4-Bit Video Games: Tron, Scramble, Lupin, and Caveman by Tomy

Tomy made a lot of great handheld electronic games in the 1970s and 1980s, but my all-time favourite is Tomytronic Tron, based on the 1982 Disney movie. Over the years I picked up Scramble (Tomy) and Caveman (Tandy, by Tomy) and eventually noticed they have exactly the same form factor. With a bit of research I found out Scramble also goes by Alien Attack, Astro Blaster, and Rambler (exactly the same gameplay) but there's one more unique game in this unofficial series: Lupin, which has an interesting story as well, somewhat connected with the Cliffhanger laserdisc game. Finally, I have all four games, so here's a video showing them all in action, and I even have a shot at explaining how they work: they use the earliest SoCs ("system on a chip") available, which are 4-bit CPUs with integrated I/O, ROM, and a little bit of RAM, which were originally designed for use in electronic calculators. So these are essentially 4-bit video games.

To support 8-Bit Show And Tell:

Index:
0:00 Four Tomy games with the same form factor
3:40 Why would people buy these?
5:04 Tron
6:45 Tron Gameplay
12:08 4-Bit Brains: Inside The Games
15:35 Caveman
16:35 Caveman Gameplay
22:11 Scramble
23:10 Scramble Gameplay
29:48 Lupin (including history)
32:51 Lupin Gameplay
37:34 Summary: Visceral
38:14 Thanks!

[MattMcIrvin]

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.

[Sol-Cutta]

I doubt modern viewers will understand just how special and magical these games felt.

[kamp_ve_enduro]

When i was child i have Lupin. Tank you. i went back to my childhood.

[Inadvisablescience]

I had the Tron game years back. I got so good at it, I flipped the score. Good memories. Thank you for sharing!

[DrakeNS]

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!

[shinjosho]

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.

[DaneArcher]

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.

[rugan]

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.

[HappyCodingZX]

I had that Tron game, it's clever how they put different modes into it.

[stevethepocket]

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.

[eldontyrellcorp]

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)

[modsleix]

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...

[MeanGeneHacks]

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.

[melody]

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.

[donkmeister]

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.

[codahighland]

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.

[ThPrdigalSn]

Those games are truly amazing pieces of tech.
I grew up with tiger black and white garbage...
Thank you for your demonstration.

[TheHighlander]

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.

[BastichBK]

I had a friend who had the Tron version in the 80's ... He was very popular 😄 and we all wanted it

[tarstarkusz]

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.