Stuff I Got For Christmas 1978 - Electronic Quarterback

Electronic Quarterback was an electronic game manufactured by Coleco starting in 1978. It was also sold by Sears under the name Electronic Touchdown. Electronic Quartback was apparently Coleco's answer to Mattel's Electronic Football which had been released a year earlier. Electronic Quarterback was widely seen as superior to Electronic Football because the former had a both a running and a passing mode.

Some of my buddies had acquired the game in the autumn of 1978 and brought it to school. I tried it briefly only a couple of times. However, it was impossible to climb the learning curve when there were ten other people in line waiting for their turn. By today's standards, the game was extremely simple. By 1970s standards, it was a technological marvel. The game was always in my thoughts in the runup to Christmas 1978 as I hoped and dreamed it would be under the tree. It was unbelievably exciting to realize this dream on Christmas Day. I have vivid memories of playing this game for hours on end. My brother (10 years older than me) was home from University for the Christmas break. He was a big football fan. We would take turns playing the game and trying to break previous records.

My Electronic Quarterback has been sitting in a box in my basement. It has moved with me to every location I have lived since leaving home after university. I may have only looked at the game two or three times since the early 1980s. I pulled it out today and put a 9 volt battery in it. It still works. I can hardly believe that I can still play it! I turned it on and immediately had all the moves and coordination needed to play. Within a minute, I had scored a touchdown. I still knew how to run a passing play. The feel of the buttons and all the sounds were so familiar, most notably the victory song that plays after scoring a touchdown. How is this possible after almost 40 years? Clearly, the skills you acquire as a child are permanently burned into your brain.

Interestingly, the green surface on the front that surrounds all the buttons is made of cardboard and is in excellent condition. You would think cardboard would be bashed up and worn, but it's not. The back of the game has a box with instructions explaining how to play. The letters are worn off in exactly the locations where your fingers sit as you play. There is one wire extending out of the top of my game. As a child, I often took electronic and mechanical things apart to see how they worked. Sometimes I would make modifications. However, this one baffles me. If it was two wires I might think I had been trying to feed the sound to an amplifier. Not sure what I was up to.

Engraved on the back of the game is the once ubiquitous phrase "MADE IN HONG KONG". Oddly, this text is just a bit crooked.

Hope you have enjoyed this blast from the past. Stay tuned for more "Stuff I Got For Christmas".