Many handheld gaming consoles have been released since the 1980s, giving players the option to take their favorite games wherever they go. The market took off in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s due to Nintendo’s Gameboy, Sega’s Game Gear, and Tiger Electronics’ individual title handhelds. The first handheld was Mattel’s Auto Race in 1976, but it was Parker Brothers’ Merlin that first popularized handheld electronic games.

Merlin, also called Merlin the Electronic Wizard, was invented in 1978 by Bob Doyle, who had worked at NASA, his wife Holly, and brother in law Wendle Thomis. Through light-up buttons, the Merlin could play Tic Tac Toe, Blackjack 13, Echo (like Simon), Music Machine (music notes could be recorded and played back), Mindbender (similar to Mastermind), and Magic Square (a pattern game).

The game console is a rectangular shaped device split into three sections with the speaker in the top portion, a set of 11 buttons with red LEDs in the central play area, and the bottom portion has four buttons for game selection and control functions. The Merlin is in a red plastic housing that measures about 9” x 3-1/2” and resembles a touchtone phone.

The Merlin and Milton Bradley’s Simon were featured on the cover of Newsweek for their Christmas issue in ’78, and sales took off. Over five million Merlin handhelds sold during its initial run, becoming Parker Brothers’ most successful product until Frogger debuted four years later.

Next, Parker Brothers released the Master Merlin featuring more games and Split Second with more time-sensitive gameplay on a more advanced display.

They released Merlin: The 10th Quest in 1995, which was redesigned and has nine games instead of six. The games were Castle Keep (a numbers guessing game), Dragon Dance (uses directional buttons to kill dragons), Ghost Walk (uses the buttons to guide a ghost), Magic Square (like Lights Out), Mindcaster (similar to Mastermind), Seek the Grail (like a shell game), Singing Sword (button combos to make a sword disappear), Spell Bender (memory game), and Swords & Shields (like Tic Tac Toe). Once a player beat all nine games, the 10th quest sends players through a dungeon maze to find an escape.

Milton Bradley released a new version of the game in 2004.