Adam Savage's Favorite Mechanical Handheld Game!

Before we had the Game Boy and other handheld video game systems, toymaker TOMY released a line of electro-mechanical handhelds that emulated the video game experience, fully mechanically. The 1978 racing game Digital Derby was Adam's personal favorite, and he finally finds a working model to investigate how this game actually works. With the help of Lumafield CT scans, we can now see the brilliant engineering behind these handhelds.

Shot by Joey Fameli and edited by Norman Chan
Additional media courtesy Lumafield
Music by Jinglepunks

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Intro bumper by Abe Dieckman

Thanks for watching!

[ericbarnett]

My uncle was an engineer at TOMY and Kenner from the late 60's through the 80's, which meant that I got all of these games in Beta as they were working out the kinks. I was 10 years old and was telling adult engineers what was good, and bad, about these games. Digital Derby was, by far, my favorite game of the era and I probably went through three or four thanks to my uncle. I was also lucky to own just about every Evel Knievel toy that was released by Kenner in that decade. Sadly, none of them survived into adolescence.

[GetOffMyyLawn]

I had this game as a kid, and I totally had forgotten about it until this video. Thanks for the revived memories!

[vinnyrakoczy]

Adam I had that game as a kid. (58yrs old). Actually still have it to this day. Never seen another one until now. Awesome

[CharlesOttman]

There was also Blip! which was a mechanical version of Pong. It did have a battery which was only there to light up the LED for the ball. A wind up mechanism provided all the motion.

[Steelythestacker]

Dude!!! I asked for that for Christmas too!! And got it I believe in 1979. I was 5. I broke mine as well and took it apart. I saw that on the thumbnail and it brought the biggest smile to my face!! Thank you so much for bringing back this seemingly ancient memory. You rock dude. Edit: this reminded me of another game I had called Merlin. It was a red plastic digital toy that almost resembled a phone. Any chance of getting a hole of one of those to check out? I don't imagine it would be serviceable like this toy but still would be cool to cover!

[cramm]

No way! I bought one of these at a garage sale last summer and I was absolutely blown away by it, one of my favorite things I got last year

[zmarko]

I loved this game as a kid. I'm a total car person, even as a young child. I had 100s of matchbox/hot wheel cars, and I can still feel "the action" of switching the gears on this and the red button feels like. I wonder how many hours I spent playing this as a kid. Thanks for the walk down memory lane. ❤

[KSMvidcast]

I still have one of these, but it's non-functional. Thank you for this video, it will certainly help in my effort to repair it. What a marvelous piece of engineering!

[TCC]

the old Radioshack Super Armatron is another great mechanical toy. I never actually had any of the little blocks and things that you're supposed to manipulate that came with it, but I had a lot of fun just making it move around.

[beecherphilpot]

That guys voice and confidence was memorizing. He played along while letting Adam discover the bits and bobs.

[ligius]

All we had in the mid-late 80s were those water games and ball bearing labyrinth games. We did get a sneak peak from time to time at new devices that were smuggled behind the iron curtain. So from 1985 to 1995 we went through the same technology cycle as the west did from 1970 to 1990, which means everything became instantly obsolete :)

[aaronl_trains_and_planes]

I use to play that! I forgot all about it. Love it!

[dc_animal]

Digital Derby! Owned it. Loved it. Thanks for bringing back the memories Adam!

[HippoOnABicycle]

It's fascinating how fast technology was advancing at this time. The arcade version of Pong came out in 1972, and in 1975 the home version came out. In 1982, Just 4 years after this game was released, The Commodore 64 came out. And in 1983 the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was released.

[alaskanwanderlorian]

This content is absolutely fantastic. The anthropologic joy I get from Adam exploring objects and their place in humanity is immense. I hope more of this type of stuff comes out!!

[Torrle]

Oh wow, Digital Derby! I had one of those as a kid! Really cool to see the mechanics behind how it worked!

[Codex_of_Wisdom]

Everything about this is amazing: the mechanical engineering behind these old games to the digital engineering of the scanners used to look inside them.

[DiogeneDeSinpe]

Thanks for the memories, this and Tomy's Big loader construction set were among my favorites.

[johnderoy]

The font on the Digital Derby box is soooo period as well. From the movies to the toys etc - it is soooo spot on.

[ISpinUWin]

I still have mine! Played it last year but now I gotta get it out again!!!