to make the cheapest possible VFD based calculators, they were close to being the first modern "SOC" (complete system) in comparison and was cheap because calculators used a LOT of these and was extremely price sensitive. AFAIK most pocket calculators still use 4-bit CPUs to this day (obviously driving LCDs instead). Best guess, using 8-bit processor would have made them totally non-viable (as in "massively increase production cost"). As mentioned these were priced similar to higher end cartridge games which pretty much only has a few dirt cheap ROMs in them. Basically these only exist BECAUSE of those 4-bit calculator chips was already there and someone figured out a secondary market for them.
Lupin was released in germany too... drove my mother nearly to madness with the sound of it *laughs* and i think i still could play it nearly blind ...
Really cool video here! I remember a childhood friend of mine lending me his TRON game for a day or two. I was lucky to have a power supply at home that was compatible with it so I didn't have to use batteries with it. I also bought my very first LCD game called SPACE CRUSHER by Radio Shack with was basically the same as Scramble. I still have that little game and it's in near mint condition. Such great memories of such a simple but very rich childhood due to toys that really inspired you to use your imagination or that captured your attention in a whole new way despite being very simplistic by today's standards. Again, great video here! Nostalgic and fun _(and slightly bittersweet)_ blast from the past...
Used to love these vintage tabletop electronic games from the early 1980s. My parents used to take me to Toys R Us during the Christmas holidays after junior high to pick one or two up. I had classic Galaxy Invaders, Missile Invaders and Astro Wars which are all now worth 100s of dollars second hand. Great times and wish I kept them. But hey kids swapped absolutely everything back in the 1980s for other toys and sports cards lol.
I honestly expected these to be terrible but they seriously did everything they could with what they had I mean four freaking games with that wacky LCD thing? That's genius I guess it makes sense that it would be a vfd.
Wow, we had the Caveman game as a kid (and probably drove our parents nuts with the music it plays). I didn't realize that there were other similar games, but I guess it shouldn't surprise me. Thanks for the vid!
I had Caveman! Super fun for the time. Also, around the same time had a racing game shaped like space-age binoculars, and it was 3D! I think that was a Tomy.
Whoa these are awesome older toys. Back in the 70's we didn't have the technological nightmare kids have now. He had Mattel Hand Held games. I had the Football🏉, Basketball🏀, Baseball⚾️, Soccer⚽️, and Hockey🏒. They also had Head to Head versions too, for 2 players or just one if you wanted to play alone. They were fun as was the 70's themselves.
I first saw that Tron game at my cousin's house when I was about three or four. The translucent plastic, the glowing VFD display, and the high-pitched piezo beeper sound made it seem ultra-futuristic and almost magical in a way. I never did get past the first disk level but the sights and sounds were firmly etched in my memory ever since. Thanks for sharing your collection of these handheld games.
Scramble has a visual grid is 4x8 = 32 words. Each word is able to represent 4 bits, so it is what we are seeing at least in Scramble, the line at the bottom, the square at the top, the bullet, the wings and the rocket (I think they allowed some combinations of them instead of one-byte one symbol). The player has 4 positions = 1 word but it is always at the left. Each missile should have a position x,y (X uses 2 words and Y uses a word), or using an index (2 words). Each enemy uses 2 words or 3 words (I think it could hold up to 4-5 enemies, 5 x 3 = 15). 32 + 1 + 3 + 15 = 51 words out of 160, so there is room for other things such as the boss, the level, the lives, the score, the program, music and level are in the ROM, so there is enough RAM for more stuff, Lupin uses a 5x9 grid so it is a waste of more resources. So, what I am talking about, the CPU is slow but it is enough for even more. The RAM was the main constraint. The Atari 2600 has 128 bytes of ram but it was 8 bytes, so it was almost the same as this 4-bit chips.
I didn't have any of these VFD games but I did have a Bambino UFO Master Blaster VFD game as a child in the early 80's. I played the heck out of it until it suffered from a severe case of battery leakage. Good times!
Oh man, I love these old VFD games! They were so creative with how they incorporated multiple game modes, using a single, non-overlapping grid. I've been developing a Tiger Electronics styled game for fun, but I do want to try making a simpler VFD styled game, eventually.
These are way more colorful than my aunt's late 1970s handheld games of Mattel Football, Basketball, and Blip, which only displayed red hyphens ( - ) on the screen! I’d even argue that the choice of cyan, green, and red on a black background was far better than IBM's fugly palettes on CGA monitors of the era.
Scramble! As a kid visiting my younger cousin in the 80s I would always try to sneak in a few games of this when my family visited his. I still want to track down a working copy for myself at some point, just for the nostalgia. Was aware of Tron and Caveman, but did just learn that there was one of Lupin. neat.
The Caveman game looks pretty awesome, especially for it's time. With multiple, changing, levels these games were far more advanced than play 'n watch style handhelds.
And the memories come flooding back, mainly of the Scramble one, sneaking goes under my bed covers in the night, hahaha. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the screens of these presented so well, before, btw.
