EXCALIBUR 458 User Manual

Trivia Quiz

Excalibur

Electronics

OPERATING MANUAL

www.ExcaliburElectronics.com

Model No. 458

ongratulations on your purchase of The New
York Times and Excalibur Electronics’ Trivia

C

Quiz. It will provide you, your family and
friends with hours of entertainment. You’ll enjoy the
two different modes Trivia Quiz offers. Its single player
mode lets you compete against yourself any time the
mood strikes you, and the multi-players mode allows up
to four people to play a challenging game.

Trivia Quiz is easy to use, but be sure to use it safely.
Before starting, please read this manual thoroughly,
especially noting safety, care and battery information.
Keep this manual handy for easy reference.

Replacing the Batteries

Your Trivia Quiz requires 2 AG13
batteries, which are included and
already installed. If there is a tab
extending from the battery compart­ment, simply pull out this tab, to
activiate the batteries, and throw it
away.

When you need to replace the batter­ies, carefully turn Trivia Quiz over so

that the unit is face-down on a soft
surface. Find the battery compartment
on the back of the unit. Use a small
Phillips screwdriver to remove the
screw. Lift off the battery compart­ment lid. Install the batteries. Return
the battery compartment lid to its
position. Replace the screw and tight­en.

Opening the Unit

Press the Lid Release button (see diagram below) to open the unit. Then pull
up on the lid.

The legendary King Arthur
brandished a magic sword,
Excalibur, from which we
take our company name. With
this unique weapon in his hands,
he could not be vanquished.

Although Excalibur Elec­tronics can’t claim the magi­cal secrets of Merlin, King
Arthur’s court wizard, some­times our patented technolo­gy may make it seem as if we
could. The New York Times
Trivia Quiz is another
unmatched innovation of
Excalibur Electronics.

We make you think.

©2003 The New York Times Company.
The New York Times logo is a registered
trademark of The New York Times Company

Layout of The New York Times Trivia Quiz

DISPLAY

PASS

PLAYERS

ON/OFF

1 PLAYER

A

B

C

D

.

LID RELEASE

E

(on back of unit)

3

RESET

HINT

SCORE

UP

DOWN

ENTER

Functions of Buttons

ON/OFF: Press to turn the unit on and

OFF is pushed when a game is

off. If
underway, a new game will begin
when you turn Trivia Quiz back on.
1 PLAYER: Press to enter the Single
Player game mode.

PLAYERS: Press to enter the Players

game mode if you’d like two to four
people to compete.

PASS: Can be used in the Single

Player game mode to skip over a
question. This function is not avail­able in the Players game mode; the
message NO PASS AVAILABLE!
will be displayed.

HINT: Press to eliminate one of the

incorrect answers.

SCORE: Press to check your game

score. This button is also used to
change the LCD display contrast.

SCORE and UP at the same time

Press
to increase the contrast, and press

SCORE and DOWN at the same time to

decrease the contrast.

A BUTTON: Press to select answer A.
B BUTTON: Press to select answer B.
C BUTTON: Press to select answer C.
D BUTTON: Press to select answer D.
E BUTTON: Press to select answer E.
ENTER: Press to begin a game or to

confirm a choice.

UP: Press to scroll through an options

menu upward or to return to the pre­vious screen. Press

SCORE to increase the LCD contrast.

DOWN: Press to scroll through an

UP together with

options menu downward or to display
the next screen. Press with the

SCORE

button to decrease the LCD contrast.

RESET: Press to reset the game if the

unit locks up or malfunctions.

RESET

is located on the back of the unit.

Playing Trivia Quiz

Getting Started

Press the ON/OFF button to begin a
game. You’ll hear a melody and see
the message

TRIVIA QUIZ

seconds, with
displayed on the first screen and

TRIVIA QUIZ on the second screen.
Then

1 OR MORE PLAYERS? will

appear on the LCD. (Pressing
to turn off Trivia Quiz will cause the
game to play a melody and display
QUIT! before the unit turns off.)

When
displayed on the screen, press the 1

PLAYER button to enter the single-

player game mode, or press the

ERS button to enter the multiple-play-

ers game mode. Press
firm your choice.

1-Player Game Mode

After selecting the 1-Player game
mode, you’ll be asked to choose how
many questions you would like to
answer in the game. If you’d like to
answer eight questions, which is the
default number of questions, simply
press

ENTER. If you’d like instead to

answer a different number of ques-

NEW YORK TIMES

displayed for three

NEW YORK TIMES

ON/OFF

1 OR MORE PLAYERS? is

PLAY-

ENTER to con-

tions, press the UP button to display
either 16, 24 or 40 questions. (The

Down button will allow you to

decrease the number of questions
you’d like to answer.) Press

ENTER

when the number of questions dis­played is the number you’d like to
answer.

