Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 84 total)
  • What techno gadgets amazed you as a kid?
  • jon1973
    Free Member

    This is an awesome Friday afternoon thread.

    DezB
    Free Member

    No! Proper 3D gaming

    Woah. *is impressed*

    johndoh
    Free Member

    I *think* my brother still has two of the consoles too – in fact the two games shown there ^^^

    jon1973
    Free Member

    No! Proper 3D gaming

    Is that first screen shot from the ‘Rush hour on the M25’ 3D driving game?

    johndoh
    Free Member
    djglover
    Free Member

    great thread, we, friends or cousins had loads of this old junk in the early 80s!

    coolhandluke
    Free Member

    This amazed me as a kid.

    You can still get this game so I bought it to see how it worked!

    Now I know it has sort of taken the magic bit away. 🙁

    oliverd1981
    Free Member

    I was recently reminscing about “DRAW” on the Acorn – if windows a graphics editor like this instead of of Paint / Drawing things badly in Word who knows where the world would be right now.

    wwaswas
    Full Member

    I grew up before they invented techno-gadgets.

    When Action Man started getting hands like this;

    it was a major leap forward in toy technology.

    ricardo666
    Free Member

    derek_starship
    Free Member

    ricardo – I had that exact electronics kit.The crystal radio worked a treat. I remember scraping pain off my bedroom radiator to get a good ground for the antenna wire!

    I see the 9V PP3 battery isn’t connected in that shot!

    I think I bought it from Tandy??

    molgrips
    Free Member

    globalti, is that a two stroke tractor?

    I was never particularly amazed by gadgets because by the time I got to play with them they had been out for years and were old hat.

    However you reminded me.. my neighbour had a game called Vortex Raider on his C64 which did blow me away. It was 3D – a whole virtual world inside a computer… magic. Needless to say, he never wanted to play it little arsehole that he was. I’m sure it was because I did want to.

    downthemiddle
    Free Member

    bearnecessities
    Full Member

    Seeing that on Pg1, just instantly transported me back to such a happy place!

    Bregante
    Full Member

    and this

    and this

    lemonysam
    Free Member

    maxtorque
    Full Member

    This:

    Our parents got it because they had been told “your kids can program it just like the computers they have at school (BBC micros)

    Needless to say, that never happened, and we spend all our time round our next door neighbours playing ‘Booty’ on their Spectrum:

    😉

    Note for younger reader: Back then, ‘booty’ reffered to the treasure that pirates collected, rather than a prodigious female bottom!

    thomthumb
    Free Member

    my old man bought one of these home from work.

    Digital photography! mental.

    my mums mate (mobile hair dresser) used to turn up with this huge phone.

    lemonysam
    Free Member

    We had one of those floppy disk digital cameras, it could take something like 5 photos per disk. **** useless.

    Also,
    [img]http://www.paulthrussell.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/barcode1.jpg[/img]

    LadyGresley
    Free Member

    I think the only thing that was vaguely a “techno-gadget” when I was young was my Spirograph.

    ji
    Free Member

    ricardo666 – I also had one of those its – spent loads of time building various electronic devices. Not sure I ever learnt anything about electronics though – just followed the instructions.

    As for other gadgets, the Vic20 was the real one for me (predecessor to the Commodore 64). Used to spend ages playing on that, and programming in basic as well.

    As for the calculators – my Dad’s first job after leaving the RAF (early 60s I guess) was trainign engineers to fix desktop calculators… how things have changed!

    Harry_the_Spider
    Full Member

    SCANMAN PLUS!

    I remember getting one of them at work. What a useless ball of shite it was too!

    matther01
    Free Member

    That speak and spell thing or that computer game that was shaped like a futuristic set of binoculars. I think the game had WW1 bi-planes or something…anyone know what its called?

    Edit Doh…somebody already posted a pic of it

    derek_starship
    Free Member

    I loved my Oric-1 home computer as they were called in the early 80s.

    I ordered it as I’d heard of terrible delays affecting Spectrum supplies.
    I ordered the Oric in September 1983 and received it in February 1984.
    So that didn’t go to plan. I loved it though and got into 6502 machine code.
    Programs written in MC were sooooo much quicker than those written in BASIC.
    Even though the 6502 ambled along at 3mHz…

    kevj
    Free Member

    Blackpool, early 1980’s.

    Not just PacMan though, a variety of look down table screened games with controls on the side of the table.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    I loved my Oric-1 home computer as they were called in the early 80s.

    I had one of those, in fact still got one in the loft. Not my original though. It had a 2MHz CPU though not 3

    jag61
    Full Member


    it was a step up from log tables

    crazy-legs
    Full Member

    My grandparents had a Betamax with a cabled remote control and I remember when they upgraded to a video player with a wireless remote control. That was top of the range! Even if the video player did still weigh a quarter of a ton.

    The fact that their TV didn’t have a remote and you had to get up and turn the volume down was clearly wasted on them. 😉

    tinribz
    Free Member

    Toys bloody luxury,

    derek_starship
    Free Member

    Molgrips – I stand corrected. It was a 6502A running crawling at 1mHz.

    Blimey I think our combi boiler has a faster processor!

    RichPenny
    Free Member

    My dad was an engineer so had a few colleagues that built interesting things. One of them had built a life size Tardis in the lounge for his kids! I think I was about 6 at the time so it was genuinely amazing when it made noises and lights flashed etc.

    Also remember my older brother programming games on the BBC B and them being reasonably good!

    Have a distinct memory of early (for me) days on the web. Remember you could go into a website set up like a graphical gig with a blocky avatar, then walk up to people to chat and they would respond in different languages. That was a bit of an eye opener.

    ricardo666
    Free Member

    Derek – it was my birthday present from dad when I was about 10, kept me quiet for hours. And yes it came from Tandy, which I followed it up with a short wave radio the following year.

    onandon
    Free Member

    Not electronic but I used to be amazed and love these things

    butcher
    Full Member

    I remember having 6 channels on the TV. Only 4 of them had anything on, but there was 6 buttons. Which meant it was a fully future proof and super posh TV – in my mind anyway.

    coolhandluke
    Free Member

    I remember having 6 channels on the TV. Only 4 of them had anything on, but there was 6 buttons. Which meant it was a fully future proof and super posh TV – in my mind anyway.

    😯 I remember having 4 buttons on our tele but only 3 worked!

    Cougar
    Full Member

    Bregante > that’s a 3V29, that is… slightly disturbing that I still remember that but would have to think seriously about what I had for tea.

    ThePerfectKiss
    Full Member

    Not strictly gadgets… but

    Wot no Astrowars ?

    Also I’ll sort out a pic of the box for ‘Elite’ Acorn Electron cassette version as i have it in the house somewhere…

    wysiwyg
    Free Member

    stevomcd
    Free Member

    Bregante – we had the same VHS player!

    Nick
    Full Member

    ricardo666 – I’ve still got one of those 75 in 1 electronics kits in my loft!

Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 84 total)

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