pongmuseum.com - and the ball was square... TOMY

TOMY - Blip aka Blip-o-Mat
Sold by: TOMY, worldwide
Produced by: TOMY (KU), Made in Japan, 1977
Mechanical, wind-up timer mechanism, LED

Specifications

ON/OFF power switch
Scoreboard, Timer wind-up timer mechanism
SERVE buttons (manual)
2 - AA batteries

Game

Tennis (mechanical)

English

“The Digital Game.” Uh-huh, yeah, right. A mechanical Pong-type game that was invented by Hikoo Usami (Tokyo). All of the game play is mechanical, powered by a wind-up timer mechanism. The batteries are only there to light up the single red LED light that represents the ball. You can actually play the game with no batteries in a bright enough setting.

It's hard to believe that a game like Blip could captivate a generation, but it was high on many Christmas lists in 1977. The game was a simple electromechanical version of Atari Pong: an LED bounced back and forth across the court, powered by a windup timer. There is something incredibly ironic about a unit marketed as "The Digital Game" which makes a mechanical "bZzzz... Bzzz... bzzz..." noise as you play.

The game is very simple, reset the score, and serve. The opponent need to guess where the ball is going to land, and need to press the correct button (1, 2 or 3) just before the ball arrived. The game play is really fun when playing with another player, against the computer is almost impossible to win , but it provide great training.

TOMY sold many of these little portables, no doubt riding on the success of Atari's much more expensive electronic. Perhaps the real secret of Blip's success was hidden in the tag line on the box: "Take it anywhere. No TV set is needed." Parents probably envisioned a portable game as a great way to keep kids from taking over the living room TV set.

TOMY´s Japanese version was called World Tennis ,French version was released by Meccatronic. It was also sold by PaliToy. All where produced in Japan.

Deutsch

Text folgt...

Gallery

Photos, even modified, cannot be used elsewhere without permission by pongmuseum.com

Museums Collection

Our collection includes: Blip Tabletop, we are looking for the original box and manual

The tabletop is tested, the controllers work reliable.

Any informations, inputs, contributions, descriptions or anything related to this "Pong console" will be greatly appreciated! Please contact us.

PONG Console Priceguide