You’ll then be asked to choose how
many hints you want to have avail­able in the game. The number of
hints allowed in the game depends on
the number of questions you chose to
answer.

(a) If you selected 8 questions,

you may choose 8, 16 or 24 hints.

(b) If you selected 16 questions,

you may choose 16, 32 or 48
hints.

(c) If you selected 24 questions,

you may choose 24, 48 or 72
hints.

(d) If you selected 40 questions,

you may choose 40, 80 or 120
hints.

Choose the number of hints you
would like in the game by pressing

UP or DOWN to increase or decrease

the number of hints. Then press

ENTER to confirm your choice when

the number of hints you want is dis­played.

Next the message

QUESTION 1 will

be displayed on your screen. Press

ENTER. The topic of the question will

be shown. (This can be a valuable
hint!) Press the

DOWN button to dis-

play the question. First a “

Q:” will

appear on the screen, followed by the
beginning of the question. Pressing
the

DOWN button repeatedly will dis-

play the question screen by screen.
When the question is completed,
CHOICES: will then be displayed,
and pressing DOWN repeatedly will
show the five possible answers, A
through E. If you press

DOWN and

you see no additional answers,
will appear on the screen for one sec­ond. Pressing the

UP button repeated-

ly will allow you to review the
answers and the question. When you
have reached the beginning of the
question again,

TOP! will appear on

the LCD for one second.

CHOICES: is displayed on the

When
LCD, choose either the A, B, C, DOR

button to select your answer. If you

E

choose the right answer, you’ll see
the message CORRECT! and then the
screen will display

REMARK:, fol-

lowed by some interesting informa­tion about the question. To read all of
the remark, press the

DOWN button

repeatedly. When you have reached
the end of the remark,

END! will be

shown for one second. Pressing the

UP button repeatedly will allow you

to review the remark. Press

ENTER

any time to exit the remark. Your
score will then be shown and the next
question will automatically appear.
(The topic will be displayed again.)
Press

ENTER to continue.

54

END!

If you did not select the right answer,
WRONG will be displayed and you

may try again to select the right
response. If you select four wrong
answers, you’ll see

ANSWER IS:

THE CORRECT

appear on screen, and
the right answer will be displayed.
Then the next question will automati­cally appear. Press

ENTER to continue.

You may check your score any time
during the game by pressing the

SCORE button. Pressing it once will

display your score, and pressing it
again immediately will return you to
the previous screen. If you press

SCORE only once, you will be auto-

matically returned to your previous
screen after one second.

When you’ve completed the last
question and answer of a game,

END

will be displayed. Your score will be
displayed on screen, together with the
number of correct answers you
picked out of the total number of
questions in the game. Depending on
your result, one of the following
comments will appear: EXCEL-

LENT!, GREAT!, GOOD! or TRY
AGAIN!

If you want to skip a question during
the game, press the

PASS button. (The

question must be displayed for you to
use this option.) You can use the

PASS

option only twice during a game. The
third time you try to pass a question
during a game, the message

PASS AVAILABLE!

will be dis-

NO

played.
Remember that you also have the

option of getting a hint. You may
press the

HINT button only three times

for any one question. Each time the

HINT button is pressed, the game will

eliminate one incorrect answer, indi­cated by

CHOICES X ELIMINATED

appearing on the LCD. (The X will
be the actual answer deleted out of A
through E.) If you press

HINT four

times while answering a question, or
if you run out of hints, the message
NO HINT AVAILABLE! will be dis­played.

Multiple Players Game Mode

After selecting the Players game
mode, you will be asked to choose
how many players you’d like to have
in the game. If there are two players,
which is the default setting, simply

ENTER. If you would like a dif-

press
ferent number of players, press
display the choice of either three or
four players. (The

DOWN button

allows you to decrease the number of
players in the game.) Press
when the number of players dis­played is the number you would like
to have in the game.

You’ll next be asked to choose how
many questions you would like to
answer in this game. If you’d like to
answer eight questions (the default
number), simply press

ENTER. If you

would like to answer a different num­ber of questions, press the

UP to

ENTER

UP button

to display the option of either 16, 24
or 40 questions. (The

DOWN button

will allow you to decrease the num­ber of questions you would like to
select.) Press

ENTER when the number

of questions displayed is the number
you would like to answer.

