Hand-held electronics are marvels of miniaturization. The ones that existed before I was born, even more so. Anyone who played Blip might be interested to know two things. First, despite being titled “The Digital Game”, it was in fact 100% mechanically driven. Second, the game was, as you may have claimed many times, actually impossible to beat.
The good folks over at Evil Mad Scientist Labs opened the Blip up to let us take a look at the gears inside. The game itself is played much like Pong. A red LED bounces across the screen, and it is up to you, the valiant player, to stop it. Interestingly, rather than having an LED screen, Blip operated with a single LED on a mechanical arm that would swing back and forth. The three buttons you would use the stop the “ball” would actually physically stop the arm from moving. In fact, the only electronics in this device at all are the circuits for the LED.
When in single player mode, the device effectively holds down all three buttons for the other player at once. Meaning there is no way it will ever miss the ball. How preposterous.
After the jump, you’ll find a much more detailed breakdown, the original TV commercial, the original patent, and a video of the deconstruction.