Mattel Electronics Auto Race
Developers	Mattel Rockwell International
Publisher	Mattel Electronics
Designer	George J. Klose
Programmer	Mark Lesser
Platform	Handheld
Release	1976
Genre	Racing
Mode	Single-player

Mattel Electronics Auto Race was released in 1976 byMattel Electronics as the firsthandheld electronic game to use onlysolid-state electronics; it has no mechanical elements except the controls and on/off switch.^[1][2] Using hardware designed for calculators and powered by anine-volt battery, the cars are represented by redLEDs on a playfield which covers only a small portion of the case. The audio consists of beeps. George J. Klose based the game on 1970s racingarcade video games and designed the hardware, with some hardware features added byMark Lesser who also wrote the 512 bytes of program code.

From a top-down perspective, the player controls a car on a three-lane track and moves between them with a switch. Opponent vehicles move toward the player, in an effect similar tovertical scrolling, and the player must avoid them. A second control shifts gears from 1-4, with the speed increasing for each.

Auto Race was followed by other successful handheld sports games from Mattel, includingFootball andBaseball which were both programmed by Lesser.^[3] TheAuto Race design was tweaked into multiple other handhelds, includingMissile Attack (1976), which becameBattlestar Galactica Space Alert (1978) as a tie-in with theBattlestar Galactica TV series, andSki Slalom (1980).Auto Race was cloned in theSoviet Union asElektronika IER-01.

The player's car is represented by a bright blip (a vertical dash sign) on the bottom of the screen. The player must make it to the top of the screen 4 times (4 laps) to win, but, while making it towards the top, the player must swerve past other cars using the switch at the bottom of the system to toggle among three lanes. If hit by a car, the player's vehicle keeps moving back towards the bottom of the screen until it gets out of the other car's way. The goal is to beat the game with the shortest time possible before the 99 seconds given (as high as the two-digit timer can show) are up. The player's car has four gears and the higher the gear, the faster the other cars come at it.

The manual assigns ratings to completion times:^[4]

George J. Klose, a product development engineer at Mattel, came up with the concept of repurposing standardcalculator hardware to create a handheld electronic game using individual display segments as blips that would move on the display. He designed the gameplay forMattel Auto Race, inspired by auto racing games found invideo arcades in the 1970s. He built a proof of concept with a blip moving on an LED display without using amicroprocessor to get approval from Mattel for further development. He then looked for a manufacturer to provide acircuit board that would fit into a compact package. Klose and his manager Richard Cheng approached the Microelectronics Division ofRockwell International, a leader in designing handheld calculator chips, to supply Mattel with the hardware and provide technical support.

Mark Lesser, a circuit design engineer at Rockwell International, modified the B5000 calculator chip, adding a display driver multiplexing scheme to the hardware and a custom sound driver for a piezo-ceramic speaker, resulting in the B6000 chip used inAuto Race.^[5] Sound is produced by toggling the speaker in embedded timing loops from within the program itself.^[6] Without prior programming experience, Lesser wrote the game inassembly language for the 512 bytes ofROM. He spent eighteen months getting the code to fit.^[5]

Sales ofMattel Auto Race exceeded expectations. Mattel in the 1970s, known mostly forBarbie dolls andHot Wheels, was at first skeptical of products based on electronics, especially at what was considered an expensive retail price at the time:US$24.99 (equivalent to $140 in 2024).^[7] The success ofAuto Race convinced Mattel to proceed with the development ofMattel Football which was often sold out and in short supply,^[8] and this led to the creation of a new Mattel Electronics Division in 1978, which for a time was extremely profitable.

Mattel pioneered the category of handheld electronic video games when it releasedAuto Race in 1976.^[2][9][10] It was the first in a line of sports handhelds includingFootball,Baseball,Basketball,Soccer, andHockey, as well as non-sports games.

Auto Race was reworked intoMissile Attack, also released in 1976.NBC refused to air theMissile Attack commercial because of the dark theme of the game, and Mattel removed it from the market.^[11] It was reintroduced in 1978 based on theBattlestar Galactica TV series asBattlestar Galactica Space Alert.^[12] The player remains at the bottom of the playfield, and a fire button is used to shoot and destroy adversaries. If one reaches the center-bottom space on the playing field, theGalactica is considered destroyed and the game over.^[13] The 1980Flash Gordon handheld is the same game with a different science fiction license, but was not released.^[14][15]

In 1980, a reskinnedAuto Race was released asMattel Ski Slalom outside the US.^[16] The four gears are labeledSLALOM,BRONZE,SILVER, andGOLD.

In 1983, a clone ofAuto Race developed by theMinistry of Electronic Industry of the Soviet Union was released asElektronika IER-01.^[17]

• Gameplay video
• Disassembly and repair video
• Battlestar Galactica Space Alert on the Battlestar Wiki

• 1976 video games
• Handheld electronic games
• Video games developed in the United States
• Racing video games
• Single-player video games

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• Short description is different from Wikidata
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