Welp guess I'm getting a crunchyroll sub now... 😄 I have a bunch of dvds of the 2nd season but am missing a couple to round it off and idk if I've seen much from any of the other seasons
That caveman bears a slight resemblance to Lisa Simpson. Just add a pearl necklace and a saxophone. My brother had the Skramble game, but I remember it being in a taller case like one of those miniature upright arcade games, with a taller screen as if it had a few more vertical segments. My only handheld games were a couple of LDC games from Tiger Electronics, and a mechanical alien ship shooter in a miniature arcade game case that had a tiny record player for the sound effects. I've found a similar game called Cosmic Clash, so I think that may have been it.
Had never seen Caveman before, looks awesome. Never seen Lupin gameplay before, looks great too, Lupin is possibly the best one of this type of game overall! Would love for that to come to RA emulation. These games were actually really good. Astro Wars really holds up today i think. Thanks for the video 🎉
Pretty darn awesome what they could do with those VFD displays, especially in Scramble. The same could have been done in Game & Watch, but they never had anything like scrolling.
Thank you for making this great video. As a kid in the 80s I went down the other Wishbook path to the Atari VCS, but I've always been fascinated by these VFD games. The Tomy ones, especially. It's really ingenious how they worked around the limitations of the technology (and the price point.)
I can't even recall how many hours of Tron I played back in the day. It was my second experience with a computerized electronic device, next to Merlin, and thankfully I still have both of those games. I remember playing Scramble back then, too, but I don't seem to have it anymore.
I have been trying to remember the game I had and loved so much. As soon as you started up Scramble, I was back in my childhood! I wish I had seen this video 2 years ago. Now I hope I can find Scramble online somewhere that's not too expensive.
If you set up a saved search on eBay for Tomy Scramble you'll eventually find one for about $50-$60 US. Right now there's a couple that would cost around $100 shipped but you should be able to do better than that if you watch and wait.
I had Scramble when I was a kid. I played that thing for hours and hours. Totally forgot the name of it until I watched this video. Thanks for the refreshing my memory.
These are really great nostalgia trips back to the early 80s, I literally get flashbacks everytime you fire up the old Tomy and Tiger games... 12 year old me thanks you.
I had almost all of these electronic games before we got a binatone and then a Atari 2600,god bless my parents because my mother spoiled me at Xmas and birthdays and got me a mass of games for my Atari over the months/years and then let me swop it for a zx81 with couple cassettes , mags and tape recorder..all my cartridges and Atari..then I got my spectrum..beautiful times 77 onwards
"Translucent shell..." It actually _transparent_ and shaded. When something is translucent that means that it lets light through but is textured/scrambled so you can't see the detail on the other side.
I loved that Tron game as a kid in the 80s. I don't recall the back being translucent. The only problem was the high volume. When I had a stay in the hospital I borrowed this game from my cousin and it was way loud to use in a hospital at night when there was nothing else to do.
I'm not in the habit of using the word "visceral" often, but that's what this Tron game is for me. It's amazing: the intense sound and the glow of the VFD bring me back to my childhood maybe more than anything else.
@@8_Bit My desire to relive this experience was so intense "visceral" is apt -- I immediately went looking for one on eBay. Sadly at $100 (the cheapest option) I just couldn't justify pulling the trigger.
I had Caveman! Mine had a green surround on the screen rather than your blue and, despite having the "TOMY" emblem on the case it was distributed by Grandstand here in the UK (the Grandstand logo was printed on the screen surround). I put a lot of hours into that game back in the day. Thanks for memories!
There was a version of Defender from Tomy as well... Just found ours not too long ago, along with the Tomy "3d-Space" shooter game. Fun times back then :-)
I remember Tron and Scramble from my childhood (I never owned either but saw them in some stores). I did not know about Caveman or Lupin. I would love to have any or all of these games now as they remind me of my youth. I appreciate the time you took to film this review and playthrough of each of these games. I have subscribed to your channel. Thanks for sharing!
I still have my Tomy Tron (in perfect condition, with original box, instructions and packing!) and my brother's Tomy Scramble. Bought them both on the same day from Kay-Bee Toys in 1983, on clearance for US$13.99 (marked down from $55.95!). I remember them stacked in a pile and people were grabbing them up fast...we got some of the last ones! Love the glow of Vacuum Florence Display, a rather unique visual display, much like my Vectrex! Scramble is my favorite of the two games, which also happens to be one of my favorite Vectrex games! (has a unique glow and look too!). Thanks for making this video, I had NO IDEA Caveman or Lupin existed until watching this, or that these games used a 4-bit calculator microcontroller with integrated custom ROM and RAM. I think Tron and Scramble were likely more popular, having the movie & arcade game tie ins. Not sure I would've liked Caveman back in the day, but Lupin seems like it could be an interesting game. Had LED and LCD handhelds too in the early 80's, but these VFD were the coolest!
I got my Tron at the Kay-Bee Toys too; I don't remember how much it was marked down but I suspect it was $20 or less or I couldn't have justified (or afforded) it.
