Merlin the Electronic Wizard (Parker Bros.)
Introduced by Parker Bros. back in 1978, Merlin looked and felt like a portable phone, keypad and all, molded in red plastic. Each key on the keypad had an LED. The keys and those lights were essentially the gameplay interface.
It had six (6) games, very impressive at a time when portable electronic handheld game machines with simple LED displays and single games were all still in the “gee whiz” category. Apparently, many others were impressed as well, to the tune of 5,000,000 units sold in its first year reportedly. The six games were:
- Tic Tac Toe
- Music Machine
- Echo (like Simon)
- Blackjack 13
- Magic Square
- Mindbender (like Mastermind)
The Music Machine was of particular interest to me: Each key played a note, and Merlin could record and playback a sequence of notes. I guess that made Merlin one of the earliest commercially-available home synthesizers and sequencers.
NOTE: I wasn’t all that enthused with my Merlin at the beginning. I had saved up my money to buy a Mattel Electronics Basketball or Football game, but my Dad pretty much forced me to get the Merlin since it had “more features.” So seeing the Merlin brings up that memory. Probably would feel better about it had I eventually gotten one of the Mattels, but never did (didn’t grow up in tbe US; that Merlin purchase was during my last summer trip to the States as a kid until my eventual return years later for college).
Although I did manage to put the Merlin to nefarious use, jamming the CB airwaves in my area with Music Machine melodies through my powerful 3-element Yagi home station antenna. Evil? Yeah, but the CB channels were filled with really irritating teenagers doing nothing but flirt at all hours (oh puke!), so no apologies. 
Please, comment below and share your Merlin memories with the rest of us (or give any additional information on the product).
Merlin the Electronic Wizard @ eBay »
Tags: parker bros
