If there were coin-ops to measure your weight and your grip, it figures that there would eventually be something to gauge your smarts. And in the 60's and 70's, there was that in spades. Quiz games weren't just found in the arcades, either. People who weren't regularly coin-op patrons now had a chance to jump into the game fray, sacrificing quarters to test themselves in places like drug stores, cocktail lounges and restaurants. And to alleviate their guilt, they told themselves that quiz games had to be, they just had to be, a more noble pursuit than that silly pinball.

With several hit machines to its credit, Nutting Industries was the quiz king, but in the late 70's, Atari and Sega jumped into the quiz fray with Quiz Show and Tic Tac Quiz, respectively. With these machines, players selected categories like "movies and television," "sports and games," "people and places," and "general knowledge." There were one and two-player options, so a player could compete against the machine, or a brave challenger.

Once the players plunked down their coins, it was time to answer a handful of multiple-choice questions, and points were awarded for both speed and accuracy. The faster the player answered, the more points our budding genius would receive. Most games contained a few thousand different questions that were fired off at random. For those who preferred targeted trivia to general knowledge, Nutting also developed specialty quiz games like Sports World and Golf IQ.

Though the video game era brought an end to most of these quiz games, the machines are still around, and are especially popular in England. Regardless of where you find them, you can leave your hand-eye coordination at home; just bring your quarters and your brainpower.