Interesting these Tomy games got marked down so quickly, barely a year old (by contrast, my Mattel Electronics Baseball I got around 1982 on mark down, had probably been sitting around the store since '78!). Maybe these got caught up in the video game crash that same year?
I was pretty sure I never owned one of these, and even that I never played one of these. But when I saw the Caveman gameplay, something in my brain clicked. It´s amazing how after 35-40years, your memory tells you: I´ve seen that before! I have no clue when and where, but I know I have played this as a young child. Of course without appreciating it back then. In Germany that is...Thanks for the spark!
It took me a while but I briefly went through HMCS44A data sheet. 2176 words is a total ROM size. First 2048 words can contain both code and pattern, latter only patterns. P instruction takes 2 cycles and loads constant to A and B regs or output 8 bits through R30-R43 pins. Program Counter loops within a page and goes in wierd polynomial sequence. Instruction clock is 100 kHz.
Man in red who steals eggs from a male, egg-laying, bipedal dinosaur. It's the origin story of Yoshi that Nintendo doesn't want you to know! The key-grabbing in Lupin also made me think of SMM. Very interesting to see that Lupin is a figure similar to the Golden Bat, where it's this fun interchange of Western and Japanese. I always assumed Lupin was a Japanese creation, and that 3 just meant it was the third series.
Omg! I never knew about this game. I was hoping he was going to show game play. Thanks for this. I remembered most of the games but I don't recall ever seeing the Tron game. Tron was one of my favorites back in the day. There will never be another awesome decade like the 80s.
Those were cool did not know about these 4-bit video games! i did have the bigger ones growing up like Donkey Kong & Pac-Man & those did not have volume control either & they are loud just like these versions. Put in many hours due to my parents not wanting a home console as the Atari Break Out would burn an image into your screen back in the day & so these kind of hand held electronics were the only ones i could play on. Wish i knew about them when i was kid. This was an awesome video!
Lupin was unlikely to be released in the US since the original novels Lupin the 3rd were an unofficial sequel to were not in the pubic domain in the US yet. In the 80s when Lupin the 3rD media was released here his name was changed to Thief or Wolf, if the game was released over here it was most likely rebranded to one of those names or a US cartoon. Very interesting video, thanks for making it.
I have the Tomy branded Caveman, and it's interesting, because the instructions on the battery door and a sticker by the DC power jack is all in Japanese. The artwork around the bezel is slightly different. It says "Jr Caveman vs Dinosaur above "Caveman." has graphics for main characters. Also says "Tomy Micro Computer Game Dynamic Multiscreen LSI-CPU FIP Index Panel." The "teradactyl" is actually labeled "Dragon." Gameplay is a bit different from amateur to pro. Seems unlimited axe supply in beginner mode without having to travel back. Couldn't tell on your unit, but if the caveman gets hit trying to take an egg he "rolls backwards." DC jack is 6V negative tip. My Goodwill sticker still says $2.99.
I realize now that I forgot to demonstrate PRO mode, and yeah, you need to pick up new axes at the left side of the screen after every shot, while in AMA you have unlimited axes with you. Your description of the bezel makes it sound like you somehow ended up with a Japanese release, like my Lupin game. Interesting what will find its way to Goodwill!
16:40 - Is that a knockoff of the Pink Panther theme? Could be...was common for video games of the 80's and 90's. Also, cute collection. In an age when Tiger-style handhelds were black and white, it's refreshing to see.
These are really cool. They are from before my time, I never owned or played any of these. Lupin looks the best. The character on Caveman looks like Lisa Simpson.
I want that Tron so bad! I can't believe I didn't know about this as a kid because I definitely would've found a way to get this. I was a huge Tron fan as a kid.
As a builder , i would so want to 3d scan and print this form factor & keep all of the design elements for the Tron to make an updated version. ESP32 Tron emulator , LCD screen , glow in the dark fake circuitry , & accented fire button with a UV LED to keep them glowing. The electronic enclosures of the past all had style that seem to lack in today , it's all to utilitarian now.
I have TRON, one my favourite hand held games back from the early 1980's (the other is Octopus). I saw mine in a local department store (Beatties) on the run up to Christmas. Wasn't cheap, but considerbly more affordable that the VCS for sure. They ordered it and arrived in time for Christmas. Love the style, transparent case with the attention to detail and a superb recreation of a game of the film in such limited hardware. Luckily for me, this and my other electronic games went to my Nan for some years when I 'grew out of them' as she enjoyed playing them. Otherwise I suspect they would have been sold for next to nothing. They eventually found their way back to me some years later.
Giving Tron a transparent case and putting theatrically designed extra traces on the board to represent the "World of Tron" inside the device was pretty clever.
I doubt modern viewers will understand just how special and magical these games felt.
I had the Tron game years back. I got so good at it, I flipped the score. Good memories. Thank you for sharing!
As soon as I saw the Lupin one I was like "oh I bet it's based on the anime, I wonder if he's aware of it"...and then the answer turned out to be so much more interesting than I could have possibly imagined.
