Bridge Challenger - Fidelity Electronics Game

The Bridge Challenger is an electronic game manufactured by Fidelity Electronics in the 80s. It was an extremely high quality game packaged in an attaché case for the serious player. The electronic circuit design of this game uses the Zilog Z80 CPU, which was also in some of the early home computers such as the ZX81. For today’s standards a Z80 is still a good processor and used on a wide range of embedded systems. With this game, you can expect a high quality fluorescent display, which is very bright and clear. There is also an RFID scanner to scan the tags on the cards to read them so you will not have to enter the card values manually. This game also has a voice synthesizer and can speak out the card names.

This game usually comes with a transport briefcase, adapter, and cards; however, I did not get any of that. The first task was to figure out the power supply it required. This became apparent when I opened it up to have a look at its circuitry.

This just shows the keypad.

This is the other keypad.

This is a nice and clean 1980s design.

At first, the case appears to be plastic; however, it is wood and sprayed black. You can also see the inside PCB, microprocessor, and build quality in the following sections of this article.

Cost/eBay

This is a wonderful bit of electronic engineering that would be hard to find these days. I particularly love the bright display which is easy to read compared to modern LCD. A complete unit in mint condition could fetch a packet on a good auction day, providing there are plenty of bridge players online looking for one.

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