Merlin (console)

The game was invented by former NASA employee Bob Doyle, his wife Holly, and brother-in-law Wendl Thomis. Merlin is notable as one of the earliest and most popular handheld games, selling over 5 million units during its initial run, as well as one of the most long-lived, remaining popular throughout the 1980s. A version of the game was re-released in 2004 by the Milton Bradley Company.

Overview

Merlin has the form of a rectangular device about nine and a half inches long and three inches wide. The play area of the game consists of a matrix of 11 buttons; each button contains a red LED. These buttons can either light up or flash. The array is encased in a red plastic housing, bearing a slight resemblance to an overgrown touch-tone telephone. Four game-selection and control buttons are also placed at the bottom of the unit; a speaker takes up the top section. Supporting electronics (including a simple microprocessor) are contained within the shell of the game. Parker Brothers later released Master Merlin with more games, and the rarer Split Second, where all games involve time with a more advanced display, having line segments around the dots. Both of these shared the same general case shape and came out a few years after Merlin.

Merlin's simple array of buttons and lights supported play of six different games, some of which could be played against the computer or against another person. The games that can be selected are:

• Tic tac toe
• Music machine
• Echo, a game similar to Simon
• Blackjack 13
• Magic square, a pattern game similar to Lights Out
• Mindbender, a game similar to Mastermind

The music machine game functions as a musical instrument; in this mode, each key is assigned a musical note, and sequences of notes can be recorded and played back. This makes Merlin one of the earliest digital sequencers as well as an early consumer-level electronic synthesizer.

In 1978, Merlin appeared with Milton Bradley's Simon on the cover of the Christmas issue of Newsweek and the October issue of Boston.

Merlin was Parker Brothers's most successful product in terms of units and revenue until Frogger in 1982. The Toy Manufacturers of America named Merlin the best selling toy and game item (SKU) in America in 1980 with 2.2 million sold.

In its lifetime, it sold more than 5 million units.