Collectible of the Week: Quiz Wiz (Coleco; 1979)

In 1979, Coleco introduced a toy called “The Quiz Wiz,” a small rectangular “computer” designed to test the limits of your knowledge. 

This small beige electronic game came replete with a numerical keyboard, and green and red indicator lights for noting correct and incorrect answers.  The portable Quiz Wiz could also “lock” into various booklets -- colored red and blue -- which posed questions on many different topics.

The Quiz Wiz came packaged with the booklet “1001 Questions,” but Coleco also released other booklets for the Quiz Wiz by the boatload including Movies and TV, The World of Sports, People and Places, Trivia, Music and Books, The Ocean, Energy, The Book of Lists, Super Heroes, The Bible, Ripley’s Believe it or Not and a supernatural themed book, Monsters, Vampires, Witches and Ghosts.

I remember getting the Quiz Wiz for Christmas in 1979 or 1980, and absolutely loving the toy.  Of course, I primarily loved it as a component I could use in my mock-up of a space ship control room, but that's likely beside the point.  I also remember at the time marveling how compact the keyboard was, and thinking it was amazing that a computer could be so small and yet still do so much.

Times have changed...