I had Scramble when I was a kid and I loved it. After the batteries died on in I tried a neat trick where you can supply voltage to the battery terminals directly and skip the batteries altogether. I was 7 (or maybe 8?) when I learned that volts are NOT volts. 110V from the wall straight to it's little 6V circuits. That was the exact moment I learned to fear/respect electricity. Never told my parents.
I had that Tron game, it's clever how they put different modes into it.
That game looks fun! Many of those games were kinda lame. But they did look cool for back then!
I wonder if anyone has managed to dump the ROMs of these games. This is an under-preserved part of gaming history and while this old hardware is pretty durable it won't last forever.
I just did some searching around, it looks like Kevtris has dumped all them except Lupin.
They're in here:
blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/Handhelds/VFD%20Games/
@@Cherijo78 Thank you!
I had Caveman and Scramble! No blocky pixels with these lol! I always thought the gameplay was actually pretty good for what they were. Better than most lcd game watches.
Going to see what emulation options are available…
I was playing Tron on my Steam Deck. @@DJFace147
Those games are truly amazing pieces of tech.
I grew up with tiger black and white garbage...
Thank you for your demonstration.
I'm amazed at the vibrant colours and how the designers cleverly made the display segments work so well for the graphics - VFDs were such an under-rated display tech, at a time when LCD and LED were so bland by comparison.
My first CD changer and home cinema amp in the mid-90s both had VFD displays, with an option to turn it off that was intended to improve sound quality (presumably VFDs are electrically noisy?) but I loved the bright turquoise/blue they put out.
"The ROM code is actually included in the microprocessor." Oh wow, so these would be some of the very first systems-on-a-chip (SOCs), huh? Interesting!
This was fairly common, then some smart arse decided it needed a new fangled name so SOC came to be.
@@paulstubbs7678: Why do you believe the term "system on a chip" came from what you call a "smart arse"?
AFAIK It was actually factory-preprogrammed(the actual chip's silicon-wafer had fixed memory contents by design). The original Intel 8051 microprocessor(the AVR's grandpa) had the same kind of memory built-in, however it also had an external memory bus which allowed to store the program in a seperate EPROM chip or such.
@@MrKata55: So we're still talking about an SOC.
Technically that probably would have been calculators, of which these were an offshoot.
I had Tron as a kid, thanks for bringing back old memories. Kids these days will never know how much imagination was necessary for handheld gaming back in the days.
Tomy was infamous for its reliance on interchangeable parts with its physical toys and electromechanical games like hit and missile, atomic arcade pinball and digital derby. Given the mold costs, there is a lot of clever cost-cutting in these games.
I always loved the interchangable parts. Modularity seemed like a cool trick to me when I was a kid, :) plus I liked cost-saving where it didn't hurt.
@@eekee6034 Most people think of the bad aspects of cost-cutting, where shortcuts make the thing inferior. But when it's done right, it makes it better and cheaper. Tomy mostly did it right.
As someone who has spent his life in the plastic molding business it is insane how much some of the mold costs just to make a plastic cap, a company could easily go out of business if something happened to one of its higher dollar molds and were lost/stolen with the cavities in them in transport.
When i was child i have Lupin. Tank you. i went back to my childhood.
I use to develop assembly code for National Semiconductor's COPS 4-bit microprocessors in the early 80's. We used them in TV cable converter boxes. I was sent to a training seminar once and everyone else there was pretty evenly split between toy companies (mostly from Mattel) and car manufacturers.
Very cool! I've never heard from anyone who worked with them. I'd love to hear about the tools and process you used; did you have special development boards? I assume you did the programming on a fairly powerful desktop computer (or maybe a mini?) and then did you have to burn ROMs to test the code, or was there some serial link? What did you use for your display while testing, before the production VFDs (or LCDs or whatever) were made? That kind of thing. Sorry for the nerdy questions, I'm just very curious :)
@@8_BitProgram development was much lower tech than you might imagine. We were using standard seven-segment led displays, so no cool VFD screens. You prototyped with a ROM-less version of your target micro-controller. The development system, supplied by National, used a single 8-inch floppy to store all your source and assembled files. It was connected to a terminal, printer, and PROM programmer. You used an O-scope for all your circuit/code debugging. We were generally only dealing with 1k of memory. But, it was amazing how much you could shoehorn into it.
Awesome, thanks for the info. I sometimes think that sort of thing would have been my dream job had I been born 10 years earlier!
I've always loved these VFD games. My friend Paul had a Scramble he got for his birthday. I remember how jealous I was of it!
I currently have "Frisky Tom" and "Puck Man" which are both games I played in the 80's. Great stuff.
My parents bought Scramble for me for Christmas of 1982. My friend somehow got it in his head that my parents would buy him a Scramble game too. He was very upset when they didn't buy it for him. He should've known they wouldn't buy it for him.
Last time I was this early, it was 1982 and I'd had my first glimpse as a 5 year old of a C64 at a family friends house.
Harrr haaaarrrrr! :-D
I never expected those VDFs to be so detailed. The Tron one shows such a great usage of the technology with the re-using and the different colors, I've never seen this before.
