Casio MG-888

Casio continued their run of popular game calculators into 1982 with this, the MG-888 (and, in keeping with their tradition of producing a smaller version with lighter keys, the MG-333).

Like the MG-777 before it, the MG-888 had three games — Breakthrough, Progression and Elimination (although the Japanese translations named them as Interval Attack, Shift Puzzle, and Lucky Dice respectively).

Breakthrough involves running digits across the screen, left-to-right, into the blue target box on the left. This is done by dodging or breaking through the ring of guards that circle in front of the target box.

Progression involves the player trying to line up the randomly positioned numbers in sequence from 1-9, shifting them horizontally using the middle row, and rotating vertically via each column.

The third game, Elimination, involves the layer eliminating the numbers 1-9 from the display by rolling dice, taking of the total each roll.

They sound kind of sterile when written like that, but they are genuinely fun games for their time (Breakthrough and Elimination, anyway — I can never get the hang of shifting puzzle games).

A bonus of this particular calculator is that it was once owned by the multi-talented British cartoonist J(ack). Edward Oliver whose work I came to know and love in the early 1980s when he wrote/drew the character Master Mind for Buster comic.

He was obviously quite competitive, at least with himself, as a handwritten sheet of his scores was left tucked in the sleeve of the plastic case of this calculator.