You’ll then be asked to choose how
many hints you would like in this
game for the first player. (NOTE:
each player can select a different
number of hints, so “handicapping” is
possible. For example, a parent could
choose 8 hints, while his child may
choose 24.) The number of hints
allowed in the game depends on the
number of questions you chose to
answer.

(a) If you selected 8 questions,

you may choose 8, 16 or 24 hints.

(b) If you selected 16 questions,

you may choose 16, 32 or 48
hints.

(c) If you selected 24 questions,

you may choose 24, 48 or 72
hints.

(d) If you selected 40 questions,

you may choose 40, 80 or 120
hints.

Choose the number of hints you
would like in the game by using the

UP and DOWN buttons as described in

the previous step above. Then press

ENTER to confirm your choice. Repeat

this process for each player to indi­cate how many hints a player is
allowed.

The message

PLAYER 1

your screen. Press

QUESTION 1 and

will next be displayed on

ENTER.

Now the topic of the question will
appear on the LCD. Press

DOWN to

display the question. A “Q:” will
appear on the screen, followed by the
beginning of the question. Pressing

DOWN button repeatedly will dis-

the
play the remainder of the question,
screen by screen.

When you then reach the end of the
question, CHOICES: will be dis-

played. At this point, pressing the

DOWN button repeatedly will show the

five answers, A through E. When you
press the
answers appear, ‘

DOWN button and no more

END!’ will be

shown for one second. Press the
button repeatedly to review the
answers and the question. When you
reach the top of the question, ‘
will be shown for one second.

CHOICES: is on the screen,

When
press either the

A, B, C, D or E button

to select your answer. If you selected
the right answer,

CORRECT! will be

shown and then the screen will dis­play some interesting information
about the question. To read all of the
remark, press the

DOWN button

repeatedly. When you reach the end
of the remark,

END! will appear on

the screen for one second. (Press
repeatedly to review the remark.)

ENTER any time to exit the

Press
remark.

76

UP

TOP!’

UP

Your score will be displayed and the
same question will automatically
appear for the next person. Press

ENTER to continue.

If you did not select the right answer
during your turn,

WRONG will be

displayed and you may try again to
select the right answer. If you select
four wrong answers,

RECT ANSWER IS:

THE COR-

will be dis­played as well as the right answer.
The same question for the next play­er will automatically appear. Press

ENTER to continue.

You may check scores any time dur­ing the game by pressing

SCORE.

Pressing this button once will display
the first score, and pressing it imme­diately again will display the next
player’s score, and so on for the
remaining players. After all the play­ers’ scores have been displayed, the
next time you press

SCORE will return

Trivia Quiz to the previous screen. If
you press

SCORE only once, you will

be automatically returned to your pre­vious screen after one second.

When the final answer of the game
has been completed by the last play-

END will be displayed. The score,

er,
and the number of correct answers
picked out of the number of total
questions in the game, will then be
shown for each player. Depending on
how well each player scored, one of
these comments will appear on the

screen:

EXCELLENT!, GREAT!,

GOOD!

the message

or TRY AGAIN! After this,

PLAYER: X WINS!

will be displayed, with X being
replaced with the number of the win­ning player.

In the Multiple-Players game mode,
no passes are available. If the

PA SS

button is pressed, the message NO

PASS AVAILABLE!

will be dis-

played.
A player can press the

HINT button

only three times for any question.
Each time the button is pressed, the
game will eliminate one incorrect
answer. The screen will show
CHOICES X ELIMINATED, with the
X being the letter of the answer delet­ed out of the choices A through E. If
you press

HINT four times during a

question, or you run out of hints, the
message

NO HINT AVAILABLE!

will be displayed.

Scoring

At the beginning of a game, each
player’s score begins with zero (0).
Each time a question is completed,
the score will be updated. It is possi­ble to have negative scores, as indi­cated below.

If a question is answered correctly on
the first attempt, 10 points is added to
the player’s score. If the question is
not answered correctly the first time,
each additional attempt to answer the
question correctly reduces the play­er’s score by 5 points. Therefore the

player scores 5, 0 or -5 points for the
second, third and fourth correct
guesses.

The player scores -10 points for the
fourth incorrect guess.

Note that using the

HINT or PASS but-

tons will not affect a player’s score.

Sound

Any time during a game, press and
hold the

UP and DOWN buttons togeth-

er if you want to change the sound
setting. Either

SOUND ON or

SOUND OFF will be displayed.