CPU has 8x12 GPIO lines which can drive matrix. Also 4 lines are bit accessed and I guess they are for keyboard scan mostly. Rest of the screen must come from Patterns that Robin mentioned when walking through PDFs. But I agree that authors were very creative on colors and clever segment reuse.
Oh man I had caveman and scramble. Still at my mum and dad's and still working.
Caveman I played a ton. Has surprisingly enjoyable gameplay.
I love the extra details they did on the Tron console
Lupin III : The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), was the first film by Miyazaki better known for Studio Ghibli
Secret of Momo was 1st
Omg, i'm once have that Scramble when i was i kid. When i see your video i suddenly recall that opening melody. So wonder it still stuck on my head this long. Can't remember what happen to it.
One other fun thing is that there was an unlicensed quasi-crossover with Sherlock Holmes in the form of a character called Herlock Sholmès, who also kind of crops up in the Ace Attorney games!
The Lupin novels had Sherlock Holmes in French but the author was sued so the English version have Herlock Sholmes or Homeock Shears, depending on the translation.
The funny thing is Doyle's brother in law created a character who was inspired by Lupin as a counterpoint to Sherlock Holmes. :) He had nothing like the same name, he was Raffles the amateur cracksman.
Fantastic memories.
For my birthday I got the frogger game, that I played to death
My cousin had the double players pac man game and I really was jealous at it.
20 years later I asked him if he could give me and he did.
On a flea market I found caveman (boxed).
And I also have the DK game.
Thanks for bringing back memories of a fantastic and unique era, with extremely creative people behind these vfd's (clever segments reuse)
I wasn't aware that 4 bit processors were used for things like this after 8 bit ones were available. But it makes sense that 4 bit chips would be repurposed for handhelds when 8 bit chips were still relatively new and expensive.
The 8-bit processors of the time couldn't drive high-voltage VFD's and tended to require external support chips (memory, ROM, timers, transistors for the VFD drive and so on). So it wasn't just the processor, the support circuits could easily cost as much as the cpu itself.
In comparison the 4-bit calculator chip used had all that integrated to make the cheapest possible VFD based calculators, they were close to being the first modern "SOC" (complete system) in comparison and was cheap because calculators used a LOT of these and was extremely price sensitive.
AFAIK most pocket calculators still use 4-bit CPUs to this day (obviously driving LCDs instead).
Best guess, using 8-bit processor would have made them totally non-viable (as in "massively increase production cost"). As mentioned these were priced similar to higher end cartridge games which pretty much only has a few dirt cheap ROMs in them. Basically these only exist BECAUSE of those 4-bit calculator chips was already there and someone figured out a secondary market for them.
@@Torbjorn.Lindgren Great explanation!
Lupin was released in germany too... drove my mother nearly to madness with the sound of it *laughs* and i think i still could play it nearly blind ...
Really cool video here! I remember a childhood friend of mine lending me his TRON game for a day or two. I was lucky to have a power supply at home that was compatible with it so I didn't have to use batteries with it.
I also bought my very first LCD game called SPACE CRUSHER by Radio Shack with was basically the same as Scramble. I still have that little game and it's in near mint condition. Such great memories of such a simple but very rich childhood due to toys that really inspired you to use your imagination or that captured your attention in a whole new way despite being very simplistic by today's standards.
Again, great video here! Nostalgic and fun _(and slightly bittersweet)_ blast from the past...
Used to love these vintage tabletop electronic games from the early 1980s. My parents used to take me to Toys R Us during the Christmas holidays after junior high to pick one or two up. I had classic Galaxy Invaders, Missile Invaders and Astro Wars which are all now worth 100s of dollars second hand. Great times and wish I kept them. But hey kids swapped absolutely everything back in the 1980s for other toys and sports cards lol.
I honestly expected these to be terrible but they seriously did everything they could with what they had I mean four freaking games with that wacky LCD thing? That's genius
I guess it makes sense that it would be a vfd.
Wow, we had the Caveman game as a kid (and probably drove our parents nuts with the music it plays). I didn't realize that there were other similar games, but I guess it shouldn't surprise me. Thanks for the vid!
I had Caveman! Super fun for the time. Also, around the same time had a racing game shaped like space-age binoculars, and it was 3D! I think that was a Tomy.
Yes, they did a series of 3D games with the binocular form factor. Trying to capture that gameplay on video would be really difficult I bet!
Those games aren't cheap. Been looking for affordable versions for a long time.
Not only that but the technology just wasn’t there yet.
I have Caveman, the funnest one.
Whoa these are awesome older toys. Back in the 70's we didn't have the technological nightmare kids have now. He had Mattel Hand Held games. I had the Football🏉, Basketball🏀, Baseball⚾️, Soccer⚽️, and Hockey🏒. They also had Head to Head versions too, for 2 players or just one if you wanted to play alone. They were fun as was the 70's themselves.
Bought the Tron one at a Flea Market in the 90s for $5 or so.
I'm impressed by how good these look for the (original) price. The art for the caveman game is really cute too.
$20 in 1981 is the same as $60-$65 today.
This takes me back. I played that Scramble game so much when I was a kid.
Brings back a hell of a lot of memories.
If somebody had one of these in the 80's when were kids in Grade School they were the freaking KINGS on the playground at recess. Fun times. 😊
I first saw that Tron game at my cousin's house when I was about three or four. The translucent plastic, the glowing VFD display, and the high-pitched piezo beeper sound made it seem ultra-futuristic and almost magical in a way. I never did get past the first disk level but the sights and sounds were firmly etched in my memory ever since. Thanks for sharing your collection of these handheld games.
Got the TRON game for Christmas 1982, still have it and it still works.
Scramble has a visual grid is 4x8 = 32 words. Each word is able to represent 4 bits, so it is what we are seeing at least in Scramble, the line at the bottom, the square at the top, the bullet, the wings and the rocket (I think they allowed some combinations of them instead of one-byte one symbol).
The player has 4 positions = 1 word but it is always at the left.
Each missile should have a position x,y (X uses 2 words and Y uses a word), or using an index (2 words).
Each enemy uses 2 words or 3 words (I think it could hold up to 4-5 enemies, 5 x 3 = 15).
32 + 1 + 3 + 15 = 51 words out of 160, so there is room for other things such as the boss, the level, the lives, the score, the program, music and level are in the ROM, so there is enough RAM for more stuff, Lupin uses a 5x9 grid so it is a waste of more resources.
So, what I am talking about, the CPU is slow but it is enough for even more. The RAM was the main constraint. The Atari 2600 has 128 bytes of ram but it was 8 bytes, so it was almost the same as this 4-bit chips.
This was very interesting and complete. Thank you
Thanks! Oh, I see you have some calculator watch videos, I have to... watch!
I remember these as a kid funny how the games went from these, great graphics and highly playable to tiger crap. Tron looks amazing!!
@6:24 They are real life motorbike model numbers probably meant as an ode to the lightcycles in the movie Tron
I didn't have any of these VFD games but I did have a Bambino UFO Master Blaster VFD game as a child in the early 80's. I played the heck out of it until it suffered from a severe case of battery leakage. Good times!
Oh man, I love these old VFD games!
They were so creative with how they incorporated multiple game modes, using a single, non-overlapping grid.
I've been developing a Tiger Electronics styled game for fun, but I do want to try making a simpler VFD styled game, eventually.
These are way more colorful than my aunt's late 1970s handheld games of Mattel Football, Basketball, and Blip, which only displayed red hyphens ( - ) on the screen!
I’d even argue that the choice of cyan, green, and red on a black background was far better than IBM's fugly palettes on CGA monitors of the era.
Scramble! As a kid visiting my younger cousin in the 80s I would always try to sneak in a few games of this when my family visited his. I still want to track down a working copy for myself at some point, just for the nostalgia.
Was aware of Tron and Caveman, but did just learn that there was one of Lupin. neat.
The Caveman game looks pretty awesome, especially for it's time. With multiple, changing, levels these games were far more advanced than play 'n watch style handhelds.
And the memories come flooding back, mainly of the Scramble one, sneaking goes under my bed covers in the night, hahaha. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the screens of these presented so well, before, btw.
Lupin III is awesome. I love the TV series and movies.
Lupin the 3rd is still up on Crunchyroll, parts 1 - 5 (~24 videos per part except part 2 which has 234 episodes)
Cheers,
Welp guess I'm getting a crunchyroll sub now... 😄 I have a bunch of dvds of the 2nd season but am missing a couple to round it off and idk if I've seen much from any of the other seasons
That caveman bears a slight resemblance to Lisa Simpson. Just add a pearl necklace and a saxophone. My brother had the Skramble game, but I remember it being in a taller case like one of those miniature upright arcade games, with a taller screen as if it had a few more vertical segments. My only handheld games were a couple of LDC games from Tiger Electronics, and a mechanical alien ship shooter in a miniature arcade game case that had a tiny record player for the sound effects. I've found a similar game called Cosmic Clash, so I think that may have been it.
Had never seen Caveman before, looks awesome. Never seen Lupin gameplay before, looks great too, Lupin is possibly the best one of this type of game overall! Would love for that to come to RA emulation. These games were actually really good. Astro Wars really holds up today i think.
Thanks for the video 🎉
Pretty darn awesome what they could do with those VFD displays, especially in Scramble. The same could have been done in Game & Watch, but they never had anything like scrolling.
Super Mario Bros Game&Watch June 25, 1986 had scrolling.
Thank you for making this great video. As a kid in the 80s I went down the other Wishbook path to the Atari VCS, but I've always been fascinated by these VFD games. The Tomy ones, especially. It's really ingenious how they worked around the limitations of the technology (and the price point.)
I can't even recall how many hours of Tron I played back in the day. It was my second experience with a computerized electronic device, next to Merlin, and thankfully I still have both of those games. I remember playing Scramble back then, too, but I don't seem to have it anymore.
I got Tron for Christmas 1982. I was so excited i got up at 4 am Christmas day to play it
Now I get why cavemen died so soon: egg-only diet, basically meaning cholesterol killed them.