Press either

UP or DOWN to select the

desired choice for sound, and then

ENTER to confirm your choice

press
and return to the previous screen. If
the screen displaying the sound selec­tion is not changed for three seconds,
the unit will automatically choose the
sound level that is currently displayed
and will return to the previous screen.

Additional Comments

At the end of each game, one of the
following comments will be dis­played:

EXCELLENT!, GREAT!,
GOOD!

The computer chooses which com­ment to show based on the following

or TRY AGAIN!

criteria:

EXCELLENT! will be dis-

(a)

played when you achieve a perfect
score.

(b)

GREAT! will be displayed

when your score is equal to or
greater than seven times the
number of questions you
chose to answer in a game, but is
less than a perfect score.

GOOD! will be displayed when

(c)

your score is equal to or greater
than four times the number of
questions you chose to
answer in a game, but is less than

GREAT! score.

a

(d)

TRY AGAIN! will be displayed

when your score is less than a
GOOD! score.

Automatic Power Off

When no buttons are pushed for 2.5
minutes, Trivia Quiz will turn itself
off to preserve the batteries. Simply
press the

ON/OFF button to return to

the game where you left off playing.

Manual Power Off

If you press ON/OFF while a game is
underway, the unit will be turned off.
Pressing
new game.

98

ON/OFF again will begin a

• Avoid moisture and extreme

temperatures.

• For best results, use between

the temperatures of 39ºF and

Battery Information

CAUTION: Batteries should be
removed and replaced by adults only.

• Do not mix old and new batteries.

• Your unit requires 2 AG13 bat-

teries, included.

• Do not mix alkaline, standard

(carbon zinc) or rechargeable
(nickel-cadium) batteries.

• Do not use rechargeable batteries.

• To avoid explosion or leakage,

do not dispose of batteries in a
fire or attempt to recharge standard

Due to continuing improvements,
actual product may differ slightly from
the product described herein.

100ºF (4º C and 38º C).

• Clean using only a slightly
damp cloth.

• Do not use cleaners with
chemical agents.

or alkaline batteries.

• Be sure to insert batteries with
the correct polarities and always
follow the toy and battery manu-

facturer’s instructions.

• Remove batteries and store them in
a cool, dry place when not in use.

• Always remove old and dead bat­teries from the product.
The supply terminals are not to

•
be short-circuited.

Limited 90-Day WarrantySpecial Care & Handling

EXCALIBUR ELECTRONICS,
INC., warrants to the original con­sumer that its products are free from
any electrical or mechanical defects
for a period of 90 DAYS from the
date of purchase. If any such defect
is discovered within the warranty
period, EXCALIBUR ELECTRON­ICS, INC., will repair or replace the
unit free of charge upon receipt of
the unit, shipped postage prepaid
and insured to the factory address
shown at right.

The warranty covers normal con­sumer use and does not cover dam­age that occurs in shipment or failure
that results from alterations, acci­dent, misuse, abuse, neglect, wear
and tear, inadequate maintenance,
commercial use, or unreasonable use
of the unit. Removal of the top
panel voids all warranties. This war­ranty does not cover cost of repairs
made or attempted outside of the
factory.

Any applicable implied warranties,
including warranties of mer­chantability and fitness, are hereby
limited to 90 DAYS from the date of
purchase. Consequential or inciden­tal damages resulting from a breach
of any applicable express or implied
warranties are hereby excluded.
Some states do not allow limitations

on the duration of implied war­ranties and do not allow exclusion of
incidental or consequential damages,
so the above limitations and exclu­sions in these instances may not
apply.
The only authorized service center
in the United States is:

Excalibur Electronics, Inc.

13755 SW 119th Ave

Miami, Florida 33186 U.S.A.

Phone: [phone]

Fax: [phone]

www.ExcaliburElectronics.com

Ship the unit carefully packed,
preferably in the original carton, and
send it prepaid, and adequately
insured. Include a letter, detailing
the complaint and including your
daytime telephone number, inside
the shipping carton.

If your warranty has expired and you
want an estimated fee for service,
write to the above address, specify­ing the model and the problem.

PLEASE DO NOT SEND

YOUR UNIT WITHOUT

RECEIVING AN

ESTIMATE FOR SERVICING.

WE CANNOT STORE

YOUR UNIT!

10 11

Excalibur Electronics, Inc.

13755 SW 119th Ave

Miami, Florida 33186 U.S.A.

Phone: [phone]

Fax: [phone]

Play games live at:

www.ExcaliburElectronics.com

We make you think.