That's a myth. Eggs are protein-rich, not cholestrol-rich.
I used to have Caveman...loved it.. lots of memories
I have been trying to remember the game I had and loved so much. As soon as you started up Scramble, I was back in my childhood! I wish I had seen this video 2 years ago. Now I hope I can find Scramble online somewhere that's not too expensive.
If you set up a saved search on eBay for Tomy Scramble you'll eventually find one for about $50-$60 US. Right now there's a couple that would cost around $100 shipped but you should be able to do better than that if you watch and wait.
Thanks Robin🙏
I had Scramble when I was a kid. I played that thing for hours and hours. Totally forgot the name of it until I watched this video. Thanks for the refreshing my memory.
Growing up here in the U.K. I had and loved the Tron game, it’s great to see it working again. Thanks for your time and effort on this 👍🏻
I'm amazed it scrolls like that, I'd have NEVER guessed a 4 bit handheld like that would be able to handle that
These are really great nostalgia trips back to the early 80s, I literally get flashbacks everytime you fire up the old Tomy and Tiger games...
12 year old me thanks you.
I had almost all of these electronic games before we got a binatone and then a Atari 2600,god bless my parents because my mother spoiled me at Xmas and birthdays and got me a mass of games for my Atari over the months/years and then let me swop it for a zx81 with couple cassettes , mags and tape recorder..all my cartridges and Atari..then I got my spectrum..beautiful times 77 onwards
"Translucent shell..." It actually _transparent_ and shaded. When something is translucent that means that it lets light through but is textured/scrambled so you can't see the detail on the other side.
The sound of the D-pad is very distinctive; that's what brings it all back for me.
I loved that Tron game as a kid in the 80s. I don't recall the back being translucent. The only problem was the high volume. When I had a stay in the hospital I borrowed this game from my cousin and it was way loud to use in a hospital at night when there was nothing else to do.
Yeah, it's too bad they didn't include at least a sound on/off switch!
You just evoked a childhood memory of playing that Tron as a kid. I don't know who owned it (I didn't) but I remember all of the sounds and gameplay!
I'm not in the habit of using the word "visceral" often, but that's what this Tron game is for me. It's amazing: the intense sound and the glow of the VFD bring me back to my childhood maybe more than anything else.
@@8_Bit My desire to relive this experience was so intense "visceral" is apt -- I immediately went looking for one on eBay. Sadly at $100 (the cheapest option) I just couldn't justify pulling the trigger.
Tomy produced some truly amazing toys. I had an electro mechanical helicopter game that was more fun than it should have been for an 80's kid.
Love the look of these games!
I had Caveman! Mine had a green surround on the screen rather than your blue and, despite having the "TOMY" emblem on the case it was distributed by Grandstand here in the UK (the Grandstand logo was printed on the screen surround). I put a lot of hours into that game back in the day. Thanks for memories!
Ahh, I had all of those except Lupin when I was a kid. I hate to think how many hours I spent playing Scramble in particular! Such good memories.
Dan from Game Grumps has talked about an old primitive game called Caveman that was a solo unit. This is probably it
Never seen these before. Really incredible. Far better than the Tiger Electronic games I grew up with.
I remember when my sister’s friends accidentally left Scramble at my house. They were two days of bliss.
There was a version of Defender from Tomy as well... Just found ours not too long ago, along with the Tomy "3d-Space" shooter game. Fun times back then :-)
Scramble! This is awesome. I had this game as a kid. Thank you for putting the nostalgic smile on my face.
Always wanted to collect these, I have Caveman from when I was a kid.
I remember Tron and Scramble from my childhood (I never owned either but saw them in some stores). I did not know about Caveman or Lupin. I would love to have any or all of these games now as they remind me of my youth. I appreciate the time you took to film this review and playthrough of each of these games. I have subscribed to your channel. Thanks for sharing!
I still have my Tomy Tron (in perfect condition, with original box, instructions and packing!) and my brother's Tomy Scramble. Bought them both on the same day from Kay-Bee Toys in 1983, on clearance for US$13.99 (marked down from $55.95!). I remember them stacked in a pile and people were grabbing them up fast...we got some of the last ones! Love the glow of Vacuum Florence Display, a rather unique visual display, much like my Vectrex! Scramble is my favorite of the two games, which also happens to be one of my favorite Vectrex games! (has a unique glow and look too!). Thanks for making this video, I had NO IDEA Caveman or Lupin existed until watching this, or that these games used a 4-bit calculator microcontroller with integrated custom ROM and RAM. I think Tron and Scramble were likely more popular, having the movie & arcade game tie ins. Not sure I would've liked Caveman back in the day, but Lupin seems like it could be an interesting game. Had LED and LCD handhelds too in the early 80's, but these VFD were the coolest!
I got my Tron at the Kay-Bee Toys too; I don't remember how much it was marked down but I suspect it was $20 or less or I couldn't have justified (or afforded) it.
Interesting these Tomy games got marked down so quickly, barely a year old (by contrast, my Mattel Electronics Baseball I got around 1982 on mark down, had probably been sitting around the store since '78!). Maybe these got caught up in the video game crash that same year?
Great Video - I had Scramble as a 4 year old in 1982.
I was pretty sure I never owned one of these, and even that I never played one of these. But when I saw the Caveman gameplay, something in my brain clicked. It´s amazing how after 35-40years, your memory tells you: I´ve seen that before! I have no clue when and where, but I know I have played this as a young child. Of course without appreciating it back then.
In Germany that is...Thanks for the spark!
It took me a while but I briefly went through HMCS44A data sheet. 2176 words is a total ROM size. First 2048 words can contain both code and pattern, latter only patterns. P instruction takes 2 cycles and loads constant to A and B regs or output 8 bits through R30-R43 pins. Program Counter loops within a page and goes in wierd polynomial sequence. Instruction clock is 100 kHz.
Man in red who steals eggs from a male, egg-laying, bipedal dinosaur. It's the origin story of Yoshi that Nintendo doesn't want you to know! The key-grabbing in Lupin also made me think of SMM. Very interesting to see that Lupin is a figure similar to the Golden Bat, where it's this fun interchange of Western and Japanese. I always assumed Lupin was a Japanese creation, and that 3 just meant it was the third series.
These look awesome, never stumbled on these when I was younger
Omg! I never knew about this game. I was hoping he was going to show game play. Thanks for this. I remembered most of the games but I don't recall ever seeing the Tron game. Tron was one of my favorites back in the day. There will never be another awesome decade like the 80s.
Those were cool did not know about these 4-bit video games! i did have the bigger ones growing up like Donkey Kong & Pac-Man & those did not have volume control either & they are loud just like these versions. Put in many hours due to my parents not wanting a home console as the Atari Break Out would burn an image into your screen back in the day & so these kind of hand held electronics were the only ones i could play on. Wish i knew about them when i was kid. This was an awesome video!
Lupin was unlikely to be released in the US since the original novels Lupin the 3rd were an unofficial sequel to were not in the pubic domain in the US yet.
In the 80s when Lupin the 3rD media was released here his name was changed to Thief or Wolf, if the game was released over here it was most likely rebranded to one of those names or a US cartoon.
Very interesting video, thanks for making it.
Playing like an OG schoolyard champion there!
I have the Tomy branded Caveman, and it's interesting, because the instructions on the battery door and a sticker by the DC power jack is all in Japanese. The artwork around the bezel is slightly different. It says "Jr Caveman vs Dinosaur above "Caveman." has graphics for main characters. Also says "Tomy Micro Computer Game Dynamic Multiscreen LSI-CPU FIP Index Panel." The "teradactyl" is actually labeled "Dragon." Gameplay is a bit different from amateur to pro. Seems unlimited axe supply in beginner mode without having to travel back. Couldn't tell on your unit, but if the caveman gets hit trying to take an egg he "rolls backwards." DC jack is 6V negative tip. My Goodwill sticker still says $2.99.
I realize now that I forgot to demonstrate PRO mode, and yeah, you need to pick up new axes at the left side of the screen after every shot, while in AMA you have unlimited axes with you. Your description of the bezel makes it sound like you somehow ended up with a Japanese release, like my Lupin game. Interesting what will find its way to Goodwill!
thanks. your review shows me how to play on each games. I love it! I had Scamble long long time ago but my cousin borrowed and lost it LOL.
16:40 - Is that a knockoff of the Pink Panther theme? Could be...was common for video games of the 80's and 90's.
Also, cute collection. In an age when Tiger-style handhelds were black and white, it's refreshing to see.
You're pretty good at these games! Those VFDs sure are nicer looking than the tiger LCDs, and the games have a lot more effort put into them also.
These are really cool. They are from before my time, I never owned or played any of these. Lupin looks the best. The character on Caveman looks like Lisa Simpson.
I want that Tron so bad! I can't believe I didn't know about this as a kid because I definitely would've found a way to get this. I was a huge Tron fan as a kid.
Thanks so much for the video. I had Scramble as a kid and really loved it, though can't remember being any good at it! Brings back some fond memories.
As a builder , i would so want to 3d scan and print this form factor & keep all of the design elements for the Tron to make an updated version.
ESP32 Tron emulator , LCD screen , glow in the dark fake circuitry , & accented fire button with a UV LED to keep them glowing.
The electronic enclosures of the past all had style that seem to lack in today , it's all to utilitarian now.
I have TRON, one my favourite hand held games back from the early 1980's (the other is Octopus). I saw mine in a local department store (Beatties) on the run up to Christmas. Wasn't cheap, but considerbly more affordable that the VCS for sure. They ordered it and arrived in time for Christmas. Love the style, transparent case with the attention to detail and a superb recreation of a game of the film in such limited hardware.
Luckily for me, this and my other electronic games went to my Nan for some years when I 'grew out of them' as she enjoyed playing them. Otherwise I suspect they would have been sold for next to nothing. They eventually found their way back to me some years later.
The best part about the Japanese Lupin is that some movies debuted in Italy instead of Japan.
And one PS2 Lupin game was only localized in Italy.